Guest Blogger at Bikram101 Blog

Day 79

Hi everyone!
I wrote a post for the Bikram 101 blog, which you can find here. Stop by, look around.  Enjoy.

My life is insane but my daily practice has kept me grounded.  I am so grateful.  I miss you all and I promise, when things aren't crazy, I'll be back to blogging...but probably after this challenge is over.

I'm proud of all of us as we get closer to the finish line!  I'm happy we did this all together.  Namaste!

What the frak?!

Day 3

Well, I had a whole, eloquent post written and by the accidental press of a button on my keyboard, poof!  It's gone.  GONE!  I can't retrieve it and I'm too frakkin' frustrated right now to re-write what took me about 45 minutes to conjure.

Suffice it to say, my original post was about convalescing, not going to yoga for a second day, and feeling left out of the action.  I used the metaphor of a marathon race and how the start gun just fired and all of us, giddy with excitement were moving past the start line, eager to start the challenge, and how suddenly, I tripped.  I had to bend down and tie my shoelaces while the crowd left me behind in it's wake.  I  am happy for the rest of you who have completed three classes and it is such great fun reading your blog updates.  Nevertheless, I can't help but feel frustrated that I can only account for one class while everyone else is on their third or fourth.

Then I recounted about going with The Husband to church today in the bitter cold and how it sapped all my energy.  That's when I knew I wasn't back to my 100% strength.  With my hood up and head down, I held The Husband's arm and allowed him to lead the way without having to look up as we crossed streets and dodged people on the sidewalk.  Then it transitioned to the concept of trust and how it so nicely coincided with today's Feast of the Epiphany in church, where three wise men followed a star to Bethlehem and upon finding the baby Jesus, presented Him with gifts of gold, frankinsence, and myrrh.  Further explanations about the importance of trust and how the wise mean serve as examples of how trusting the process in our lives and in our yoga is good for us.  And there you have it.  My vanished post just haphazardly recreated with such disinterest and dismay.  Arrrrrrrgh!

Signing off now and hoping tomorrow, I am 100% better (and less cranky) to return to work and go back to yoga.  Peace out.

SUPER FAT Tuesday

Are the stars grossly aligned so well that we are celebrating Super and Fat Tuesday on the same day? And of course, there's the Giants and the ticker tape parade in downtown Manhattan this morning. And there's Chinese New Year in two days!!!

I'm completely over-stimulated, I must admit.

I did my civic duty and voted after work. Is this a great great presidential race this year, or what?!! I never thought that I would ever see such fervor in this country to vote especially among young people. I'm used to their complacency, feelings of disenfranchisement, and total lack of interest. I just watched ABC News and thus far, 11 million registered Democrats came out and voted nationwide tonight. And of the tallied votes there is only a 17,000 popular vote difference between Clinton and Obama. It's an exciting nail biter!!!

After I voted, I witnessed a very sweet moment in front of the local public library, which served as a polling place on days like today: an African-American woman was taking a picture of her daughter, who couldn't have been more than 5 years old. As I walked up to them, I realized they had just voted together and the mom was taking a picture of the historic event and her daughter held open a big sign hanging around her neck...kinda like those folks on a NYC corner wearing billboards and distributing flyers for manicures, eyebrow threading, or men's custom suit tailoring. I was thrilled that this little girl was getting taught at an early age about the importance of this civic duty! Touched by this moment, I stopped and offered to take their picture together. Mom agreed and as I was about to take the picture, I had to ask the girl to open up her sign since it got crushed because she was so busy hugging mom. She was so cute as she obediently followed my instructions, revealing a homemade sign with a picture of Obama that said, "Obama for President".

Doesn't this story just make your heart melt??? What a country!

There, I've proclaimed my side.

What are the taboo topics one does not discuss on a first date? Religion, politics, and sex (and ex-es as a corollary to this topic). Well, I would rather not discuss these topics either on my blog. So why declare who I support? Because it's important for me to state who I endorse (Ha, like I'm a somebody with any political power or money!) at this juncture of the race.

Hey wait a minute...I voted. Why didn't I act like a total slovenly glutton in honor of Fat Tuesday?

Pope John Paul II, 1920-2005 - Welcome Home

For anyone who knows me, they know that my faith in God is very important to me, that I have chosen to remain an active participant of the Roman Catholic Church, that I struggle daily with the Church's teachings as made clear by Pope John Paul II, and that I rarely wear my faith on my sleeve. I have never been one to proselytize my faith to others, partly because I believe everyone is entitled to their religious ideas and need not hear what I have to say about mine but more importantly, I believe that the best expression of my faith is through living a life of love, trust, forgiveness, with a call to social justice.

I rarely would use my blog to discuss something that is so personal to me, as is my relationship to God and my relationship to the Catholic Church. But today, on the death of Pope John Paul II, the only Pope that I've ever known in my life, I felt that I could make an exception and put forth what my heart feels today.

Having been raised in a Catholic home whose family is from the Philippines, a predominantly Catholic country where the line between church and state does not exist, I have been exposed to the Church since I was born. It was only during my college years that I turned from the Church, eager to get away from what I experienced as a stifling tradition. Without my mother's influence and gaze, I did not attend Mass on Sundays and shed all sorts of practices that I associated with Catholicism.

But God does indeed work in the most mysterious and the MOST GENTLEST of ways. Even though Sunday was filled with food, friends and good times, I felt like something was missing. I truly can't explain it...except looking back now, all I know is that it was God's Grace at work. So I tried going back to church and attended Mass on campus. I was struck by all the women who attended Mass out of their own accord without being dragged by parents and I witnessed how my peers incorporated their faith into their lives as students, as young women, daughters, and sisters.

Since 1994, I believe my faith has grown incredibly in due part because of my daily struggle with it, in questioning it, and in practicing it. Despite many painful disagreements with my Church, I still believe at the end of the day, that it is through Mass and the practice of the Catholic faith that I maintain my personal relationship with God, with others, and with myself.

I did not necessarily agree with all of Pope John Paul II's conservative ideology but I do believe that he has been a wonderful example of how one can lead a moral life. I have to respect a man who holds fast to his convictions and beliefs and has not once swayed from them in the context of a fast changing and "modern" world. His impact on others through his selfless and loving actions, is a wonderful model for us as Catholics, and ultimately, as human beings. His life example transcended Catholicism yet it epitomized perfectly the teachings of Jesus Christ. He taught us how to live faithfully, how to give our wills up to the will of God, how to accept pain and suffering in life, in illness, and ultimately in death, and how to fight for what we believe to be right -- to speak out and act on behalf of the disenfranchised, the poor, and the forgotten.

For these reasons, I am thankful to God for more the 20+ years of service this Pope provided. I am thankful for his life example. And I am thankful that he now is resting in eternal peace, free from human suffering and pain. The crux of my faith is the belief that death is not the end of life, but merely a transition to something better, something bigger, something so incredible that our own humanity will never have the capacity to fully understand it -- the promise of eternal life. This is what I believe. Although Pope John Paul II leaves behind a great void in me, and perhaps in all of our hearts, I rejoice at his coming home. I will miss his incredible perservance, his fight for justice, his love for humanity, and his example to us all.


Pope John Paul II FORGIVES his would be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca, December 1983