This is a strange way to re-start my blog. Pula, the original voice of Coqtales will likewise be no more. He is definitely here in real-life, prancing around, identifying tasty morsels for his wives and crowing with reckless pleasure and fearlessness. I have heard another crowing in the distance. Maybe this chicken-thing is catching on in the neighbourhood. He will disappear as the protagonist of these musings. No more human-rooster chimera. This may diminish the canny observations of a chicken-point-of-view but maybe it will be less confusing to the casual reader.

This time around we are human all the way. The topics will hover around the same juncture. My exploits in the garden, in the yoga studio and my meanderings in-between.

On a happier note, Nonyana, the seabright of the harem is sitting. I was curious what a coupling of her and Pula would produce. At first I was all terror. I could not find her you see. She is the smallest hen and as much as they have taught me every nook and cranny of my back garden, Nonyana is always a challenge. Her creamy colouring and true bantam size at a time when my garden begins to turn to jungle always leaves me a little apprehensive when she disappears and it’s all too clear that she must be sitting. When I did find her I had a big think about eggs and babies. I left one on her nest. Hope. Hope that the egg is a she.

Heat. Sanskrit is one of those dense languages with words that are crystallised concepts viewed from an infinity of facets. The word that translates to heat in simple terms is tapas. It can also figuratively describe the austerity, discipline, inner fire, determination and commitment that is required to persevere on the path of Yoga.

tapas- the inner flame

When applied to an asana class tapas is simply the physical heat generated from your practice. In some schools this heat is applied externally to heat up the room, or is encouraged by breathing practices that heat up the body. In the Iyengar system the heat must be generated from within as the fruit of your practice. In cool times it is easiest to appreciate this heat.

My morning practice requires that heat to begin to loosen my muscles, to  permeate those muscles with awareness. It’s as if I unlock my muscles and by so doing release my mind to wander in the field of my body. I was having such lofty thoughts during my own practice and when I taught class last week I noticed something… My winter classes are more aerobic and I was intrigued to see that same heating happen to the class. It felt like more than people warming up. To a practitioner of a group activity like Tai Chi it might make more sense when I say that it was as if there was a release or expression of a group energy.

On those very cold winters days a morning practice seems to permeate my body with that heat. Like a slow burning coal I carry that warmth throughout the day. I realise that this heat translates to that bubbling happiness at the end of a good practice. Those feelings describe a  further definition of tapas: self-purification. How else could you describe the lightness and clarity? In warmer weather I have never made the association of heat with the expression of my body and the calmness of my mind. Isn’t it interesting how the practice of Yoga seems to have the capacity for endless revelation?

Moving right along. 2/4 equals 50%, that is the number of the boys left. Yes! I am pumping my fists like Jomo Sono cheering Bafana Bafana* during better days. The human ran around and

Not quite as good as the video. Thanks SABC

around and around… with a net and some other pole device and actually managed to catch two of them. They flew straight into his net. Geez… some chickens just give us a bad name. I had mixed feelings about this. They are my offspring after all but just as the sorrow settled upon me, the 2 remaining boys tried to pounce some of the girls. I jumped into action to scatter their horny asses back into the shadowy depths of the garden. Now I must send some mind waves to keep the human going. They suffer major trauma after such events and usually slacken off. This cannot be allowed. There can be only one! Moi.

Anyway. Part of my mind wave coercion technique uses subliminal imagery. I am not very familiar with chicken recipes so I need your help.  Please send me some of your favourite, mouth-watering dishes. And stop looking at me like that!!

*Did you note my tip of the hat to the 2010 World Cup rip-off? We are drowning in too much patrioticity to quite realise how much FIFA is taking us for a ride. But that is a rant for another time.

Is the year just running away or what?

Autumn is here and new year’s resolutions are fading. For myself that represents my blogging. For my students that is coming to class or calling to start class. I couldn’t help but be struck by the imagery of the curling in and shrinking away of the vigour of summer. I think in pictures.

I started following my heroine, Margaret Atwood (@MargaretAtwood) yesterday. Puleng assured me I would be bored stupid. Little does she know how to a fan like myself every driblet from her ripe and juicy brain is like mango juice slipping down the chin. Yum! Yum! Double yum! Think she’s somewhere in Germany at the mo. Yesterday I sent her a direct message asking her to come to SA. I know how delusional that is but I like that I could have been a ripple in her ocean of thoughts. She is disappointingly not all witticism and self-revealing expression. I like to think that I can glean profound meaning from her otherwise factual declarations.

