Disclaimer!
This post is … not really a post.
And it’s very much not the sort of thing I would normally put here. It’s a bit messy. A bit complex. A lot more yoga-ey than anything I might say if it were just us.
(Translation: Jon, don’t read this one.)
But it’s here. Because there is usefulness in this.
I’m teaching all week at Jennifer Louden’s Writer’s Retreat. What follows is a (very) loose transcript of what I said at the beginning of our Shiva Nata class yesterday.
Making space.
Creating space is one of the things we do when we are on retreat.
We create the space for the experience itself, by choosing it. And through everything we do to set the container.
We create spaces during the experience of retreat — through rituals, transitions, entry points and exit points.
We create space in our bodies, through moving, stretching, breathing.
We create space in ourselves for wacky, beautiful, transformational things to happen.
We create space in our hearts, to breathe. To come back to ourselves.
We create space when we interact with ourselves.
Every time we acknowledge our pain, engage our monsters in conversation, ask questions about what we want and need … space is created.
Every time we consciously choose to do that with genuine curiosity and compassion, standing in our own power … we make space for wholeness.
Wholeness.
We intentionally create separations. We open up gaps and spaces.
In our breath. Inside of our patterns. Between ourselves and the familiar stories we tell and retell about our experience.
We create these spaces in order to get closer to ourselves. To be in wholeness.
Look at all the beautiful space we create in our writing:
The physical space for writing to happen. The time. The energy container (that’s the force field exercise we’ve been practicing all week).
The emotional space that gets bigger and bigger each time we talk to the parts of ourselves who criticize us out of a desire to keep us safe.
Mental space. Spiritual space. Internal and external space.
And all this space is what allows us to get closer to ourselves.
To get closer to that voice.
To get closer to what we have to say.
Space and spaciousness.
It is space and spaciousness that bring us to closeness and intimacy.
It is separations that — paradoxically, maybe — bring us to wholeness.
Separations are arbitrary constructs, yes. They serve a purpose though. Because each time we consciously step back to interact with part of ourselves (say, when we talk to walls), we become more intimate with our internal landscape.
We become more whole.
Separation and coming together.
In the Jewish tradition, this idea of separation is a hugely important concept.
On the surface, this seems … a bit odd, since, like with most religious and spiritual traditions, you’d expect the focus to be where it usually is: wholeness and unity and connection.
But the idea (or one of the ideas) is more like this:
When we mark out these spaces in life, we bring elements of ritual and specialness and holiness into each thing being separated.
We separate so that we can see the beauty of that particular space, and that is what brings us deeper into wholeness.
Spaces and the Dance of Shiva.
In our retreat, we create spaces.
Spaces and spaciousness that allow us to get closer to our writing, closer to our voice, and closer to ourselves.
And we use Shiva Nata in order to intentionally create spaces in our patterns, openings and passages, spaciousness in our consciousness.
We open up these gaps in our patterns because it gives us the power to move the pieces around. To deconstruct and rebuild.
To find the spaces that are waiting for us, and to bring in more of ourselves.
But we don’t actually create these spaces.
We just find them.
Because they’re already there.
We contain all of this space already.
The passages are there. And then we use Shiva Nata — body poetry, liquid math — to take apart the patterns. Taking apart. Rebuilding. Deconstructing. Reconstructing.
Making space for these spaces to reveal themselves.
That’s it.
I mean, that’s not even slightly it.
And anyway, there is always more. Because then we danced to the Sexy Robot song. And we used words and numbers and patterns to do astonishing things.
And it was freaking transcendent.
And then we wrote and had epiphanies and I went out and ate green chile stew, and all in all it was one crazy, beautiful day.
So we are not done. Never done. Just experimenting.
And comment zen for today.
Being this … sincere … is hard on me. It’s especially hard for Pirate Me. Let’s tread gently.
You can offer me a hot mulled beverage. That would be nice.
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Beautiful Havi. Thank you. Now could we just shift some space a little so Australia is not quite such a long flight away 😉
xo
thank you! space, separation, ritual … talking to walls about sums up my week. Transcendence, body poetry, rebuilding, deconstructing, reconstructing … sounds like my kind of crazy.
.-= Mia´s last post … Hello world! =-.
This is wonderful.
I especially love the poetic line about Shivanata – “body poetry, liquid math — to take apart the patterns.”
I don’t have any hot & mulled drinks, but I have rum? -offers-
Thanks for sharing this. The whole post seemed really resonant/poetic to me 🙂 I think I heard it- not just with my ears.
.-= Rose´s last post … Monsters at the Launch Party =-.
beautiful. and the gentle way that space exists–already exists–was, as @rose says, heard with my body, not just read with my eyes.
!
I just hopped on a tram after teaching a yoga class & opened your blog to read on the way home.
I’ve just spent the last hour and a half talking about…making space!
Either Truth is universal, or I’m channeling Sincere Havi.
Awesomeness!
ok- first time I cried after a post. Let us make space time for that. Thank you Havi. That is all. Thank you.
I like the idea of finding space that’s already there. Here, sweetie, have a virtual hot cider.
.-= Riin´s last post … Art Fair is almost here =-.
Thanks for sharing – it’s nice to get a bit of the Retreat, even though I’m not physically there. I appreciate that you always make me think and gently urge me to s t r e t c h my mind.
.-= Dawn´s last post … Taking the Learning Out of the Classroom =-.
Mulled wine all around. Absolutely.
Okay, I love it when you get all yoga-ey. The spaciousness in this post is utterly amazing. Loads to glean, practice, contemplate, hold in awarenss….thanks for this.
.-= Julie Stuart´s last post … How to shine- in all your complicatedness =-.
