Learning how to decompose
Dear Ones,
Whew, i’m scooty. Indecisive. Scattered. Moving from one thing to another. Both hungry to be totally still and itchy to get moving. I start something, it feels dissatisfying, I start something else, I go back.
Do you feel this? This is the transition. The place where the ground is softening, but the seeds are waiting waiting waiting for the right duration of light to emerge. To emerge. Waiting.
Here in Maryland beside the river where I live, all the trees are still brown. Today the sky is grey. And yet, right now, if you took the time you would see the mosses are their brightest green. They take in this soft light, this misty day, the kindness of 40-50 degrees. When the days brighten, the new leaves of the undergrowth will cover them and the mosses will protect and provide for the soil. Such perfect design.
I think of this because I know I am a part of these cycles. I know my body knows these seasons. I know my agitation is a first stirring of what will come in just a week or two. A perfect clear, breezy spring day will arrive and my mind will clear and the projects will align and the work will be a channel running fast again. For now, I am part of the spring mists.
I am learning to lean into what is going on around me in the woods and in the water. It is indicative of what's going on inside of me. Our current 40 day sequence is aptly named Nearly Ready - that moment when you are awake, but not yet out of bed, the stretch and yawn and then the pause - nearly ready. The woods still grey but almost humming with what’s to come.
This morning sequence has built my stamina to stay in what I feel, to open the aperture of my capacity so I can feel more with less agitation. So I can feel more agitation with less reactivity. This is training ground for the action of the summer ahead. Let it start softly, personally. Let it slowly build my capacity for calm in the discomfort, in the direct seeing of my shortcomings or abilities, just learning to stay in a gesture, moving my arms and breath steadily for 3 minutes is enough to learn to expand rather than contract - this is the message of Nearly Ready. Take my time. And trust any agitation in the days ahead. Know I are a being of Nature. And how good that is. Everything everything everything changes. And so too will this season.
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For this time of change, of decomposition, I highly suggest this podcast. For the Wild talks with Merlin Sheldrake, author of Entangled Life, which is an incredibly poetic and revelatory exploration of the world of mycelium and rhizomes, the networks of fungi that circulate intelligence and nutrients into nearly every living thing. These are the forces of this moment in our year, the space between the death and void of winter and the fertile return of light and life.
Fungi are the place that stitches death into life and makes life out of death.
Don’t roll your eyes at a podcast about fungi, my loves! This is the piece i’ve been missing. This is the ongoing force and wonder that stitches our whole world together. Everything you ate today was made possible through the processes of fungi. All the plantlife we see around us, love around us, relies on the mycelia. They are the rumination after a long talk when you finally understand a friend in a new way. They are the integration after a loss or a separation or a hurt begins to feel bearable. They are the digestion after a big meal. They are the network between us that took these words from my laptop to a server to other servers to others and out to you. This mycelial process is everywhere and deserves such wonder and respect.
“Decomposition is a rearrangement of possibility; it is a restructuring or transformation vs a destruction. Decomposition can include ideologies, laws, societal structures, physical structures. It can rearrange our thinking to consider what are the conditions we can create to hasten decomposition on its way? What are the nutrients and healthy by-products, how could we be nourished by the transformation of unhelpful constructs?
We aren’t in control of the organisms as they ferment and change one thing into another, they will respond in the ways they choose, especially when working with wild cultures and microbes. There is a dance where some things are in our control and some aren’t. Our opportunity is to be in community with the fungi. What if I give them control? What lures can I offer to attract an outcome? How can I tempt an outcome vs. forcing or pushing or dominating something which stems from our own assumption or expectation?”
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CLASSES
1/ Come connect to the seasons. Join the next 40 days starting March 20 - April 29, live MWF 8-9am. Details here.
If you are curious, but unsure, email me and I will send you a recent recording to try for yourself.
2/ I will teach live Sunday March 17 - a free class at the R House Garage 10:00-11:30, all levels. Mostly standing warm-up, asana, a standing kriya, and Yoga Nidra. A journey of the heart. Register here. If you plan to come, BRING A BLANKET xx
3/ My full in-person schedule starts April 8 at TRIBE. Details and schedule are on my homepage.
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READING
This winter has been unexpectedly rich in great reading for me. Such a perfect time to curl up and go in, into ideas, into recipes, into stories. Such winter travels are my favorite.
Check out my bookshelf Best of 2024 (so far) on Bookshop. It is a mix of fiction and non. Resources and revelations. The fiction in particular has been very moving, and almost more informative than the non-fiction, especially in the retelling of women’s stories. As I read new stories, my sense of my self as Woman changes, my sense of place in myself is enriched and explored. Tell me how they strike you.
