Day 37, I greet you.
I flailed with you this morning. Simple, slow Level 1 focusing on allowing all the arm movements to originate from my core – like a Qi Gong master! It felt awesome.
Speaking of Qi Gong, I recently started teaching at a private, local hospital that serves people with chemical dependencies or who are in chronic, debilitating pain or who have been diagnosed with various mental challenges.
I was hired as a Tai Chi (taiji) instructor – I am a certified Internal Martial Arts instructor – for the women’s unit.
However, the clientele of this hospital are only there for about a month at a time and even though I teach twice a week, I generally only get to work with the same person 2 or 3 times total.
My point is: I can’t teach the usual taiji or xinyi stuff because repetition is key to getting anywhere with it.
Instead, I teach gentle Ortho-Bionomy self-care stuff, talk about the principles of taiji, and about how all of taiji is based on nature.
Then, we practice becoming an oak tree or the ocean or even, one day, a bridge – depending on what aspect of nature calls to my students for that particular day.
We talk about how the strength and firmness we feel when we are an oak tree, for instance, might help us negotiate challenges in our lives.
My intention is for anyone who attends my class (even if only once) to walk away with some small insight or skill to help them in their recovery and in their return to ‘normal’ life.
We also (yay!) play with Shiva Nata… the very basic positions and level 1 spirals.
Even more important than me teaching a bit of Shiva Nata is how my own practice of Shiva Nata is influencing how I teach there.
The group I lead takes place at the same time as everyone is being given their meds.
So, students are constantly coming and going, distractions abound, and no one is able to really focus for very long.
For me, my Shiva Nata-enhanced ability to adapt quickly to an ever-shifting group of people, to not take it personally when a student leaves to get her meds and then doesn’t return, and to juggle a wide variety of things all happening at once, has been incredibly helpful.
So today, I’m offering much, much, much gratitude to this practice that is Shiva Nata.
And also, I want to offer gratitude to all of you here, playing in your own way with this dance. I know it is influencing every aspect of your life in ways both great and small, both seen and unseen.
I want to take a moment here, now, and acknowledge this truth.
Now, let’s check in with a few of the other explorers:
Over at the Cranky Shivanaut, Cranky Fiber Girl has now posted 37 (37!!!) days in a row. I am beyond amazed. 
ShivaNuts Unite’s very own Kalyani is continuing her Expedition with her usual flair and depth. I particularly loved this post where she speaks about these 40 days from the perspective of the Hero’s Journey. It’s so worth a read!
Also, Eleanor joins us over at ChaosLaughs. I love her gorgeous photos and the kindness that infuses her writing. Plus, she noticed that Dec 1 marked both day 31 of the Expedition AND 31 days left in the year. How cool is that?
I’m curious:
I spoke about how my Shiva Nata practice is sneakily influencing an aspect of my life. Do you have any similar experiences to share? Or, how does day 37 find you?
I wish I could tell you that I’ve been doing Shiva Nata every day… but I can’t. I wish I could say that I was finding a way to sneak it into my yoga & pole classes … but I can’t say that either. What I can say is that when my mind gets too busy, in the middle of meditation, or in the middle of my ToDo list, or in the middle of the night, I can always do the first level of Shiva Nata (mentally or physically) and I easily pass through the confusion. The mental chatter disappears and I become calmer and gentler. Although I don’t do enough to get a specific epiphany, perhaps the calmness is a hidden epiphany of the body instead of the mind.
Although I was unable to stick to the 40 days of physical Shiva Nata, I’m glad to say that it is forever stuck in my mind. And that itself is something I too am grateful for.
Lira, I’m pretty sure that research shows that mental nata is pretty much identical to physical nata. Your mind doesn’t know the difference! Blessings, Kalyani
“a hidden epiphany of the body…” I love this comment! Yay!
