Two Yogis on Yom Kippur

I saw two photographs yesterday.  One was of me.  And one was of a yogi who used to be me.  I looked at the yogi and thought “Yes, that used to be me.  Strong, muscular, fierce.  And now I have become something else.  Waif.  Thin.  Everything is temporary.”  

But I didn’t feel sad or maudlin.

Yesterday was Yom Kippur and it was the perfect time for me to look into the eye of this transformation and not hold it as permanent.  

I did not fast this Yom Kippur, as it would have been counter to my health.  But in past years, as I used to, I always found fasting to bring me to a very quiet place.  I didn’t need that this time.  I found that place without the hunger and without the thirst.  Without that primal ache.  That knowing exists inside of me now.  It is a stripping down.  A place of no ego.  But a place of clarity.

I went to a very quiet place outside and I listened.  I listened to the cicadas.  I listened to the wind.  I listened to the river.  I waited to see what more the river had to offer me before I made my next offering.

I moved about to get comfortable on the sand because I could feel my tailbone speaking to me.  “Too thin.  You’ve gotten too thin.”  Was the voice I heard.  (I’m sure it was my beloved grandmother speaking from afar)  I breathed.

Yes.  It’s true.  Within a short time, my body called for something else from me aside from asana.  And where I was once strong, in body, I no longer “appear” to be so.  But as I sat, I realized that I have had to become strong for myself in newer ways.  Ways which cannot be taught (unless beaten into you through Navy SEAL training and that is not the kind of teaching I mean since it lacks every type of tenderness known to humankind).  

*

I sat at the river and made offerings to those hearts I could feel were in need of healing.  I prayed for them.  I listened to my dialogue with myself.  And with god.  I felt buoyant.  

Every other year, this ritual of Yom Kippur was lengthy and pierced a place inside of my heart which was painful.  On this day, I felt at ease.  I felt STRONG.  Staring out at the river, I realized that there was nothing else to do but let the water find the stillness inside of me and cleanse and soothe the places which need it still.  For all of us.

As my teacher described recently, I too, had a trip around the sun these last 13 months which now included 3 surgeries and that time period took me into very deep silence and very deep places of learning how to forgive in ways which I had not accessed before.  I recall hitting a bump along that journey that was quite agonizing and made me think it was going to take several more trips around the sun until I would find some peace.  

But a big shift occurred which was seismic and profoundly healing.  

Forgiveness, for me, is a lifestyle.  

I don’t just show up at shul on Yom Kippur and pray for it.  In this case, that wasn’t a possibility.  

I take that trip around the sun every day and every year.  And just hope, for the sake of my own heart, and the hearts of others, that it pays off.

So, the gift of Yom Kippur for me was in the silence.  In recognizing how much stillness happens amidst the constant movement.

Let there be nothing to do but let the water find the stillness and cleanse and soothe the places which need it still.  For all of us.

In health and happiness.  And another trip around the sun.

9.27.12

Jill Bacharach

Rosh Hashana

My heart is beating fast.  

Everything is perfect actually.

Monday is the first day of Rosh Hashana.  The time leading up to the holiday, which is called Elul, is the time of repentance in preparation of the holiest time of the year.  Elul is seen as a time to search one’s heart and draw close to God in preparation for the Day of Judgment and the Day of Atonement.  It is a time to begin a process of granting and asking for forgiveness.  A time to work out problems, let go of grudges, a time to put energy toward working out issues you have with others.  It’s a ripe time of preparation and intention.

Monday is the first day of Rosh Hashana and I will be having a cervical spinal fusion.  Two discs which are at the point of crumbling will be removed.  The gap will be filled with pre-made sizer bones and secured with titanium.  

Monday is Rosh Hashana.

I will be opened up on the same day that Torah is opened.  

I bow to all that has come before this day.  Every relationship I have cherished.  Every relationship I have lost.  Every heart that I have hurt.  Everything that has been broken.  Everything I have pieced back together.

I regret every part I played in creating a misunderstanding.  In creating mistrust.  In creating fear.  I regret everything that was tossed away and hardened or broken or changed irrevocably.  

I hold and cherish every heart I have loved and awakened and inspired and helped catapult forward.  I cherish every life I have ushered forth into another life.  