Returning to studio teaching
Dear Ones,
I'll be teaching live studio classes starting April 8.
AND my online classes will not change.
MOST IMPORTANT. MOST BELOVED.
My 40 day seasonal online classes will continue.
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 8-9am via zoom
These are the real work of my heart. I love showing up for this close community and working our way through the energies that surround us, support us, and change as we are changed.
Right now we are savoring the last days of the winter season and preparing for the spring energy return on the spring equinox, March 19.
The next sequence starts March 19 - April 27
Register here.
AND now to Tribe...
It's been since March 16, 2020 that I've had a regular studio position. I feel trepidation and excitement to be creating classes and sequences and thinking of workshops to share.
Tribe will be located in the old Charm City / YogaWorks midtown building. There will be studio classes every day with the addition of a cold plunge, an infrared sauna, and people with the wisdom to guide you through their use.
Starting Monday April 8 my studio schedule will be
Monday noon - 1pm radiant body kundalini
Tuesday 5-6:15 vinyasa yoga flow
Tuesday 5-6:15 vinyasa yoga flow
Wednesday noon - 1pm radiant body kundalini
Thursday 5-6:15 vinyasa yoga flow
Thursday 6:15 - 7:30 radiant body kundalini
For the Tribe opening we each wrote about our teaching.
Here's what I said,
Welcome. Here we are, you and me, both in these miraculous bodies. All my life I’ve been enthralled to be in my body. At eight when it rained I would strip down and run naked around the house to feel the cold on my skin. I was the youngest on the gymnastics team, basketball, field hockey, soccer. But I also had decades of an eating disorder, deep postpartum depression twice, and as much as my body could do I felt ashamed and could never see it as beautiful like others around me. I walked out of my first yoga class and felt momentarily completely at peace, completely at home. All the competition, all the injuries, all the comparison had momentarily fallen away. Here. Here I am. That’s how it felt. For me, this is yoga. It isn’t something I do, it is something I remember, something I become, something available to us all.
Through 30+ years of personal practice and 500+ hours of teacher training yoga is the temple I revere and explore. This is the philosophy I study and teach. This is the center that holds the spinning threads of my life. I have been a corporate trainer for Fortune 500 companies. I have been an academic at major institutions. I have been a homeschool mama for a decade. I have dared and faltered, risen and failed like all of us. And through all of it, I have made sense of my life through my yoga practice.
I weave music, movement, kriya, breath, and stillness so that you can feel you as the light that you are. I will use blessing and ceremony, candles and petals, to show you your magnificence. This is my passion, my joy, and my constant inquiry. I offer an invitation to access the Self that you are beyond all that you know.
Discoveries and integrations to support this vessel that carries us all through life. TRIBE is a portal into that shared vessel, a place where we can learn about each other through ourselves and through new ways of being in motion and stillness, heat and cold, function and freedom. Join the TIRBE and find new ways into your body’s intelligence and wellbeing.
I bring to the TRIBE community practices for self-authority, elevation, and instruction on creating ceremonies to keep our lives intimate and blessed.
Want a free preview?
I'll teach at R House Garage on 29th street March 17, 10-11:30am. All levels, Martha-style flow into kriya, a meditation and a Yoga Nidra to let it all out of your system and leave you shining and bright. Register at TribeBaltimore.com
Come get a big Sunday hug from me. Such a pleasure to see you in person!
So that's where you can find me - online MWF or in the studio starting April 8.
All love, Martha
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"Beware the imagined toxicity of disagreement."
- Stephen Jenkinson
What 1:1 means to me
Dear Ones,
Community. Relations. Connections. Crowds + intimacy. These are moving me deeply lately.
There is a magic when someone is with me, when I am in the spotlight of someone’s attention.
Working 1:1 means I have committed to being the one seen and heard. I don’t have to worry about what I say, the editor can rest and a new layer is revealed. I don’t have to worry about keeping track of what I say, someone is listening with me, for me, as me, handing back what comes through. I don’t have to be the guide to initiate or the boundary at the end. I can be in a place of trust and exploration. 1:1 has been huge for my own growth.
Recently someone said she’d been part of this community for years and never knew I offered privates. Privates are my very favourite means of teaching.There is so much that could be shared and I navigate constantly how to best serve a broad span of participants when we practice as a group. But 1:1 means I can distill and refine all that I know, just for you. I am here with you, invested in your forward motion. If a companion through a topic, a concern, an illness, a change or challenge sounds like it would be welcome, reach out.
