Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes

     I've been blogging for six years now and have nine followers; only two of whom actually follow me.  A good blogger would have hundreds by now, increasing each day, like Julie in Julie and Julia. You remember, Julia Child's story of her start in the cooking profession intertwined with blogger Julie Powell's 2002 challenge to cook all the recipes in Child's first book.

     Since I have no new followers and most of the ones I have don't follow and I still keep blogging, I have concluded that I evidently like to talk to myself.

     It's therapeutic, you know.

     So here's a chronicle on the body's ability to heal itself. As I've mentioned before, when you finally get old and wise and have learned from your experiences, no one wants to listen to you because you're old, forgetful, and useless.

     I remember complaining about one knee early on in aerobics at the old Deseret Gym in Ogden close to 30 years ago.  "When are you going to do something about your knee?" Joyce would ask. Then the other one went bogus so now I don't know which one started acting up first. As my flexibility became more and more limited and the pain kept me awake at night, I started thinking of solutions. Yip. Bone on bone. You need knee replacement. Yeah, after I've tried everything else. 

     The first thing I did was get injections in the knee. "Totally covered on Medicare." Sure. We went to American Fork something like nine times and it wasn't totally covered on Medicare and they billed us for we don't know what. All you can do is pay. And I saw not one iota of change. Of course, you have to do it every six months or something. Sure. Keep doing something that doesn't work.

     My next quest was for laser treatment. "Never have surgery." $7,000. Best laser west of the Mississippi. We got thinking about that overnight and decided we wanted out. No way. We signed. Eventually, we got out for $800. He has since been investigated for frauding older clients; making false promises. We found another chiropractor who did more for $900. Most of the treatment was nice and pleasant except when he tried to adjust my knees; but truthfully, I could detect no improvement.

     I started thinking more and more about knee replacement. In fact, the pain was so intense and my movement so limited that I pretty much thought about it all the time. I gave up walking. Going up and down stairs was a killer. I kept swimming and biking.

     Then at DeRay's sibling retreat in Vegas three years ago, his brother Ron talked me into taking Joint Pills, vitamins and other supplements that are designed to help the body restore itself. Ron says it has the capability. 

     After two years, I didn't think about having knee replacement anymore. I still had some pain and restrictions but it's livable. I used a heating pad to help me sleep at night and just sort of learned what I could and couldn't do. I still don't like to walk but when Amy talks me into driving to the hollow and walking about a mile by the stream in the trees, I'm always glad I did it.

     Ron says our bodies are like roads; there always needs to be construction going on somewhere so I try not to get discouraged. I now believe the body has amazing restorative capabilities.

     When we went to the gym in Ogden, Ed and I always did the weight machines but since we have been going to Clearfield, we haven't started. One day when Amy went with us, she talked us into trying it out. "Even if you only do it for ten minutes, it will help you." Oh my goodness, at first my knees and shoulders hurt more but as we continued with the machines three days a week, eventually I realized that I have less pain at night; and sometimes I have no pain at all.  The machines that had been there all along, added the finishing touches to my knee saga. I still walk up the stairs like an old lady, but then I am an old lady. Eighty in less than a month.

     It's probably a combination of the supplements, the strengthening machines, my daily stretches and trike rides; and swimming three times a week. I'm feeling pretty positive about the healing powers of my own body.

     With gratitude.

     Good night, Jeanette.    

Adventure Yoga at Snowbird by Kristin

It’s called Adventure Yoga

Because it’s not in the studio.

They go outdoors

Or out by the pool

We decided to stay in the room

And not be adventuresome.

Today

I was the only one

In yoga class.

I thought she would cancel

Or cut it short

But

She spent the entire hour

With me

Teaching me 3-part breathing—

A meditation—

Sharing restorative poses

Touching stress places

Massaging my neck

With oils and scents.

I felt pampered and loved

Age held no barrier

I felt worthwhile.

Gratitude

is a big part

of all the blessings.

When it was over

And I thanked her

For the wonderful feelings

She said she gained

Strength and energy from me too.

The difference

Between the Practice of Yoga

And the religions of the world,

I contemplated,

Is that in yoga

We honor each other.

The divine light in me

Honors the divine light in you

Or

The teacher in me

Honors and respects

The teacher in you.

Namaste’ is the recognition that

We are all equal and

Share a common divinity.

While in organized religion,

We honor the brethren

With no regard for

Our own worth or wisdom.

Today I had a spiritual experience.

A validating one.

I can’t think of when

I have had a spiritual experience

In the presence of a bishop
or when I've felt love.

It’s always

Ego and power based.

Something is haywire.

