Waking

by Matthew Sanford

  The experience of a body memory is hard to describe. I now know the feeling in my body when our car shot hard left as our tires hit dry pavement. I can feel the car tumble from left front corner to end over end. More than anything, I can feel the terror of traumatic time, the pause, the hanging, just before impact. (This feeling is still triggered when I am landing in an airplane and the brakes engage.) I now know that the blow to my upper thorax came from the right side at a downward angle, sweeping through my torso, from right-side ribs to left hip. I also know—from the “inside”—my shallowness of breath, my struggle for air, and my drift into shock at the accident scene. Still, twenty-five years later, if my spine moves too much or too quickly during yoga, I go into a mild version of past shock. My spine is still letting go of the echoes of trauma.

  These memories are not visual. They are not thoughts. They are experienced, something like the inward feeling of falling in a dream, only to wake up just before rolling off the bed. They are pauses of fright and held in the silence before breath. They are my body bearing witness to what my mind could not.

  As I lie in that hospital bed, I am temporarily living in more than one dimension of time. I did not expect this level of healing. I thought that losing the metal in my back would be enough, that this would neatly end a twelve-year chapter of disintegration. Healing, however, is not instantaneous. It is earned. There is no way to step around my body’s past experience. I am terrified. My body has much to say, and it needs acknowledgment. More important, I need to feel grateful.

  As I wake up to the horror of traumatically induced body memories, I am forced to feel death—not the end of my life, but the death of my life as a walking person. I absorbed death as I watched that young boy having screws twisted into his skull. The silence within which I found refuge was a level of dying.

  In principle, my experience is not that uncommon, only more extreme. We all experience different levels of dying throughout our lives—the process of living guarantees it. As each day passes, especially in our later years, we become increasingly aware of our own mortality. If we can see death as more than black and white, as more than on and off, there are many versions of realized death short of physically dying. The death of a loved one sets so much in motion: grief, a sense of loss, tears, anger, a transcendent sense of love, an appreciation of the present moment, a desire to die, and on and on.

  Then there are also the quiet deaths. How about the day you realized that you weren’t going to be an astronaut or the queen of Sheba? Feel the silent distance between yourself and how you felt as a child, between yourself and those feelings of wonder and splendor and trust. Feel your mature fondness for who you once were, and your current need to protect innocence wherever you might find it. The silence that surrounds the loss of innocence is a most serious death, and yet it is necessary for the onset of maturity.

  What about the day we began working not for ourselves, but rather with the hope that our kids might have a better life? Or the day we realized that, on the whole, adult life is deeply repetitive? As our lives roll into the ordinary, when our ideals sputter and dissipate, as we wash the dishes after yet another meal, we are integrating death, a little part of us is dying so that another part can live.

  What happened to me was simply more dramatic. I absorbed an unusual dose of death at an age when I still had much living to do. Then I made it worse by working to overcome my paralyzed body. I used my will to step over it, to step over a perceived death of two-thirds of my body. My actions unknowingly injured me. Now, I can’t stop crying because in this hospital I am experiencing the convulsing body of a suffering child, but I am doing so as an adult.

  I am like a person choking on a piece of food—the slow motion feeling as the morsel lodges in the windpipe, the startled pause when breathing is no longer possible, the convulsive coughing that frees the blockage, and finally the watering of eyes as the peril is realized in retrospect. I have been living within that pause, a clenched stillness that grips the silence of death. The body memories are the convulsive coughs—desperate attempts to start living again. And finally the tears, the letting of water that expresses the pain of my denial.

  During the previous twelve years, I have borrowed against my body. I have unwittingly relied upon the resounding beauty of its discipline against death. When I “left” my body during my traumatic experiences, it was my body that kept tracking toward living. It was my body that kept moving blood both to and from my heart. Often, as we age and can no longer do what we once could, we say that our bodies are failing us. That is misguided. In fact, our bodies continue to carry out the processes of life with unwavering devotion. They will always move toward living for as long as they possibly can. My body did not ask for the rupture that it experienced, but it somehow survived it.

  I am still returning to my body and will do so for the rest of my life. I will leave this hospital with the crushing realization of my body’s commitment to my living. I did not mean to take it for granted.

  14

  Maha Mudra

  When I return home from the hospital, everything seems the same—my blue velvet chair, the sounds of my fridge, the creaking of my wood floors. Everything except for the feeling that I have recently chatted with aliens. That’s how my body memories strike me. How could my body have memories? Bodies don’t have memories, minds do. Not only did I believe this growing up, but my philosophical studies reinforced it. Now, in the span of a few days in the hospital, my sense of who I am, where I begin, and where I end once again has broken wide open. My body interacts with the world and records it regardless of whether my mind is having any experience.

  This seems simple enough. For example, at any given time, the back of my head is visible to the world during every instant that I am awake. My body is also present in every second that I am alive, even while I am sleeping. Both of these thoughts are easy to grasp intellectually, but to feel them—that is different altogether. I felt these body memories in three dimensions. They went beyond two-dimensional mental experience and instead expressed themselves through the three-dimensional experience of my body. That my body could be a possessor of memory made me confront something that was now undeniable. My body—not just my mind—is also conscious. How does one truly open to something like this?