This was super cool. *Hands over a hot mulled beverage and says, “arrrrr.”*
It is very much in tune with stuff I have been writing about recently in my journal and so this resonates – a lot.
Thank you. :o)
o so beautiful Havi.
this idea of space and intimacy is exactly what I’ve been working with in my Shiva practise and in my life in general all summer.
Many hugs and toasty beverages to you and Selma.
xoxox
Jess
It’s beautiful and you’re brave. Brava!
Here, have a hot mulled beverage.
Hello ~ I am grateful that your blog found me for the first time last week … and I was immediately hooked …. as is my pattern, now that I’ve ordered the Shiva Nata Kit, I begin to doubt that I’ll be able to do it … be able to move my body …. be able to look as graceful and beautiful as you do in the sample video …. ahhhhhh I know …. tap tap tap “even tho I have these feelings ……” I am a work in progress …. thank you for your blogs, I so look forward to them, as they remind me of my true purpose and to continue to put myself out there, scary as it might be 🙂
Love ~ Karin
*offers you a hot mulled beverage*
*and a smile*
*and a ton of love*
Thank you.
Havi, I love this post! Thanks for sharing your yoga heart here.
The relationship between boundless space and contained space is the essence of the relationship between our individual selves and the wholeness of which we are fractals.
Boundlessness expresses itself in an infinite number of forms. Each one utterly unique, utterly itself–and woven together into the basket of the Great Whole.
Yay for relationship between sunbeam and sun, leaf-bud and tree, mountain, valley, river and sky.
Wishing you the embrace of wholeness in all its splendiferous parts.
Love, Hiro
.-= Hiro Boga´s last post … Going Away =-.
Thank you so much for sharing this, Havi! It’s lovely to have a taste of what you shared before the Shiva Nata practice at the retreat, especially since I can easily picture the whole scene and I wish I was there.
Thank you also for putting words on things I’ve been vaguely thinking about these past few days, and for doing so in such a beautiful way.
{love}
I think of cup of mulled wine would be appropriate – perhaps in one of those strange fruit flavours you find it little old pubs.
Thank you for sharing this – comfort, hope, inspiration yayness. Goodness, and I haven’t even started on the wine yet.
*offers a hot mulled beverage*
Thank you, Havi. I am slightly teary so I know I heard this on the inside.
.-= Elizabeth´s last post … inspired by graffiti =-.
“Being this … sincere … is hard on me. It’s especially hard for Pirate Me. Let’s tread gently.”
This statement is fascinating to me. I do not mean to be at all stomp-y, but is this a difference you perceive between you in real life and your web persona? Or between you as a teacher in person and your online Fluent-selfitude? Or perhaps it’s not a difference at all but rather a feeling of exposure when sharing ideas without interspersed quips?
Hmm. It’s your use of “sincere” that has me curious. Pirates have oaths and codes they follow too. Forthrightness is perhaps not one of them, but you typically strike me as sincere in your posts. Armor-free perhaps?
*slides over a tasty hot mulled beverage for you*
.-= claire´s last post … Fungi photos =-.
Oh Havi! The Sexy Robot dance song is just, quite simply, the best.
Have a hot cider on me! : )
I love it when you go all yoga-y. 🙂
Big hug with space all around.
Mahala
you know, it’s funny. This doesn’t strike me as particularly yoga teachery, just true.
Thanks so much for sharing it!
Andy
.-= Andy Dolph´s last post … Under the Sky in an Inflatable Planetarium =-.
*offers a peg leg and an eye patch*
😉
The bit about separateness creating more space for wholeness is very intriguing to me. I hadn’t ever thought of things in quite this way, but I can see that more distinctions, containers and boundaries would be very useful.
Thanks as always for such juicy food for thought!
.-= Liz´s last post … Summertime and the Livin’ Ain’t Easy part 2 =-.
Havi, this is so lovely.
I will be contemplating the ideas around *really* seeing and appreciating the elements of my practice through separation this week. Making space for each action to be noticed and experienced fully. Wow…
Thank you Pirate Havi for letting Yoga Havi share this sincerity with us.
Good on you Yoga Havi for letting Pirate Havi have the space for a disclaimer.
(See Pirate Havi, she loves you! And so do we but we also love Yoga Havi too so everything will be okay if you ever need to take a nap.
Kxxxx
Hi Brooks,
Despite your kind warning I read the first paragraph anyway. It reminded me of the how the word “space” was defined in architecture school. It was similar to the way you describe it above. I could never wrap my head around it. I’m just too . . . Cartesian. I can’t conceptualize space beyond X, Y, and Z coordinates. Folks say I’m missing something, and they’re probably right. But there’s a lovely sense of clarity that comes from seeing the world as objects in space and time ruled by the laws of physics and not much else.
From time to time I like to do the following. . . I guess you could call it a meditation. I think about what it takes to catch a ball moving through the air. Think of all of the calculations that you have to do subconsciously at incredible speed. Velocity, acceleration, gravity, air resistance, atmospheric distortion, tricks of perspective and depth, the complex geometry of objects coming towards you rather than across your field of vision. It’s unfathomably complex and yet so easy. It’s just objects in space and time, but it brings me a lot of joy.
Oh, thank you for this, Havi. I’ve been having such a hard time making space for my doctoral work, but I’m not sure it had really occurred to me before now that if I practice making space for myself in multiple times and places, the rest of it may become that much easier. I don’t have to wait any longer. Right here, right now, I am creating space for me.
Right…here…and…right…now.
.-= Kathleen Avins´s last post … The trouble with “middle vision” =-.
*offers you mulled cider*
thnx for sharing this – wonderful wisdom, beautifully said
.-= Birdy Diamond´s last post … Frolicking Friday – Frolicking toward Launch =-.