At the end of every year and start of a new one I become reminded of cleaning.  Perhaps it’s the holiday mess that accumulates because of going out more and/or having more company around the home.  I definitely am reminded of it when it comes to taking down the decorations – which for me is one long string of techno-Christmas lights weaved in and through my curtains that hang on my large one wall of windows.  More than that though, I become aware of how messy my closet and special junk drawer “space” have become. I have a table in my apartment that, upon entering the home, I come in and dump everything onto and then walk away.  Sometimes I am quick at transporting these things to alternative homes but many times I am not.  Eventually I have to get another bag or box to sweep everything from the table into it and put that in the closet so the table would be clean when company comes over with the intention of cleaning it up again, but never get to it and so in the closet it remains.  I have done that three times now.  Has this ever happened to you?

There is all the intention in the world to get this stuff put away but it gets to a point where we’re not exactly sure why specifically we are keeping these things to begin with.  At some point in our own histories they might have been treasured memories or pieces of significant achievement, but now they are sealed in bags and boxes like skeletons in coffins packing our closet to the point of overcrowding - especially when the clothes don’t actually fit inside anymore.  Or maybe, the clothes are part of the problem too!

Looking into the New Year is like viewing a new home from the front door of the old one - all the possibilities that new space and life can create are untapped potential.  Looking beyond the material, I remind myself of what has taken place this past year that can stay in 2011 and not journey with me to 2012.  A year is like a trip, or a move to a new home, not everything needs to come with you.  Some things you give away.  Some you sell off.  And some you simply discard.

Aparigraha is the absence of avarice.  It is the fifth Yama (self-observance) a yogi endeavours to live by - non-grasping.  It’s the open palm approach to life and living.  In some areas of life, it’s incredibly hard to do.  Is there anything in your life that you are white-knuckling through?  It’s a tough question to ask one’s self.  Is there unwanted material, physical, and/or meta-physical junk that has been acquired in our storage areas of existence that has you feeling crowded or blocked up inside?  Perhaps now is a great opportunity to let it go?

Sometimes seeing the extremes of why it’s important is helpful too.  Two characters of fiction come to mind – Gollum from Lord of the Rings and, since Michael Burtch is a fan of DC Comics, Larfleeze, who possesses the Orange Power Ring – which is fuelled by the emotion avarice. These extreme looks at characters depict individuals, though honestly good intentioned, have now become burdened with an insatiable hunger that can never be quelled.  Even in death, Golem is clutching his precious and cherishing it.  Larfleeze has horded everything to himself to the point that all his closest friends and allies are energy constructs of dead people.  People he’s killed.  Sounds like a happy life.

So maybe there is something to this letting go.  I try to look at this releasing process in several areas at once: material, physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.  Start by cleaning out that space or place, or person that isn’t right for you anymore.  That ex you keep talking about, the job you hated that you’re no longer at.  It’s time to leave them and the old ideas surrounding them where they are.

My favourite song right now is Let it Go, by Carlos Gallardo and Peyton, one of the lyrics states, “You gotta let it go.  Close your eyes and you will see, you’re just a child playing God in a Universe of possibilities.”  And perhaps it’s true.

I have made a decision.  I am letting go of the idea that I am sick or unhealthy.  I am completely embracing the fact that I’m a fit and healthy person.  It’s not denying my status, but merely releasing the burden I have placed on it.  I’m opening up to the possibility of life.  I release the mental idea that there is only one way for me to live life – letting go of yoga – my practice and my profession.  Everything is packaged into little compartments that I rebel against it and live on this flip-flop imbalance of life.  I choose to allow spontaneity and creativity to have a say in my existence.  Life isn’t much fun for me without it.  And ofcourse, I’m opening the closet doors and facing those bags and boxes of whatever and letting them come out,  opening them up, looking in, and discarding what isn’t needed anymore.

 Perhaps it’s time to let go - to release the unwanted.  To open your hands wide and allow the winds of destiny to carry away that which is no longer needed and to make room for that which is to come.  Jai!

It’s crazy.  I know how it sounds.  Everything in life is about moving forward to get ahead.  Have to keep trying and pushing and fighting and struggling to make it.  Much effort is required to achieve victory – the win.  But sometimes, no matter how hard you fight and struggle and push, some things just don’t move forward.  They’re stuck.  You can’t figure it out and you try harder and exert more and try coming at it from different angles and still nothing.  Sometimes it’s just time to surrender.