  The act of “opening” consciousness makes us feel both uncertainty and the onrush of silence that comes with it. This is one of the reasons that becoming more aware is often painful. There are many stunning things about the Grand Canyon. One of them is the eerie silence that accompanies its vast expanse. It is both awesome and unsettling—one knows not to stand too close to the edge. The feeling of openness and a confrontation with silence are deeply related.

  Opening to the fact that my body was conscious caused me intense grief. I took advantage of my thirteen-year-old body so many years ago. It was subjected to profound violence and I abandoned it in the process. Did I really need to? Was it really my only option? The existence of these body memories made me confront the silence and uncertainty of recognizing my own mistakes.

  I went into surgery believing that the rods impeded my path to yoga. I came out the other side into a much bigger world, to a much bigger me. I felt like a cat who has been inside all winter and is abruptly tossed outside when the weather thaws—hunched to the ground and deeply suspicious of the immensity of open space. I had to accept on yet another level that I was profoundly injured. Worse yet, I had to admit that I was partly the cause. I needed a healing story, a way to stay grounded in this very painful and uncertain place.

  I came across a Zen parable:

  A monk sits cross-legged in the middle of the road, meditating on existence. A powerful insight consumes him: He and the Universe are One. He intuits further that the Universe, being One, would never harm itself. And as long as he stays connected, he too will never come to harm. During this timeless thought, he feels the ground shaking. He looks up and sees an elephant walking down the very road on which he sits. He smi
les inwardly and continues to meditate. As the animal draws closer, he opens his eyes again. A man is standing on the back of the elephant, waving his arms and yelling, “Get out of the road! Get out of the road!” Completely confident in his realization, he returns to his meditation. The elephant squashes him. As he lies there hemorrhaging to death, he calls out, “How did this happen? I don’t understand.” His Zen master comes out of the ditch, walks over to him, and says, “Didn’t you hear It tell you to get out of the road?”

  I was about to commit to the study of yoga and do so with a paralyzed body. The truth that my body possessed memory, that it was also conscious, was as undeniable as the man yelling from the back of the elephant. But I had no idea what this meant for my practice of yoga. How do you interact with a body that you cannot feel directly but is conscious nonetheless?

  This story of the monk’s mistake was reassuring to me. I did not need to know anything in advance. I just needed to stay open to my experience, to what was obvious. My yoga practice would talk to me like the man on the back of the elephant. I just needed to listen and not prejudge what I was being told.

  This story also made me feel less alone. The Universe would talk to me when and if it was needed. My task was simple: I only had to listen. If I did, the Universe’s guidance would be obvious, not hidden. I would feel connected, not disconnected. The phrase “back of the elephant” became my reminder to listen to the experience of my life and not deny it.

  My lifelong commitment to yoga, my practical journey through mind-body integration, begins slowly after surgery. Not only am I sore, but this is also new territory for both Jo and me. During our first meeting postsurgery, I am still unable to do any poses. I just need to tell her about the tunnel I have been in—the hospital, the body memories, the grief. This intimacy is a testament to the strength of our relationship. Although there is already a deep connection between us, we do not know each other that well.

  We are on the dojo floor—two willing students have helped me down—and Jo is sitting directly in front of me, spine erect, with the soles of her feet pressing against each other. The pose is called baddha konasana, and she sits in it almost the entire time we visit. Teaching without teaching.

  She listens to my story, says little, and absorbs much. She intuitively knows that I have much to let go of. She knows firsthand the way memory can uncoil from a body. As I tell her about my time in the hospital, I expect the vacant eyes of polite disbelief. But instead, she nods, looks down, and whispers, “I know.” Jo and I have met each other at the perfect time. My need is obvious. But Jo, too, is in transition. She is in the very early stages of starting what will become the San Diego Yoga Studio. She is ready to strike out on her own and is gaining confidence. She is also ready to take her fourteen years of yogic experience and consciously combine it with her uncanny ability to empathize with and project into another person’s body. In order to teach me, she will have to intuitively connect with what it’s like to be paralyzed. She will have to imagine how yoga might manifest through such a body. Luckily for me, Jo has this rare ability in spades.

  So begins one of the relationships in my life of which I am most proud. There was no model for us to follow, no example from which to learn. Jo teaches Iyengar yoga, a highly refined system developed by yoga master Sri B.K.S. Iyengar. After meeting me the first time, Jo had called two senior teachers in the Iyengar method for advice. Their recommendations of one or two seated poses and some shoulder and arm stretches were of little help. She had already exhausted their ideas in our first session. She was left to her own devices, to her own creativity, to an uncommon openness that would guide our work together. She didn’t have to be the expert. She knew Iyengar yoga—that was clear. I was her student—that was also clear. But we explored the possibilities of yoga and paralysis together. She made me a partner in a great experiment—the mark of a fabulous teacher.