Oh dear, must get back to coding. Must pay the bills. Stolen moments, life’s little pleasures.

WARNING: If you see a tired, bleary-eyed looking hen walking down the road, avoid. Avoid at all costs, that is your life you will be playing with! That will be a seriously sleep deprived Puleng. The boys are making more noise than ever you see. Is it right to drug cockerels? I don’t see how else I’m going to catch them. I’m beginning to fear for my own life.

A point of interest about roosters  is their reaction to male offspring. I  can’t stand them!! In the jungle of course they would leave the nest and begin their own family but in these suburban environs it’s up to the humans to find a home for them. Fortunately I have noticed that they don’t yet have names. No names means that the pot has not been ruled out. Shocking you might think!! But I’ve heard of similar things that you humans do to your female offspring. Now that to me is shocking.

Anyway, I am meandering. Pretend. It’s so popular in these new psycho-babble-10-steps kind of ways. This kind of touchy-feely is rampant in the esoteric worlds but I see the concepts have put on a suit and tie and moved into the business world. Must be all those business-types secretly reading their wives energetically empowering books at night. The idea is that one must pretend. I know there is probably a more nuanced word for this, but it  is pretending, it’s playing the character that you want to be. The universe in it’s bountiful way needs only to see the heartfelt desire coupled with some consistent visualisation technique and water is but concrete walkway.

This led me to thinking about a theme that I often find with writers. The notebook. The capturer of those whimsical, fleeting, droplets of pure genius. I often mock this concept but as I turned it over in my mind it seemed to grow hair on it’s chest and a deep throated cockadoodle doo. Yes! So I am going to explore this writing persona. If you see some shady looking rooster furiously scrawling in a dark corner that will be me. It might even be in the queue at the local Spar, I so love perving other people’s purchases.

The gem for my inspiration has been the Guardian’s book section. They have a running series called Rules for writers.

My favourite has been by one of my all time best writers Margaret Atwood. Margaret Atwood’s rules for writers. They are funny, she must spend lots of time in airplanes. My friend joked that she must also not have ever heard of a pencil sharpener. I laughed but only until I realised the blasphemy of my actions. I throw myself at your feet Margaret.

The other is by somebody I have never read, a man by the name of Michael Morpurgo. Maybe you can enlighten me. I actually liked his rules more. His way of working resonated more with how ideas jump from my head to the screen.

Enjoy. Be inspired.

No, the buzz I am referring to here has nothing to do with politics and other peoples c** stained laundry. The buzz is technology, yup, Google Buzz. I haven’t even tried it out yet. What I wanted to talk about here is the way technology has become like a celebrity in itself. Everybody knows that technological visionaries like of course,  Steve Jobs,  have for a long time held rock star status within the geekeratti- but when the tech outfit has no one with quite that charm, their products jump into the limelight. So it is with Google. You’ve got to love brainyness to find the guys at the helm of that outfit charming but boy do they bring out drool worthy tech.

What’s more, their way of releasing software in dribs and drabs to selected audiences glued to the Interwebs is not much unlike the lines of people queuing outside Apple stores for the next blessing from Jobs. The only difference is that it is like queuing outside of the latest night club on a cold, wet and miserable winter’s night. Why? Because Google chooses who gets to play with their new wonder toy. Google picks you out of the miserable crowd, walks you down the snaking line and walks you through the gates of coolness. You feel like so special dude, those guys at Google chose me…. ME!! Does that mean I’m cool? Have they been investigating my surfing habits and picked me amongst all these googles of people? I’m sure there are people gagging to know their algorithm for choosing who gets to use their new software gadget. It’s probably right up there with PageRank.

Wow!! I must think of something really terrible to say on my first buzz post. What will it be called… buzzing?

I have always envied those prolific writers. You know, the ones who walk around with a notepad or Dictaphone to catch their every dripping thought. Now they just tweet their thoughts the whole day. The relentless deluge not quite stream-of-thought but a mixture of bragging, sharing ideas and communicating with friends. I had more luck when I walked around with my camera. It was even analogue ** gasp **. Maybe as a visual person I should go back to carrying my camera around as my visual Dictaphone.