Probably me.

Approaching Eighty

I remember years ago our yoga instructor saying that she knew a woman in her 70’s who still practiced yoga every day. We all gasped. We could not fathom such a thing. Here am I, in my 80^th year, and still doing yoga every day--my own reduced practice, to be sure, and mainly stretches, wiggles, and twists; lots of isometric. One day a week, I do a guided audio 20-minute yoga session but I pick gentle ones. None of the hard core stuff; no head or shoulder stands (I already paid a chiropractor enough for that), no plow, crane, or frog; no Hot Power Fusion, Power Vinyasa, or Advanced Forrest yoga. I don’t think I could last out an hour class and certainly not 1½ hours like they do at Snowbird. But hey, I’m approaching 80 (as Eddy so often reminds me) and still doing Yoga!

Tree pose

Mountain

Warrior 2

 Extended Right Angle

Reverse Warrior

Warrior 1

A very poor Warrior 3 or Brave Warrior

Down Dog

Going into half-pigeon

Plank

Figure 4 - Hip opener.

We store a lot of stress and tension in our hips.

An anti-aging pose.

This is the one I do for my back - sway back and forth -

that my knees hate.

Each day I do 4 short kriyas for the brain.
This one clears away all the smut and crud in the air.
(I don't know how to rotate it.)

Cat and Cow are anti-aging poses.

These four short kriyas on the videos are designed to
wash the brain, balancing both the right and left hemispheres;
open up the blockage so the oxygen and blood can flow,
bringing mental clarity and blood to the brain.
They are designed to energize us, make us more alert, 
and our eyes brighter.
I think they might work.
I took the Facebook test where they
guess how much education you have.
Conclusion: A Doctorate Degree!

This is when I focus on the bird in the tree top across the street.

Child's pose

Corpse pose - my favorite. The only one I can do.

When I asked K’Leena to take the pictures, I told her I only had one requirement: To make me look NOT FAT.

I should have asked her to make to look NOT OLD too; but she would have failed at that as she did in not making me look fat.

The Wall Street Journal had an article stating that yoga injures far more than it helps. A noted teacher told the journalist:  “the vast majority of people should give up yoga altogether. It’s simply too likely to cause harm.”

“Not just students but celebrated teachers too,” Black said, “injure themselves in droves because most have underlying physical weaknesses or problems that make serious injury all but inevitable.” Instead of doing yoga, “they need to be doing a specific range of motions for articulation, for organ condition,” he said, to strengthen weak parts of the body. “Yoga is for people in good physical condition. Or it can be used therapeutically. It’s controversial to say, but it really shouldn’t be used for a general class.”

According to Black, a number of factors have converged to heighten the risk of practicing yoga. The biggest is the demographic shift in those who study it. Indian practitioners of yoga typically squatted and sat cross-legged in daily life, and yoga poses, or asanas, were an outgrowth of these postures. Now urbanites who sit in chairs all day walk into a studio a couple of times a week and strain to twist themselves into ever-more-difficult postures despite their lack of flexibility and other physical problems. Many come to yoga as a gentle alternative to vigorous sports or for rehabilitation for injuries. But yoga’s exploding popularity — the number of Americans doing yoga has risen from about 4 million in 2001 to what some estimate to be as many as 20 million in 2011 — means that there is now an abundance of studios where many teachers lack the deeper training necessary to recognize when students are headed toward injury. “Today many schools of yoga are just about pushing people,” Black said.

So all my efforts are for naught. However, I don't think I'm in much danger of injury. . .

Thanks K'Leena, you did as well as humanly possible.
DeRay added a couple of pictures.

Spawndona

There is a pulse inside us that is also outside.

It’s all around us.

It’s in nature.

As well as in the cosmic arena of the universe -

The sun, the moon, the stars.

Being electrical beings,

our bodies run on our own very specific electricity grid;

more commonly known as our magnetic resonance or frequency.

Every single living organism on earth lives by this certain frequency.

This pulse.

I like that we are connected to all living things

as well as the entire universe.

I’m grateful to be alive;

dwelling in this vast systematized organization.

God’s creation.

One morning, with eyes closed, I saw

brilliant spheres of multi-colored twinkling lights

fill the entire scope of my vision.

Startling. Astonishing. Amazing.

Lasting only a few seconds.

I remember when we knelt and prayed

around the breakfast table as children,

with my eyes tightly closed,

I could see colored shapes;

And often when I lie in savasana,

I see colors like red gruel

moving and swirling

but I have never in my life

seen anything as glorious as this.

Was it the universe?

Was it heaven?

It was magical.