Yes, we can design practice for you. Yes, we can design writing to match it. Yes, we can find books and resources and soundtracks to enrich it. Ultimately, I meet the need you bring.
I even work 1:1 in the kitchen, designing menus and sharing FaceTime dinner-making until cooking on your own feels possible. Nothing is too small. Sometimes the smallest shifts (What’s the best breakfast for me in the winter months? How do I make that? Where can I find it? Why does it matter?) create the lasting change we seek.
That said, my Kitchen page is updated. Food matters. As the season shifts it can seem harder to find local sources but there are locations on this page for where I go year round in the Baltimore /DC area. Search Google for markets in your area. It matters. To your health, to the health of your local economy, to the health of your local soils and land. Share out what you find with your neighbors so they know there is local food everywhere. Sometimes we just have to go treasure-hunting to find it.
Reply to this email if you are interested in my support or contact me through my website.
More to come. All love, Martha
What I Consider When I Am Away.
Dear Ones,
I am away this week.
Lily’s SATs are done, early college applications are in, and she is away on her expedition in Colorado. In essence, my role as homeschool mom for the past 10 years is complete.
I am away 1/ to check the patterns that have been gathered and refined during 10 years in this role. What served us well then will no longer serve and I don't want to go forward blind in my ways. So this is a chance to slow down, see the momentum and make space for new choices to arise.
And 2/ to celebrate, to mark the occasion, to heal the thought of all the ways it could’ve been ‘better,' to make sure that this is concluded with respect for every effort. Looking back, it is tempting to think less of certain days, occasions I didn't acknowledge, courses I could've for them I could've given more time or depth. But I want to let the dust settle and trust that in every moment I was doing what I could.
I respect my past self. She is as wise as the present one. And tending to the way I think of my past will give my future self more courage because she isn’t afraid of criticism in retrospect.
I walked in gorgeous woods today and stood rooted in front of this sign:
You Are Here. And you can see where everything else is, and where you could go, and where you were when you started. I want this view. I want to step back and back and back from my life and see the sign saying You Are Here. I would know I was at a crossroads, i would see the distance ahead.
Better yet, i would see this sign:
I would love to know the gradient upcoming.
Is it a mild downhill slope that feels like coasting?
Or maybe steep, slow, rough going?
And how long will it last?
Some days I want the adventure of not knowing.
And some days, a sense of the gradient ahead and its duration seems miraculous.
This week away is giving me deep long hours of being with not knowing, of coming to rest in my maplessness. AND it is this very resting place that is also providing the reassurance that that not knowing is a safe place, a creative place, a supported place.
My job is not the map or the terrain but the vehicle. I am becoming a 4x4, something where bumps and hills are fun, jostling the groceries and making me grab on to the side rails. My practice builds me an inner stamina that can settle into the long haul with a relaxed breath and see what’s on the other side, even if it means walking through the dark. I want a life with lots of people to stop and see along the way, to ply me with snacks and supplies and make the going a group effort.
I am away this week building my next vehicle and honoring my last one. HIt reply. Tell me of your week, or if not, pause and consider the state of your vehicle and let me know now I can help.
Back soon.
All love, Martha
Letter from Love: It’s still you
Dear Ones,
A writing prompt from Liz Gilbert is to sit each day and ask, “Dear Love, what would you have me know today?” and let Love answer.
As I do the work of inquiry and stillness and growth, I find an edge that won’t shift. So I asked Love. And the reply was a surprise and a gift and if any of you are growing and edging and yet limiting at the same time, may this be of use/service.
Dear Love, what would you have me know today?
You are vast, little flame. There is more to you than you know. As you grow, the agitation you feel is you coming up against the ‘size’ and territory you’ve known. At one point it was plenty to explore, plenty to be. Now you’ve grown and the ability makes new pace possible. Like a child sleeping in a bed that once felt perfect and safe, now the bed is cramped and the outlook after sleeping there is cranky and ill-shaped. Stand tall. Don’t fold yourself back into the space you’ve known. No need to expend precious energy to be less than you are.
Here, see the walls fall flat and the horizons are now new and distant. Still, still my disbelieving wunderkind, still this is you. This is your landscape. Now you are ready for more of yourself.
Imagine.
Imagine my simplest of stones, imagine how it will feel to outgrow this new capacity, because you will. For now, unfold, charge through the hills, get lost, run out of gas. It is big, bigger than the equipment you currently have. You’ll require more ink, march through tougher boots. A new sweater is called for with stripes of yellow and red from shoulder to hip. A hat. Equip yourself for new territory. Enjoy.