It’s an awful thing - surrender.  It embodies a feeling of loss or defeat or that you’re openly admitting you’re a loser  - and now not trying is clearly letting others now just how much of a loser you truly are.

The image my mind always goes to is that of Tank Man, the unknown figure who stood in front of a line of tanks in Tiananmen Square.  The image gives me chills.  I can close my eyes and try to see what he saw.  Stand in his shoes and look down the barrel of on-coming tanks and think like Gandolf the Grey did.  No.  Here and no further.  Without a weapon or any defense.  The power of that gives me chills.

Perhaps we aren’t facing down a tank or surrendering our life in combat or starving ourselves for some purpose.  Here, just consider taking time to stop everything for a few minutes before continuing on your way.  I am reminded of watching dog trials on an obstacle course.  One of the great tricks they must master, besides jumping through hoops and running over a teeter-totter, is to sit down and be still in the middle of a race.  They even know that it’s a great talent and asset to stop for a moment, regroup and then come out again.  Isn’t that what half-time’s really about in sporting events?

Today is World AIDS Day.  Globally people are coming together to stand and speak up and out for 30 years of this disease.  It is fitting that today is also the first day of the One-Month Challenge of rest I wrote about earlier.  I had thought about doing something.  About putting something together and doing something impactful and profound but when it comes right down to it, there is only one thing I know how to do well – and that’s nothing at all.  Essentially it’s just another day – like any other day.

There is a sense of great honour that the World acknowledges this disease that my brothers and sisters past, present and future battle with.  But today on this day, I choose not to battle.  I choose to pause.  To “stand” and face my red-ribboned tank, close my eyes and surrender.  Just like every other day.  Jai!

How many times during the week do you find yourself having this debate?  Starving hungry you find yourself with two food options.  One is the bag of chocolate covered almonds (you can extrapolate this to any food with whom you share a bond) and the other is Greek salad.

Before you can figure out which one you think you should eat, you’ve already had six of the almonds.  So then you say to yourself that you can probably eat the salad afterwards but you already started on the almonds so you should stick with them and might as well finish the bag. So you do.  Then you turn to  the salad and see that some of the leaves have started wilting and you’re kind of full already so you toss the probably bad salad out.  Only half an hour later you find yourself gripping your stomach and cursing yourself fo not eating any better.  You are experiencing enormous pressure to eat well but always feeling like you came up short.  There have been periods where it has gotten so bad that you begin to realize that perhaps the reason you’re so tired is because you didn’t do a great enough job with food intake earlier.

Somewhere along the line, this became a bit of an obsession of mine.  I don’t know when it happened.  Given all the other things I have had going on in my 20s and early 30s it never really took centre stage  until earlier this year when I made a New Year’s Resolution to look at my food intake and try to figure out some of what I believed to be medication side effects.  I discovered a word that changed my perspective: orthorexia. It’s a fancy word used to describe people who have an unhealthy obsession with healthy food.   It’s a crazy thing to try to explain to someone, especially considering the problems earlier in life I had with food and dieting.  Add to that the anxiety of wasting,when in one month I have lost 30-50lbs from being  ill and having full blown AIDS.  There developed this incredible urge to try and eat better and the feeling not doing so could mean disaster.

The idea of this disorder, if it is a disorder, is quite controversial and has many in the health food industry up in arms.  In the summer, during a difficult struggle with this, I wrote a response on another website coming out about my personal battle that I want to share here in the hope that it sheds some light on this:

“I wanted to share my experience. Earlier this year I made a decision that I wanted to learn to cook more from home for myself. A New Year’s Resolution if you will that I had tried several times and all attempts failed. For the past 12-15yrs I have basically consumed almost every single meal I’ve had out at restaurants, take out places, or delivery etc. To eat healthy like that is a huge expenditure on my finances. I probably spend as much on eating out as I do on rent. I had adapted most of my life around doing this that I hadn’t even noticed till I wanted to stop. It never occurred to me how much I was afraid of food. Or rather afraid of making unhealthy food that may possible make me sick or ill.

In trying to cook for myself I would come home for 6pm and go into the kitchen and then it would suddenly be 11pm and I still hadn’t eaten anything. I get so overwhelmed sometimes that I would just rather not eat any food at all then eat something that might make me sick. This wouldn’t be so bad I think except that I work in the health and fitness industry and require my body to be in top physical form for the 10-15 classes I teach each week. Seriously. Like I mentally actually know better. Since I’m running all over the city from club to club everything is eaten on the go and bought at the various places I’m at.