As all who gather together on Rosh Hashana, I bless them.  I bless their hearts.  Their frailties.  Their limitations.  Their hurts.  Their joys.  Their endowments.  The losses and challenges they’ve endured.  I hold their hearts in mine.  That they may each find their way.  I pour love into the places that need it most.  I keep pouring love.  

I thank everyone, near or far, here and gone, who has ever poured love in my direction, if even for an instant.  It has changed the fabric of who I am.  I have been thrown into the sea many times but came swimming back to shore every time with something new to say, to question, and to offer. 

As a young child I was daring and free and went at things with a ferocity that may have looked overly risky to an outsider.  I had a few serious accidents as a result.  One very significant one when I was six which rendered me unconscious for several days.  

Thirty-eight years later, within the span of 2.5 years, I will have had 4 major orthopedic surgeries.  Who knows why.  A lot has happened in the span of those thirty-eight years.  Is it congenital?  (The hips supposedly were.)  Is it emotional?  Is it psychological?  Is it karmic?  Who knows.  But here I am.  And this is what there is to tend to now.  

I am not broken.  I am changing.  I am listening.  Something else has been called for here.  

I have learned many things.

If you are not listening to your body, then what are you doing?

If you are not listening to your heart, then who’s life are you living?

Love the people you love well.  

If you really want to love a person, be sure to learn how they want and need to be loved.

Things are not always what they seem.  

When someone looks well, that may not be the whole story.  

Ask a person how their heart is. 

If you don’t know how your mind works, you have no defenses against it.

Always tend to your inner landscape no matter what.

Monday is Rosh Hashana.

It reminds me to take nothing for granted.  We never know what lies before us.  

May we each be able to identify the blessings we actually possess.  

Whether you are of my tribe or not, whether you will be ushering in the new year or not, alone or with others, may you bear in mind that every day is a day worth truly and entirely “waking up” to.  

“There’s Only Now

There’s Only Here

Give Into Love

Or Live in Fear

No Other Path

No Other Way

No Day But Today.”

(from “Rent” lyric by Jonathan Larson)

L’Shana Tova.  
I wish you all a healthy new year.  

9.15.12

Jill Bacharach

Lion Love

I have had a penchant for drawing very charismatic people towards me.  Some have been leaders of their communities and some have been famous people.  Some have simply been magnificently larger than life.

One of my roles has been like that of the secret service.  I have been the beholder and protector of privacy.  Outsiders would ask me questions about these people and forget about it.  I have been a faithful guardian.    

And I’ve come to see many things along the way.  The lion is considered to be the King of the Animal world.  Female Mountain lions are extremely protective over their mountain lion kittens and have been known to fight off large mammals, including grizzly bears, with success.  Its lifestyle is solitary and it has powerful forearms, powerful paws and a muscular jaw.

I am like this Lion.  Extremely protective when that is what is called for.  

It is the lion’s nature to go off on its own.  And I know how to roam the mountaintop alone with adeptness and skill.

*

Lion power:  Vitality.

We have all fantasized about being friends with famous or larger-than-life people.  Imagined that if they only really knew us, they would want to be our closest and dearest friend.

I don’t know what that is for others, but what has been real for me is something important.  I know it is sheer and utter projection, because I have no life experience with most of these people, but...

There is a reflection of a humor, a life-force and an energetic juice that when I see it “over there,” reflected outside of myself, I want very much to have it closer to me.  I also know that I can only see it because I possess it inside of me.  And so, I am not just responding to projection, but a great reflection of myself which I wish to share and express, and express more and more of by someone who is expressing this vibrancy so clearly and beautifully and perhaps vibrating in the very resonant magnificence which I know I wish to tend to but perhaps have not achieved as fully.  

I have achieved this expression quite spectacularly.  But I have allowed life to get in the way and pull me off course and practically pull me from remembering this expression of myself until I hear myself laugh or gesture in a certain way and find myself all over again.  What it says to me is that I am not in the full expression of my life.  I have veered off course.

Signal: steer the train back on track.

*

I am experiencing a distinct arc at the moment of making decisions and experiencing real plateaus.  Some things are being asked of me and some things are simply not moving at all.  

I am asking myself very big questions on all fronts.  What do I want?  Who am I?  Who am I becoming?  Who do I want to become?  What have I come here to do?  What do I need?  What can I give?  What is my highest purpose?  Who is there left to forgive?

And right now it is also lovely to just watch the tennis.