And know,
1/ It is still you. All of it.
2/ There is more beyond it. Again this will happen. And again. You will outgrow what you know of yourself and again there will be more.
3/ Some things will change. Be that change. Holding back to fit the old won’t serve the new.
4/ I am with you in you as you and I love this size and this expansion.
Thank you for your courage. In courage, go forth. Encouraged, go forth. You can’t fall out of you. You can’t run out of you. More of you in the directions that are truly yours will still be you. I am here through and through all of it.
All, Love.
The ethics of slowing down
Dear Ones,
You are vast. You are spacious. You are music & laughter. Be so. As you can. Be so. Ready?
Over the summer I heard about an ethics research project. Princeton Seminary theology students were taught about the Good Samaritan story Fromm the Bible and given the assignment to write their own sermon on the parable to deliver to classmates. In simplified form, a traveler from Samaria encounters a stranger in distress beside a road, stops to help them up, and finds them a room at a local inn. The students are to write their own sermon on this topic.
The day they are to present, they are to leave their classroom and go to the lecture hall in three groups. The first group is told they are 5 minutes late, the next group is on time, the last told they have 5 extra minutes. On the path to the lecture hall is a stranger, staged to be in obvious distress. The experiment was to note how time constraints affected ethical predispositions; what happens to our ability to see and assist each other when we are hurried. Most of the students who were told they were late reported they didn't see a stranger and didn't stop on the way. Those who were on time reported seeing the stranger but went past to arrive on time to the lecture hall. But those who were early, who had 5 extra minutes, over half of them stopped to see what was wrong.
This knocks me down every time I think of it because I can FEEL it in my home. I can feel how my half of the partnership wanes when I get 'busy'. I put it in quotes here to remind myself that it is a choice not a truth. I have often thought that running 5 minutes late only affects me and the appointment to which I'm headed. But this points out that my five minutes late affects my ability to see, to act, to help. This is not the character I would like to share with the world. And yet it happens.
Retreat is a chance to let the momentum of my day-to-day life slow, to allow myself to be cared for with great meals, great movement, great great big skies. I adopt a different pace. The little box of my assumptions and plans can loosen and allow in a breeze, the stars, and a perspective that I had forgotten - who I am here to be.
This is Magic Time.
So we will arrive and decompress. The first practices will be playful, helping to ease us out of the intensity and seriousness we can cultivate around Getting It Done and start to redefine Getting it Done Right. Later practices will become caring and replenishing, and then releasing, and then rebuilding. We will walk, lots of time for yourself, a great local chef will have us in her care. A different structure to our outer days invites a different structure inside.
When we feel full and tended, our generosity arrives.
Magic Time is something we inhabit and remember. iIt is something that is shared with us, and then something that fortifies our ability to share what we are here to do, to be. and this is the work we all seek.
“When we are involved in a task so fully that we lose track of time, that is when we are at our most God-like, immortal, outside of time.” - Stephen Mitchell
If you want more details, if you have questions, if you are undecided and want to talk it out, for these reasons and for more, I am here for a conversation if you like. Reply to this email and set up a time to talk to me. Maybe you've never gone on retreat and it feels intimidating. Let's talk. Maybe you've been on retreat but this seems different. Let's talk. I'm not here to sell you, I'm here to help answer questions and listen and be sure this fits for where you are and what you want.
Like nearly every teacher, I'm teaching what I need. I feel hurried. I feel busy nearly all the time. It feels as though my days are set on ‘gallop’. And so the chance to set time aside and reboot is important and I am going on retreat to reset to ‘walk’ for a while.
"Everything that's stuck gets better when you unplug it for 5 minutes, and that includes us." - Anne Lamott
If you would like to try a smaller version, a one evening-one day-one morning home immersion, try out this weekend with me. Details + registration.
Check your schedule. Check your heart. Check your pace. Check out the website. Set up a call with me.
Most of all, choose your pace with deliberation, and see who’s around you, what’s around you, what’s within you that requires attention. Slow down so your generosity can bloom again. I will.
I am ready to see what’s around me and how I can help.
All love, Martha
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Retreat details here.
Home immersion here. This Friday PM, Saturday AM +PM, Sunday AM.
I will have free morning classes live on Zoom + YouTube MWF 8-9:30am Oct 16 - Nov 10.
Vinyasa for 50 minutes, breath for 10 minutes, and meditation for 15 minutes.
Leave when you need to. Zoom link will be on the front page of my website. Door’s open xx
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