Grocery stores, like kitchens, are another place of high stress. 3 months ago I was in one as the meal plan grocery list called for bean sprouts, but it didn’t specifically say how many bean sprouts or what kind or how it was supposed to be packaged and I seriously had a meltdown! Thank god for kind sympathetic strangers!! I even spent an hour searching Google for information on fresh ginger to ginger in a plastic tube that’s been pre-minced. I opted for the fresh ginger because I didn’t know what exactly was in the plastic tube plus the leaking of plastic into the “ginger” itself bothered me. Three days later I threw out the fresh ginger because I didn’t know if it had gone bad or not and couldn’t risk eating it or using it to find out.

I started seeking help back in February and now have a team of people supporting me. I have been working with a naturopath, dietician and psychotherapist plus practice a lot of yoga and meditation. 5 weeks ago my food goal was broken down to much more attainable goals. Right now I’m just trying to eat 3 meals a day. I know this may sound ridiculous to some people. It sounds ridiculous to me!!! But it’s been hard to make that for myself. But I am doing it. It doesn’t matter what is in the food as long as I’m eating it and making it myself. There are many days when I just stand there in my kitchen looking at the food frozen. I’m overwhelmed and have had to make many calls to friends just to take and breathe with them while I’m in there. But it’s getting done and I’m eating. I have notes and instructions and can still eat out every day if I want, but do attempt to make at least one meal in my own home.

I know some people may comment about all the techno babble and stuff about food but please, please, don’t. I really can’t handle it. Even reading some of the posts from some people it was clear to me that many don’t get it. Some of you I totally relate with, some of you posted things that made me dizzy and light-headed, and some of you posted things that make me not want to have dinner tonight or breakfast tomorrow.

This is me. This is my heart. This is me trying to get better and digest (Pun intended) the truth and reality of my existence.”

I wanted to say that things are going well.  There are several times when I need to check-in with myself to see if I have gone without food or avoided my kitchen on a regular basis.  As problems go, it’s quite a pathetic one to have and sounds crazy.  But it’s my own private crazy and now, I guess, it’s not so private anymore.

 Metta.

One of the greatest joys I have is getting behind the wheel of Mei Lin. She’s a great little Mazda 3 Sport that has a helluva kick to her. (Her real name has been changed to protect her reputation).

I swear if I ever get pulled over by the Police and they ask me about my driving, I will turn to them, look them straight in the eye, and say “Zoom zoom!!” The sad times are when I have to return her. She’s the lady that I love riding but don’t really want to keep. Sure I have taken her, and a few of her sisters, home to mom, but none of them are truly mine.

What has led me to be the little automonympho that I am? Zipcar. I love Zipcar.

I am a public transit person and have been my whole life. I had actually sworn off the idea of driving in my youth as something that only taxi-drivers and other manual labour people had to do. But me, someone of high esteem, does not drive, but is driven. Oh, the allure of getting into the back of a cab and having a sudden on-set of English accentism as I am caromed through the streets of our fair city, just because.

I was so proud of my anti-driving stance that I pooh-poohed those who did drive and subjected them to long drives out of their way to meet me  - in places without parking. Just to show them how awful they are. Actually, I was just scared.

As a child I got to ride in the front seat, with my two of my brothers in the back. I remember a time when we were in the car at a mechanic's shop and my dad was talking to some of his friends outside, working on another vehicle. Sitting in the front seat gave me a clear view of the handle (Ed: the gear shift) with all the little letters. I turned it to ‘D’ for ‘Daniel’! How harmless could that be? My brothers are yelling at me – “the car is moving! " I told them it was their imagination but as men came screaming towards while we inched closer to the vehicle parked ten feet away with men underneath it, it became clear that the D stood for something else. Disaster.

At sixteen I got my learner’s permit. You don’t actually need to drive a car to get that, just take a test. And I’m great at tests. Like a little show-dog, I’m great in the arena prancing around in my little circle in front of all the judges; just don’t ask me to do something in real life on the fly!

One summer I was working at a horse ranch as maintenance. When you look back over your life and remember certain things, this still shocks me today as a job I held for a few weeks! Seriously – I am asking you not to laugh; it’s just too funny when I remember it! Since I was seventeen and the other guy was sixteen, which made me the senior in our crew, the keys to the beat up old Dodge pick-up were mine. In those few weeks I hit two trees, a tree stump, a staff member, ran over someone’s foot and left it in neutral at the top of the hill – so I was pretty amazing. It was when I almost hit one of the young campers that somehow my assistant got a new promotion.