That’s not a joke, actually.

I saw a photograph and it was a life which did not belong to me.  I asked my friend if there was a television at the function.  And I immediately felt a deep ripple of feelings inside.  

Indignance possessed my entire being.

The thought which came to me was this: “Well, then, I just wouldn’t go to that function! That would be non-negotiable. It’s the U.S. OPEN!”

Then another ripple.  

“That’s so rigid.  Look how isolated you keep yourself...”  It went on for a while.  From how those who seek me out in friendship are not so available to how I actually isolate.

It was a tricky moment.  If something that I love (tennis) brings me more deeply into who I am, and helps to bring me back to myself, brings me home again, I may not be willing to give it up.  Except under emergency circumstances.  Emergency circumstances trump everything as far as I am concerned.  

It may not actually be petulant or stubborn.  It may be wise.

This lioness doesn’t mind being alone on holidays if the matches are on.  Even if she knows how to rabble-rouse with the best of ‘em!

So, maybe one of the reasons charismatic people are drawn to me is because of my own inherent charisma.  But maybe we always need to take leave of one another and go to our own sides of the court more often than not because the flip side of having charisma is a longing for solitude and quiet.    

A longing which keeps me contentedly roaming the mountaintop.

In full expression of joy and tears when my players win or lose.  Protecting.  Loving.  Persevering.  And truthfully, having a ball!

9.2.12

Jill Bacharach

Tug-A-War

When I was six years old I began going to sleep-away camp for eight weeks every summer.  

I was a “runt.”  (Those of you laughing and murmuring, “You still are!”  You should know that I grew to be the tallest member of my biological family!)

I was always the smallest kid in the bunk, on every team, on the girls side of the camp, and at the entire camp, in general.  So when it came to size order, I was always in the front of the line.

That was just size.

What I lacked in size meant nothing to me because I made up for it in every possible way in athletics, in muscle, in guts and in sheer will.

I had a reputation.  

When I was eight years old and it was College-Week, the pre-cursor to “Color-War,” I was in the tug-a-war competition and I was helping win the competition for my team.  During College Week, the camp was divided into four teams.  So you would have to compete against all three in order to be in the lead.  

I was in the front of the rope.  The runt.  Largely unorthodox when you think about it.  But somehow, no one was going to knock me down.  Our team was fierce and we kept winning.  

Three tug-a-war’s later, we had a crushing lead over all of the other teams.

Then came the “All-Star” competition.  That was the one where they took the strongest members from each age-group and asked for us to compete against the “All- Stars” on the other teams.  

This was going on for a very long time.  Many rounds of competition.  It was a very hot day. 

I would not give up.

I had no sense of being tired.  No sense of calluses on my hands.  No sense of my body, even.  No sense of the heat.  

I remember the screaming, I remember my counselor screaming my name, the cheering  in the background, the feeling of the team moving as one unit as we pulled backwards and ripped that rope to victory.

The entire camp seemed to scream.  But all I remember was running into my counselor’s arms.  My legs, cradled around her hips and I collapsed inside her large and comforting body.  Everything went dark and quiet and at last, I was able to rest.  

There was more screaming but I didn’t worry about any of it.  She ran me around, threw water on me, tried to wake me, etc. etc.  But I was gone.  I couldn’t see or hear anything.  Everything was dark and black and quiet.  It was wonderful.

Ultimately, I was okay.  I had fainted in my counselor’s arms.  The counselors were not doing a good job of looking out for my well-being, and my nature was to push.  I didn’t have the sensibility at age 8 that I was dehydrated or that I might have been at risk of passing out from over-exertion.  It never crossed my young mind that I could pass out.  I only focused on what was needed of me, which was to win.

It amazes me to remember this now.  That I already had this imprint of pushing past what was healthy for me 36 years ago.  Maybe even before then.  

How long does it take for us to learn a pattern?  And how long to unlearn it?  Hmmmm...  

Well, what I can say is that I am no longer muscling through my life.  I have even shed about 12 pounds of muscle (sadly), and do not presently, have that barrier between me and where I need to get to emotionally.  

I don’t begrudge the counselors nor the camp for not looking out for me.  I look back and see a child who tried to teach me something.  She tried to teach me even earlier.  On countless occasions.  And she has tried to teach me since.  That is what I can see now.    

How long does it take for us to learn a pattern?  And how long to unlearn it?