I digress- what got me thinking about the topic is a conversation I had with a friend about writing. He is a lapsed writer, life has got in the way, but the yearning has never gone away.  Being the new year he is ripe with resolutions and one of these is to resume writing. What does one write about? How often? And of course, should writing only be a product of inspiration. I have read of numerous writers who paint a picture of the ordeal that is writing. A lot more than those with dripping thoughts. It seems that most of the time inspiration is just not there. It actually reminds me of quotes from many accomplished yogis. The similarity is that in both the discipline of practise is as, if not a more important quality than the thunderbolt that is the inspirational thought or the fleeting sense of enlightenment. As I too am seeking motivation for my resolutions, I thought I would share some quotations to keep the flames roaring. Good luck in your creative year ahead. I won’t ever give up the idea that we are all creative by nature.

“Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.”
W. Somerset Maugham

“However great a man’s natural talent may be, the act of writing cannot be learned all at once.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau

“What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.”

Samuel Johnson

“Discipline is the refining fire by which talent becomes ability.”
Unknown

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”

Jack London

Metro cops: thank you TimesLive

Dear Metro cop,
I’m tired of you waiting outside my house.
The rain is enough!! It pores as you snore.
After struggling to get out of bed and wind my way to work, you are the last straw.
Metro cop, get up and do something!!
All I hear is kaching, kaching, kaching.
Metro cop, what more can I say, when all you care about is your pay.
I’m tired Metro cop, not mouse but louse of my day.
My failed poetry. Besides, I know no Metro cop will be reading my blog. I’m just so tired. Everyday I drive down the road on the way to work and there they are. Trying to catch you out in a 60 zone, on a downhill, straight road. I know that besides this straight trajectory this happens to be a site of numerous crashes into the fencing that demarcates the koppies but this is night activity. Drunken night activity. When you get close to R500+ of ‘speeding’ fines on such a stretch of road it will be your turn to vent.
So just in case you are reading my blog, Metro cop, go away!!

This caused much consternation but a quick visit to the local chemist the following morning and she was a happy, burbling mass of joy. Alas, what was in her is now in me, Puleng and my friends husband. Like participants in one of the more annoying reality shows we have succumbed, to various degrees, to the debilitating effects of this bug.

For me, it translates to a slight bloating of the stomach, a mild fever and a feeling of lethargy. So in turning to my yoga medicine chest, I quickly found these simple but effective asanas.

In my drained state, it is clear that supports will be required. During times of weakness, the energy that remains in the body is better used to tackle whatever is causing you the dis-ease. Using chairs, blocks or foams is excellent in providing you the benefits of the pose without the physical effort.

I love the imagery of the body as river. In this river areas that have a sluggish or non-existent flow become a source of pollution. Likewise when you feel bloated like I do, by brining an opening to that area, the freedom encourages the release of those pent-up demons and a flow of positive energy to the affected part of the body. In this way the body begins to correct itself.

Lastly, that feeling of distress that accompanies sickness is countered by calming asanas. This can be emotionally calming, or mentally calming. The two are interlinked. In fact all these considerations I have discussed show very clearly how yoga works on multi-dimensional levels when addressing issues. The physical, emotional, mental, and of course, the spiritual.

So, let’s get to this shall we. This very simple sequence is as always not to be taken for a cure. It is specifically for targeting my current loosely defined ailment.

Supported Supta baddakonasana- direct movement of buttock flesh with belt towards, heels, support thighs if groins get sore (5-10 minutes).

Supported Setubanda Sarvangasana- tie centre thighs/shins, support abdomen and legs (5-10 minutes).

Supported Salamba Sarvangasana- chest open, great immune booster (5-10 minutes).

Vippharita Karani- cover or close eyes, abodomen supported (5-10 minutes).

Savasana- if back thighs stiff, have legs slightly apart (5-10 minutes).

Thanks to Bill Grainger at Yoga Font for the images.

I have replicated the classical yoga student extended vacation. This is when a student goes away or misses a few classes. One week passes and they still have the intention of returning to class. The second week passes and things start to fill the void left by the yoga class. By the third and subsequent weeks the desire diminishes like the last flutters of a candle.

Like the prodigal yogi, I have found that the new year can add fuel to those dieing embers and perhaps, just maybe perhaps, bring you back to the fold. So here I am. I won’t drudge up my list of blog resolutions, not because I don’t have them but to spare you the cliché(s). I am here, that is enough, for now.

I hope you like the new look. It is one I passed the first time around. I found it too hot, now maybe in the height of the green that is summer, it is not so blinding- more like fresh. Isn’t that how the new year is supposed to begin? Fresh perspectives.