The Wounded Yogini: Back To Base Camp

Ruminant With A View

by Elizabeth Boleman-Herring

TEANECK, NJ—(Weekly Hubris)—9/13/10—My father was a dinosaur even before his premature death, of stroke, in 1972.

He was a non-proselytizing Presbyterian; a quiet, if not silent, Christian. If anyone ever twigged to the truths of his personal belief system, it was because he so thoroughly walked the walk (as opposed to talking the talk).

He also played golf with an old, beat-up set of clubs, in an old bag, which he carried, himself, on public greens. He was an athlete long before fancy sneakers, fancy clubs, fancy memberships. No logos; no greens fees. No manicured turf. Golf as it was played on the olde sod, amongst the rocks and rubble.

And, he was a gentle, post-Freudian therapist who practiced out of his home office, at all hours. He believed in talk-therapy, and unabashedly loved his clients.

His only prayer for me, always, and it wasn’t said often aloud was: “May she be healthy of body and mind.” Body came first, and I followed in my athlete-father’s footsteps though, for half my life, I never found my niche in sport.

My mother was pretty much in charge when it came to the matter of lessons. She had wanted to “go on the stage,” herself, so I took drama, and acted, professionally, early. I hated it. I also hated piano, French, ballet, gymnastics, modeling and tennis. My father, the swimmer, taught me swimming and diving. I took to the water naturally, but never competitively.

So, when I came to Yoga, in my early 30’s, it was as though I’d made my way, very, very slowly, through a maze of possibilities, and come out on the other side of a useful labyrinth . . . to a cool, deep, clear, fast-running stream. And, I could see in the far distance, that that stream—the study of Yoga; the lifelong, or lives-long, practice of Yoga—lead to the ocean. Or to God. Enlightenment wears many faces.

Through the body, through the mind, through the soul, I would reach that sea towards which we all travel. I was convinced of it from Day 1 on the mat. But, only in late mid-life, at 50, could I turn aside from practical matters and devote myself to the path. From 50 to 58, I lived, breathed and ate Yoga, morning, noon and night.

Enter the devil.

Enter my broken back. At age 58.

In the midst of life, in the midst of studying and teaching Yoga, in the midst of joy, I was stopped cold against a wall; blocked from re-entering that stream of life and learning it had taken me decades to find; almost a decade not to master, but to know. Seemingly.

Like Barbaro, coming down the stretch with a broken right ankle, it took me a while—in my case, a stubborn, damaging half-year—to realize the extent of my disability. At first, I did asana (Yoga poses) “through the pain.” I’d been brought up a Presbyterian, remember. Pain? That little thing? That wouldn’t stop me. My body was saying, in every language it could, “Stop.” I just could not believe what I was hearing.

Four of Kubler-Ross’s stages of grief followed on the heels of my spinal fusion surgery: denial, anger, depression and grudging acceptance. Bargaining, I left out. At least I was spared that, given my long training in the spiritual arts.

I had chosen, I had consented to, incarnation in a human body, I believed. I had got round to using that body on the path to enlightenment late in life. It was not my body’s “fault,” nor “God’s” that my spine, like Barbaro’s legs, could not serve my mind’s purposes.

Or could not, for the time being . . .

Which is where I stand, where I sit, where I wait, today.

In The New York Times, one of the last of the great newspapers, I recently read an article titled “Steps Back Give Solo Mountain Climber Perspective to Reach the Top” (by Aimee Lyn Brown, page 10, 8 August 2010: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/sports/08climber.html).

The article, in the SportsSunday section sub-titled “Outdoors,” relates the story of 26-year-old solo climber, Althea Rogers, who was literally blown off a mountain in the southern Andes, ending a two-and-a-half-month solo climb and, almost, her life. With broken ribs, she spent five weeks alone at her base camp, waiting to heal, reading and re-reading Alfred Lansing’s Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage.

Writes Brown: “At the end of the ordeal, Rogers returned to the United States ashamed of her failure to complete the climbs. She could not separate herself from the fruitlessness of the attempt. In her mind ran a single refrain: I’m an awful person; I’m an awful climber.”

Brown explains, “The propensity to measure one’s value by achievement in athletic pursuits is sometimes referred to as the athlete’s identity.”

Of course, the story has a happy ending. Rogers learns temperance, patience and the rewards of every step of the climbing process before she returns to tackle the big peaks. She learns from her time in base camp.

Which is where I, too, find myself today. No longer swimming along, mindlessly, in that cool stream to the sea, but no longer in that stall with doomed Barbaro, either.

On my surgeon’s and Back Rehab crew’s reports, I’m described as “an elite athlete” . . . if a sidelined, rather aged one. Back in the labyrinth of learning and re-learning; back in the base camp or preparing, and re-preparing.

Next month, next winter, next year, perhaps I will return to the climb, with the body-I-have-then.

. . . for, unlike human beings, with their four limbs, or Barbaro, with his four, Yoga has eight limbs to support its forward progress. According to the great sage, Patanjali, these are: 1) adherence to the universal moral commandments; 2) self-purification through discipline; 3) asana (or the poses/postures best known to the West as “yoga”); 4) rhythmic control of the breath; 5) emancipation of the mind from domination by the senses; 6) concentration; 7) meditation; and, finally, 8) samadhi, or that state wherein the individual spirit becomes one with the over-soul; or, whereby that stream of mine meets the sea.*

For the longest time, Yoga has meant, for me, asana. Yoga has meant, virtually, standing on one of eight limbs. Silly, when you have another seven . . . .

So, may I be “healthy of body and spirit,” if not ever again completely eight-limbed. Seven shall suffice.

*For more on the eight limbs, etc., etc., read Light On Yoga, by B.K.S. Iyengar.