As I am about to embark on another major surgery, what I see is that I am ready.  I feel 

compassion for myself.  I am listening to a body which is speaking in clear and direct ways, even if they are just quiet whispers.  

I am listening.

Not muscling.

Nothing else to do now but listen.

And let go of the ropes.

Unless of course, you need me to pull you to safety.

With love.

8.30.12

Jill Bacharach

It's Not the End of the Rainbow

I have been thinking a lot about my tears.  There have been many.  The other night at the theater... my my my!  It seems to me that I cry when I do not want to let go and I cry when I finally do.

My beloved asked me what are my favorite moments on film.

For me they are always moments of connection and they are also moments of transformation.  I could list endless scenes here.  It would be a catalog of film history which would make ANYONE cry!!!

Let me tell you about my grandfather.

I knew him better than anyone else on the planet.  Every modulation in his voice.  Every look in his eyes.

When I was only 20, I lived overseas and he used to send me cassette tapes in the form of letters.  As soon as he would say, "Just a minute, just a minute."  I knew that what he was actually doing was that he was reaching for his handkerchief.  That, as he was speaking, his eyes were welling up with tears, his heart was swelling with emotion and he needed to blow his nose.

For me, this was how my grandfather loved.  Through his tears.

My grandfather left his body 21 years ago, and I am so much like my him, it is disarming.

Recently, I believe that my tears were deeply misunderstood.  I was asked the question "What is in the way of your dream?"  And I began to cry.  Those tears were the grief of feeling into the reality of knowing there is a real obstacle between where I am now and the manifestation of the dream I wrote down about the healthy body I wish to have, as I am about to embark on another surgery.  I know myself well enough to know that I cannot get to step 2 without walking through step 1.  For instance, if step 2 is surrender and acceptance around this present physical reality, I must feel what there is to feel (step 1) before arriving there.  I am NOT a step-skipper!!!  The reflection I was given was that my tears were a cry for attention.  I listened carefully.  Even made a phone call to god and discussed it...  Conclusion: it just didn't land as true.  I will sit in silence to try on clothes to see if they are the right fit... sit and sit to see if something may be real which I don't want to believe could possibly be, but this was simply pulling me off my own trajectory of truth.

As I sat and watched Tracie Bennett perform at the Belasco Theatre performing her heart out a few nights ago, I cried my eyes out.  I was utterly blown away by the level of truth she touched upon.  Universal truth.  Personal truth she must have dug into (from her own life and inner work) to call forth and hail forward with power and presence few have the privilege of seeing on stage in real time.  How fiercely committed she was to showing up for this role.  Her sheer and utter talent.  The humanity she found in her portrayal of the legend who was Judy Garland.  Those tears were also love.  My love of the experience which swells up inside of me and is simply part of my heartbeat.  A love which I can speak about for days.  Years.  Lifetimes.  Love.  

Like how I feel when I watch Wimbledon.  To watch a champion give it everything.  Watching the Olympics last week was stunning and moving to me in every way.  I cried when I saw Granada's Karani James (who won the men's running 400 semi-finals) exchange Name bibs with South Africa's Oscar Pistorious, the FIRST double-amputee to EVER compete in the Olympic Games.  It was simply beautiful.

It connected me to my own heart and tears streamed down my face.

Some of the greatest photographs do this for us.  Like when two people are connected after one has just come back from war.  Those moments of connection call out to us all and call us all forth and call us all back.

I have changed in terms of my tears in many ways.  I no longer STAY there.  No longer indulge them.  I feel dignified.  I never feel ashamed of them.  I can feel safe inside of myself regardless of who is around me.  They are mine to own.  I know what is happening and I am okay with it.

I'm Jill Bacharach, and I have deep feelings which I am deeply in touch with.

As for you, I will meet you wherever you are.  Just as long as you tell me where that is.

Blessings.

8.18.12

Jill Bacharach

Finding My Way to Forgiveness

I have been learning that being strong has had to mean learning how to be soft.  In my biography, I decided that I needed to become mentally strong in order to survive because I wanted to survive.  Eventually, when I began my yoga practice, I became strong physically, in order to survive not only that same biography, but additional trauma which I was working actively to heal.  

But what I began to realize was that I was NOT healing, I was simply managing and surviving.