A glimpse into the magnificent.

Wondrous beyond description.

And I haven’t seen a color or shape since.

Like it was my one and only chance to connect

to                          ?

My Own Practice

The headlines in an insert in the newspaper one recent morning read:

EXCLUSIVE:  Parents Overpower Peer Pressure

As I walk into the house studying the headlines, it struck me forcibly that all parents, without exception, were once teenagers.  Been there; done that.  Not so long ago either.  We sorta remember what it was like.  Even though times change, it gives us an inside track as to what teens are thinking and feeling.

Unlike old age.  Those who are dealing with nurturing and taking care of elderly people have never been old.  You get old and then you die, taking your wisdom (that is ignored) to the grave with you.  My 85-year-old sister wrote in an e-mail:

"I didn't dream the world would be as it is now in the closing days of my life."

I thought she meant the little world that she lives in now that she is more confined.  Good thing I called her to clarify.  I should have known, she’s always been political and fiercely patriotic.  She meant the outside world:  ISIS, Ebola, things like that.

These are the things she said:

“It’s been a challenge getting used to being old.”

“We were around a lot of old people but you didn’t ever hear anything about what they did all day long.”

So I asked her what she does all day.  (She said she doesn’t like people to ask her that question.)

“After last election I made up my mind I wasn’t going to listen to news.  It’s too depressing.”  (A staunch Republican, she could not bear that Mitt Romney lost.)  But then she decides she needs to pick up on what is going on out in the world so she’s watching TV again.  “It is surprising to me how much people changed.  They looked much older in just that short time.”  She reads:  “My eye sight isn’t quite as good as it used to be but I usually read after I go to bed.”

“I get a ‘down’ feeling from about 4 to 8 at night, then I kind of revive; have more energy.”

“I don’t want to travel because I don’t want to be out on the road and die.”

“Each year you just get a little frailer; don’t have as much energy.”

I asked her if she felt respected.  She’s garnered quite a few honors in her little town.

“Hearing loss isolates you,” she said.  “Most people in the Ward now wouldn’t know me.”

So even though I originally misunderstood the quote in her email, I’m still fulminating over the disregard in our society for the venerable elderly.  If not total disregard, then loss of respect, esteem, and understanding.  It’s obvious they haven’t been there or done that.

Gradually, we lose everything:  Our autonomy; our hearing, sight, speech, mobility.  Even without Alzheimer’s or dementia, we forget and can’t express ourselves.  We can feel people laughing at us and feeling sorry for us; condescendingly. We repeat ourselves.  We are slow. Everything hurts or doesn’t hurt.  It doesn’t matter.  We’re not going anywhere.  

Jan posted this on Facebook, no doubt thinking of her mother and father who are deceased.

For a while now, I’ve been thinking that we should be old before we are young;

Die before we are born;

Be grandparents before we are parents;

Parents before we are children.

Maybe F. Scott Fitzgerald was on to something when in 1922 he wrote the short story “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” which was made into a film in 2008 starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blachett.  It tells the story of Benjamin Button, a man who starts aging backwards, being born old and dying an infant.

I actually practice dying every day.  Yogis claim it should be a pleasant transition; a serene, glorious experience.  In Yoga, the pose is called Shavasana or Corpse Pose.

Shavasana is perhaps the most important part of yoga practice.

Lie on your back. Stretch your backbone on the floor, helping with your hands. Straighten your legs, your toes relaxed and pointing outward. Put your arms along your torso with your palms up, your shoulders pressed to the floor. Close your eyes and relax. Try to calm your breath and mind as much as you can.  You have no place to go; nothing to do.  Slow down.  Let go.

It is intended to rejuvenate body, mind, and spirit.

The physiological benefits of deep relaxation are numerous and include:

·        a decrease in heart rate and the rate of respiration,

·        a decrease in blood pressure,

·        a decrease in muscle tension,

·        a decrease in metabolic rate and the consumption of oxygen,

·        a reduction in general anxiety,

·        a reduction in the number and frequency of anxiety attacks,

·        an increase in energy levels and in general productivity,

·        an improvement in concentration and in memory,

·        an increase in focus,

·        a decrease in fatigue, coupled with deeper and sounder sleep, and

·        improved self-confidence.

My yoga instructors used to say:  “When you get your own practice . . .”

I scoffed.  I’ll never have my own practice.  I can only follow; do what I’m told.  I have no idea what to do on my own.

Now each morning as I do my own geriatric yoga routine, I smile.  I have my own practice; ultimately relaxing in Corpse Pose to practice dying, hopefully to be where everyone exists in a supreme superlative state.