  Jo had the patience and the foresight not to force the Iyengar system of yoga onto my body. For instance, she did not worry that I could not do standing poses—the poses that are considered to be the building blocks of the entire system. Instead, Jo had faith in the system’s underlying principles. Iyengar yoga distinguishes itself from other styles of hatha yoga by its heightened emphasis on alignment and precision. I believe the reason for this is profound. When anatomical structures—bones, muscles, ligaments, tendons, skin, and so on—are brought into greater alignment, the mind connects with the body more fluidly and with less effort.

  This phenomenon is easily experienced. Sit in a chair, slump your shoulders, and let your neck and head jut forward away from the torso. We all know this position—we call it bad posture. Now, sit up straight, lift the chest, broaden across the collarbones, and extend out through the top of the head. Notice how presence activates in the inner thighs and down through the feet, especially through the heels. The mind moves without intent, without volition. As the chest lifts and the spine extends, the mind follows the more efficient distribution of gravity and naturally increases its presence in the lower extremities. Iyengar yoga, by emphasizing alignment and precision, maximizes this effortless form of mind-body integration. It is the beginning of realizing an energetic connection between mind and body.

  Of course, this realization did not come to me all at once. I had been practicing consistently for about six months. Each morning I would get up, drink some water, and then sit in my blue velvet chair. I would take a few minutes to feel my whole body, to activate a sense of presence through my base by focusing on the weight distribution between my sits bones and imagining a connection between my chest, my tailbone, and my feet.

  My actual practice was limited to four poses. I would get down on my blue exercise mats and do each pose three times. Dandasana: legs straight in front, palms pressed into the floor beside the hips, lift the chest. Upavista konasana (“wide legs”): legs as far apart as possible, hands grab the legs just below the knees, lift the chest. Baddha konasana: soles of the feet pressing evenly into each other, interlock the fingers, grab underneath the feet, hold them firmly, lift the chest, and stretch the torso up. Siddhasana: one leg bent at the knee, with the foot pressing against the opposite thigh; the other leg bent at the knee and the foot set upon the ankle of the first foot; join the thumbs and forefingers and rest the back of each hand upon each knee, palms facing upward. With such a limited repertoire of poses, I was forced to learn from the subtle differences between them. I was made to look more deeply into what could easily have become ordinary.

  Just doing four poses was exciting enough. My body, paralyzed though it was, was taking the shapes of real, bona fide yoga poses. I would sit on the floor, use my arms to move my legs, bring the soles of my feet together, grab underneath them, and lift my chest. The outward result was pleasing. If a snapshot of my version of baddha konasana were held up next to a snapshot of another beginning student’s pose, they would have looked roughly the same. I could do it.

  For many students, this is as far as they delve into the heart of yoga. They practice the poses in a strictly physical manner. They access only the pose’s outline, using their bodies to fulfill the intended shape. For them, yoga is similar to gymnastics or acrobatics—that is, an expression of their outer body.

  In my practice, I encountered the same limitation within my paralyzed body. When I did a pose, I would typically feel the muscles in my upper body straining and working. But my lower body remained essentially quiet. What cues I experienced came from my physical position, for example, from the shift in balance between having my legs straight and having them bent. In short, my perception traveled primarily from outside to in.

  The feeling is similar to looking at your image in a full-length mirror. You can become so fixated on this outer image that you briefly lose connection to the “inside” of the figure in front of you. Perhaps you go to straighten the knee in the picture and are surprised when you realize that it is your knee that is straightening. Now imagine living with access only to the image in
the mirror, that is, without the feeling of having your knee straighten. In some ways, that is what it is like to be paralyzed. Moreover, that was how I felt when I did a yoga pose—my lower body was only an image.

  But then something changed. My yoga poses gained a measure of inward, three-dimensional depth and did so without flexing muscles. A sense of energy awakened not just within my unparalyzed body, but even more profoundly through the silence of my paralyzed body.

  It was a Friday evening. Jo had made the Amtrak trip from San Diego to Santa Barbara. Upon arriving, she came over to my house. We thought it wise to check in and visit before her weekend classes began. Our work together was and is predicated in large part on our personal connection, on our ability to trust, communicate, and create in tandem. We have become wonderful friends.

  The night air is laden with the ocean chill of mild California winter. Night is falling but not completely present. Lamps are necessary but not nearly adequate. Instead, there is that odd, surreal feeling as yellow light struggles against the descending darkness. My house feels little and quiet, but conversation with Jo is ripe and potent. Before long, we are on the floor doing yoga. She is introducing me to some seated forward bends—paschimottanasana, janu sirsasana, and maha mudra. I am pleased. We are doing something new.

  Maha mudra is a strange pose. In yogic lore, if a yogi (yoga student) practices it enough, he or she can eat anything, even something poisonous. Regardless, it has a magical feel to it. Seated on the floor, one leg is straight in front of you. The other leg is bent at the knee, with the sole of the foot pressed against the inner thigh of the opposite leg. One reaches down, hooks the big toe of the outstretched leg with the thumbs and forefingers of both hands, lowers the chin toward the chest, inhales, and tightens the abdomen, pulling it back toward the spine and up toward the diaphragm.