As I embark now on what will be my fourth surgery in two years, I realize that what became a body I relied upon in strength is tired and has been screaming out for a different way to live.  To stop muscling through everything.  

I understand now.

I fell to my knees a few weeks ago and had my deepest realization around forgiveness,  which has been an active and ongoing practice for me.  But what I realized is that I have not made sustainable progress for a very big reason.  I have moments of beautiful seeing.  Beautiful moments of clear and deep forgiveness.  But then I find myself right back to a deep place of suffering and seeking forgiveness all over again.

This may be obvious to many, but it took me falling to my knees and seeing this clearly within myself until I could really get it.  Not getting it through hearing it from someone else, not getting it in any way but really deeply understanding it through my own process.  

There is no real forgiveness until you can recognize the place inside of yourself that possesses the same exact behavior, (that place inside of you that has the capacity to behave in the very same way) which you are having difficulty forgiving.  Truly no real forgiveness unless this awareness becomes an acceptance inside of you.  I fell to my knees and I saw my own humanity and I began to sob and I began to have mercy for the deep places of pain which live inside of my body... for every place of hurt, for everyone who has hurt me who I have been sending lovingkindness to every single day for years and years and YEARS!!!!  Only to have been met with MOMENTS of forgiveness which I simply could not sustain.  But I am her and I am him and I am you and you and you and you.  I AM!!!!!!  AND IT IS SOOOOOO SOBERING AND PAINFUL TO WAKE UP TO THAT, BUT IT IS THE TRUTH.  And first I have to face it and forgive myself for those qualities which I too, possess... and only then, can I forgive ANYONE.  Only then.

And now... it can begin.  

And now I can find that softness in order to become strong and maybe even stronger.

God bless us all in this process.  It can be a long and windy road back home... but GPS or not, I MUST find my way.  I must.

With tender love and a soft heart.

8.8.12

Jill Bacharach

Who Am I?

When I had my second and third hip surgeries, even when I was unable to walk, I still had complete use and facility of my hands.  

When I began my yoga practice, I found that I was more interested and adept with my hands than with my feet.  More at home with them.  I remember a teacher once telling a group I was spending the weekend with (during a break), “Don’t mind Jill, she’s just more comfortable on her hands than on her feet.”  When she said that, I realized that I was decompressing upside down, finding my breath, going waaaay inside so that I could find my way to be present with my present company.  

When I was a child and I was under great stress, I would run out of the house and I climb trees.  I used more of my hands than my feet in that endeavor.  At the schoolyard, I would hang upside down on the monkey bars, just to find my breath and tune out the world.  

So when I started yoga and saw the opportunity to learn how to go upside down, I took to it immediately.  At first, it was all wrong.  Everything was effortful, until it wasn’t any longer.  And soon I was just hanging upside down again.  Just breathing.

Right now, I find myself in a very potent, alarming and humbling moment.  My hands are  ready and waiting.  But my arm is in distress due to a significant neck injury.  

I am so grateful for all that I have been able to do with my body.  I am grateful for all of the places my body has taken me and for all of the freedom it has afforded me when it has.  

I may need to have another surgery in order to feel more freedom.  But there are simply no guarantees.  

The problem is what I have become attached to.

I have been told for years how strong I am.  And yet, during this last year all that I have felt, is simply and utterly, worn to the bone.

I am accustomed to soothing myself by standing on my hands.  To hold the possibility that this may no longer be a prudent choice, is big.  Courageous.  

I know it is just a pose (ultimately ruling out more poses).  But it has also become part of my identity and in this moment, although it will transform into something else, letting it go, in the way it used to LIVE so naturally inside of me, actually feels like being asked to cut off my arm.

Ram Dass said “suffering is the resistance to what is.”  

And so surrender is what is called for here.  

Who am I if I am not my body?

Who am I if I am not in this pain?

Who am I when everything I know falls away?

What remains?

Sometimes the most courageous answer you can give is “I don’t know.”

And so here it is:

I don’t know.

I don’t know who I am becoming.

*

Brava.

Let the journey begin anew.

I bless what has been given here.  I bless what lies ahead.  I step into each step with the truth of the deepest listening I possess.  

And I celebrate the beauty of the Olympic spirit.  May this indomitable spirit become part of each of us.

*

The deepest evolution is finding blessing in all of it.  May we each continue evolving.

*

7.28.12

Jill Bacharach