Day 37 finds me wondering how the past 36 days flew by so quickly, and, once again, being pleasantly surprised by how a regular practice can add so much ease and flow into my life. Problem solving becomes easier because I see connections. My theme “to get back on my feet” has pretty much fallen neatly into place. I’m still working on establishing a healthy morning routine, and trying to get better food into my house. (Luckily, my Hippie is out of town on business next week, so I can clean out the pantry and replace some of those processed foods with things I can feel better about eating.) (Though PMS drove me into Ruby Jewel for a salted caramel chocolate ice cream cone yesterday.
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I’m grateful for you guiding these expeditions, Larisa, because they teach me something about my relationship to the practice and my relationship to routines. Though I missed a few days this expedition, my practice and my writing are both flourishing—I just need to remember to find the little spaces of time in each day to do them.
I was thrilled tonight to do Level 1H, from the teaching side, with legs, keeping up with “Bust a Move” with only a few pauses to remember which way to move. I can do legs now (almost)! Whee!
Whee!!! So thrilled to hear all the awesomeness learning about your relationship to the practice and routines is bringing into your life. And, congrats on switching your brain (and body) from student mode into teaching mode.
I stopped keeping track of the days quite a while ago, because I realized early on how important the daily ritual of getting up and doing Shiva Nata and meditating is – there was no point to keep track of the days when this is something I’m going to keep in my life!
I feel like it is the first time I’ve ever created a ritual in my life, and it has allowed me to see the incredible value of ritual. Blogging was not something I maintained, because I much prefer doing active things – dancing, practicing contact juggling, stretching. This simple truth – that I am happiest when my body is moving – came to me as a Shiva Nata – generated epiphany. So clearly true, but so entirely missed until this week. There is so much I’ve learned regarding this, that it actually calls for a blog post or a journal entry. Yes, I’ve just been inspired to write more on this!
I’ll quit here, but want to express so much gratitude to you for the new levels of awareness that have come from your expedition!
“there’s no point to keep track of the days when this is something Im going to keep in my life” Damn. That’s *awesome*!
And, I love, love, love that you were able to release the blogging ritual in order to perform the ritual of movement that truly nourishes your body. That is truly beautiful.
It finds me well. I notice that I don’t really need a 30 or 40 day challenge with this particular practice. It is a habit, though that doesn’t mean there still aren’t days I don’t do a physical practice, and there are days when my physical practice just consists of doing Level 1 and Level 2 without thinking over and over and over while watching a movie or a TV show just because I like the pure “workout” of it. That is nice to know.
Hmmm. I have so much gratitude for the practice, for so many things, but I think the biggest change it’s had on my life is in how my brain works and in my balance. I wish I’d had had it back when I was taking figure skating lessons because maybe I could have actually done a spin. Then again, I was still on a thin blade on the ice and not on my carpet, so maybe not.
There are ice rinks around, you know. It might be fun to see just how your body feels on skates/ice now that you’ve done so much Shiva Nata.
Yay, still here! I can’t believe it’s been 40 days already. I’m going over my past 40 days of blogging to collect my data and see what’s next for me.
I so enjoyed being part of this Expedition. It inspired me to start a fun new blog. It helped me relax and learn how to play a little bit more. It helped me try new parts of the Dance that I’d never danced before. And of course, it helped make dancing a regular part of my day.
Thanks so much everyone!
Yay! So much gratitude to you for being a part of this Expedition, Jenny. I know I’ve said this before – I’m saying it again – it was SO inspiring for me to watch you write every day. While writing publicly is (clearly) not a part of my practice at this point, I so loved watching how the dance informed this whole new aspect of *your* online life.
I love that you did this Larisa, and I’ve enjoyed reading people’s comments. I didn’t really take part but I also did. (Didn’t -in that I didn’t actively visit here; Did – in that I did practice almost every day) Main noticing, creativity flowing – I think of it as my creativity potion…
Thanks for leading this even though I was just a kind of/sort of. xo
p.s. because of the creativity stuff and the just do it anyway aspects
shiva nata is so good for me as an artist (flamenco dancer), writer and business woman…