10/23/15: Back in the Saddle

No, not the really-bad-photography saddle. Nor the really-boring-blog one, either.

Rather, today's yoga was a whole-hog return to my core, nomadic values -- new town, new Walmart, new parking lot, new energies. Yeah, still North Carolina, but in the Piedmont now, with its sandy, lowland Piedmont-y groove. And, yes, like yesterday's gym, this Walmart was a Walmart, and my stay was no more adventurous than a leap over a particularly large mud puddle -- but, by golly, it sure beat the tried-and-true.

As I left, my visit felt far more rewarding that it should have

10/22/15: Another Gym

Okay, so I yoga'd in a gym, still; and, still, in the mountains of western NC. This one, at least, was on the road, and had not been previously graced with my presence in this manner.

Beyond that, not much to say. The gym was a gym, with an appropriately wooden-floored stretching-room (which I actually used for stretching; it felt like resting in a rest room, sort of). There was a complimentary mat, always a nice thing. Likewise, a complimentary private bath/shower-room in lieu of a public locker room, also always nice to have. I was happy, yoga'ing here.

Goodness.

10/15-21/15: Back to the Mountains

Recall "The Yard" and "The Gym," those two haunts of mine up in the mountains of western North Carolina, seen so frequently in this blog as of late. Well, this last week, they comprised the scenes of my yoga sessions.

It's why you're getting a picture of the rolling Appalachians and their peaking leaves, rather than a rehashing of the same old scenes I've plastered this blog with already.

Again, the yogi's whereabouts aren't too speculative, lately. And, again, I have excuses ... but, really, it just comes down to a desire for the routine and the easy. My present life-circumstances just haven't been too conducive to adventure or bold experimentation; and, personally, such a downturn in general energies tends to attract me to the ordinary and predictable.

Then again, everything goes in cycles. Who knows what the future might hold?

10/8-14/15: Relapse

I've relapsed into my private, indoor-yoga addiction. Hard.

Sure, on one or two days this week, I had a good excuse for staying in -- weather, time constraints, feeling unwell, etcetera. The rest? I just craved privacy and comfort, and gave in to that craving. Simple as that. These days, I can see the draw of the hermit's life; without obligation or appointment or need for extravagance, it's so easy to just slip into the moment and bliss out, sheltered from the world's great many noises. Add to that that I've just been more reclusive in general lately, as well as my relative settling-down for almost two weeks here at the beach, and, well ... the wandering yogi hasn't been wandering too much.

Where is the yogi? Easy: right yonder in that there living room.

10/7/15: Now That's More Like It

South Carolina's floodwaters are receding. The clouds have parted. The sun has emerged, and I with it.

Yoga was on the beach this morning, and, oh my, did it again feel like the beach (like a good, proper beach, with no attacks from mysteriously carnivorous flies). Besides being my‏ first "real" session in days, it was my first sun exposure in as long. Sun is like sex, for me: I can take vitamin D pills, and go to a tanning bed, and use a lightbox, and any other masturbatory substitute, but there's just nothing like the real thing (baby).

However, today's session was characterized, above all, by gratitude: for the rain as much as the sun, for the consummate whole of the experience -- the expansion and the contraction of it, the inhale/retreat and the exhale/advance, the going and the coming. Etcetera. Without darkness, there could be no light (or, at least, true appreciation of it).

10/5/15: Ceiling Yoga

Okay, so this post's title is a bit misleading (or, actually, it's an outright lie). I can't do yoga on the ceiling (yet ...).

The picture is, rather, just what I see when doing yoga in the living room of that beach-front property I keep circling back to. For want of posting yet another boring snapshot of the living-room tableau, as it were. (And yes, it would seem the wandering yogi isn't wandering so much, as of late. I did, at least, have a really good excuse for staying inside, today: I'm in the middle of the SC coast, and the one road leading to my current residence is flooded out.)

Anyway, it was a good session, despite the familiar setting. And, good yoga is good yoga, I say.

(And, as for yesterday? Another "no time, had to skip it.")

10/2-3/15: Another Gym

Well, maybe "another" is too kind: it was the same one I've visited several times lately, that cloistered little purple-carpeted stretching area, back in my hometown (because I've looped back "home" again, presently).

There's nothing left to say about yoga-ing in this gym, other than that, unlike the others in my string of indoor sessions, this one was truly a result of weather (don't be fooled by the recycled picture: it was violently rainy, the sun nowhere to be seen). I was every bit willing to outdoor-park it up, today, if not for the curious, miniature monsoon that is gripping the East Coast at the moment.

(Recycled-picture excuse: the gym hasn't changed a lick, other than its dearth of sunshine. That, and I forgot my phone in Kalki ...)

9/29-10/1/15: I Do Love AirBnB

Yes, I am a fan of the quasi-nomad thing, living in Kalki the RV and bumming about the place. But, car travel appeals to me about equally, which goes double when AirBnB is thrown into the equation.

An adorable, antique cottage in Winston-Salem, NC, this time. Though the place lay nestled in the heart of the city, you'd never know it, from the property's rural serenity. I had planned on yoga'ing about the town, to break my indoors streak if nothing else, but one look at the wood-floored living room and its warm, shaggy rug, and I knew I'd be a recluse for the new few sessions. And I was, and they were wonderful, even progressive. A fine place to inch forward in my yoga, I say.

9/28/15: Not an Addict

I did another of those gloomy, hermit-like indoor-living-room sessions today. But it was only because of outdoor allergies, and rain. I'm not addicted to the comfort zone afforded by private, personal space. Really.

Okay, so it was rainy and pollen-y out. But I would've yoga'd indoors anyway today, I think. Another of "those kind" of days (though, as this blog might demonstrate, I'm not addicted to the comfort-zone teat, either).