From then on, I vowed that I had completed my lifetime’s work in the field of transportation and was willing to leave that up to the Sulu’s and Chekov’s of this world. We Spock’s must move to bigger and better things.

It wasn’t until the past few years, that there were even thoughts of driving again. Lululemon has a  manifesto – a collection of quotes and sayings that sum up their corporate ideology and mode for living. On it there is one motto that resonates with me “Do one thing each day that scares you”. Now I am not sure if I fully live this, but there were many things that I have allowed fear to stop me from ever trying. It is frustrating, and expensive to constantly take cabs, even though I love the decadence of it. But what if I were able to do it myself? Now that would be something. I could go camping when I wanted to, or to Ottawa or Montreal on a whim, if I chose. So I decided to take lessons.

My first time in the car, I had an anxiety attack. I actually started in classwork first, and had a series of anxiety attacks there too. I don’t know, maybe I’m just afraid my half-Asian side will kick in and express itself in stereotypical driving clichés. Anyway, I drove like an old lady! I took my time.

After several months I was ready to take my driving test. I failed. The second time was a success and when I called my friends and family to let them know, I believe there was a hint of trepidation in their congratulatory sentiments.

Zipcar gave me a viable option for getting on the road in short order. One of the things I never thought would happen was my love of speed. The freedom of the wheels opened up new doors. I started offering to guest teach outside of my little bubble of the world. I’m not exactly a great explorer – I don’t really see myself moving off to Europe for the summer or backpacking through Brazil - but now, maybe one or two evenings a month I can drive myself out to another city and teach there [I love you Moksha Yoga Peterborough!]. It’s my mini-adventure – exploring new worlds and new opportunities - to boldly go where this little city dweller has never gone before.

What’s the other exciting part? Cruising the mean streets of Toronto with my best friend in tow, pumping the music and trolling for bears and cougars. That’s right y’all! We go hunting at night! And how do we celebrate a hunting feast? Late night ice cream on hot waffles. Oh yeah. That’s just how we roll! Jai!

Note: The Normal Heart is reviewed by Bob Leahy on PositiveLite.com here.

Last week I had the opportunity to go and see a preview of The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre with my mother. Around mid-September I get a call from her about this performance and honestly, I was weirded out about it. More so by her comfortability around the subject matter more than I was.

The show was powerful. I was confronted with dialogue and imagery that haunts the newly diagnosed and the long-term survivors, both with equal dread. I do not want to give the story or details away of what happened, but there is an incredible amount of struggle, anger, fear and getting active to do something - but at the same time not sure what to do.

I wasn’t around back then, As the story was unfolding before me and all around me, my mind kept thinking about what is happening in the present day. Coming out and becoming HIV+ within a year, things moved fast for me. I have never watched any friends die. I only ever knew one or two others who were poz and it almost a decade before I met others. I never had multiple people I know vanish from the planet en mass. What was interesting for me was I honestly did not know how much self-identity and disease were thought to be linked. It’s also kind of ironic, as in my case, they were. I guess I’m naive like that. Honestly I may be brilliant and have a genius-level IQ but when it comes to wisdom I tend to come up short.

I also marvelled at the passion and drive these pioneer activists were portrayed as having. Still, I know many in this community, our community, have risen to take up this mantle and rise and speak up and out and for something. People believe that this platform or that idea are the right way to go about it. I think it’s wonderful.

I have never considered myself an activist. The name implies movement in a direction of some kind and I have always considered myself more of a lazivist. What would it have been like for me if my then was their then? Hmmm... I don’t know.

My mother was a nurse during the early 80s. She was a first-hand witness to some of the actions, fear, paranoia and anger created in humans dealing with other humans in the Toronto hospital system. She remembers when I was first diagnosed and how, as she puts it, the doctors and everyone kept their distance from us and gave us lots of room – and not in a good way.

I didn’t actually think I would love the play as much as I did. Not that I had a pre-judgement of anything specific, it just really caught me off guard about how raw and real the emotions behind this would be and how close to home this was hitting.

For some of us this battle has been going for 30 years. For others it’s been 30 minutes. For all of us, right now, it’s the rest of our lives, however long that is. That feels daunting and the weight of that reality is heavy. But now, thanks to those that voiced and brought attention, support, compassion, love, respect and family, I have something that I believe many now can also have in great abundance more than the 30 years that came before. And that is hope.

 Metta.