Seasons of Practice: Order, Disorder, Reorder
As many of you know, I am enjoying the unfolding of spring here in the Pacific Northwest. Having lived most recently in the High Rockies—where the land is still covered in snow in April, and in Texas before that—where spring is a few weeks of not-so-hot weather before the hot-AF-summer begins, the slow, steady emergence of spring in Washington brings a delightful reminder of nature’s process of rebirth and renewal. Each day, new buds emerge, flowers blossom, and the already-green landscape grows deeper and more vibrant in its hue.
I am enjoying the rhythm of teaching daily asana classes via zoom, renewed connections with friends and students, and life in a new town with the afore-described spring glory. Locket is progressing along in her studies, I am scheduled for my second Pfizer shot Wednesday afternoon, and I have a trip to Texas planned for my 52nd birthday to visit my dad, my sister, and to teach some yoga.
In many ways, I feel like the spring flowers I see on my morning walk— slowly emerging after a winter of being underground and growing toward the sun of a new season. The year without travel has been grounding and clarifying in ways I didn’t anticipate in the early days of the pandemic. Looking ahead, I hope to travel some, phase out teacher training, incorporate programs for inner work, and continue exploring the shapes that make up my asana practice and teaching life.
I am experiencing a sense of spring in my own asana practice and teaching work with a renewed interest in the postural practice. One of the blessings of teaching yoga is I have showed up year and after year to teach, whether my enthusiasm for the subject was waxing or waning. I have taught through periods of great insight, inspiration, and passion. I have taught through burnout, disdain, and disillusionment. (And to be clear, when I say it is a great thing to have stayed the course through the many seasons of my interest, that doesn’t mean my ups-and-downs have always been awesome for me, my students, or for my friends. So there is that.)
My social media feeds, which are heavily populated with yoga teachers, fitness enthusiasts, and health coaches, give me ample opportunity to observe the many cycles present in other people’s journeys. From happy discoveries to heart-breaking insights, from finger-pointing to pontificating, from outrage to humble brags, we are all walking through various and somewhat predictable stages of growth in this strange business.
Richard Rohr outlines three primary stages of spiritual growth in his books and lectures as Order, Disorder and Reorder.
Order might be the flush of new love with yoga, the delight of discovering the simple power of breath-based movement or the thrill of chanting mantra. Order might live on the pink cloud of teaching when you are simply grateful to share the practice you love or in the diligent work required to learn the basics of alignment. Order is when it it really feels like it is working.
Depending on who you are, the Order phase can last a long time or be upended reasonably quickly when Disorder arrives. Maybe your teacher disappoints you, you discover your community is not as enlightened as they seemed, or you realize that the teachings which seemed so liberating have dark roots in misogyny, classism, and heteronormative injunctions. Maybe the alignment principles you were told would keep you safe didn’t or the progress you expected to see remains elusive. Maybe after participating in a high-demand group you find yourself less psychologically healthy than you were when you started your journey. (I say maybe. I can neither confirm nor deny that these are personal examples. Okay, I can confirm that I speak from experience.)
And while, it is possible to get stuck in Order and remain somewhat fundamental in our views, we can also remain stuck in the upset, despair, and cynical criticism of Disorder. Criticism is fine and necessary for growth. Being stuck in criticism to the point that we become cynical is not so desirable, in my experience. Reorder emerges when fundamentalism has been questioned, the pink cloud has burst, the doubts have been examined, the good and the bad is integrated, and a new relationship to the path emerges organically. Like spring flowers that grow according to a timetable that can not be forced, I have yet to find a way to accelerate my own process beyond its intrinsically -determined pace. Of course, I can actively participate along the way and dream work, psychotherapy, self-examination, and meditation all help with integration. Still, growth takes time and well, time takes time.
I can remember my own times of unencumbered enthusiasm as well as my long phases of finger pointing about what is wrong with modern yoga. I remember the years I was focused on who was and wasn’t doing x, y, or z and when I saw my offering in opposition to those observations, rather than in its own right. Remembering my own messy growth helps me when I scroll through the litany of posts on a newsfeed, which reflect some stage of growth someone else is in. And, whether I like it, hate it, agree or disagree with what is going on, very little of what I see on social media has much to do with the value I personally find in meditation, prayer, mantra, and asana.
And, while I do love rebirth and renewal, my Reorder phase will most certainly rigidify in some way and become a new Order which eventually will require dismantling in the same way that spring inevitably turns to summer and fall inevitably leads to winter. Life reflects practice, practice reflects life.
All right, if you made it this far, thanks for staying the course, whatever season you are in.
More soon. Keep the faith.
