#it might be new york actually nobody here is capable of fun or relaxation | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lovemesomerafael · 4 years

Text

Destroying the Planet to Save It Chapter 13: Has that ever worked?

Chapters 1-10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Read it on AO3

Tony slept through the flight from Atlanta back to New York, snoring and mumbling to himself.

Steve had intended to, and had actually begun to, re-review all the materials the team had gathered and sent to each other. But he couldn’t concentrate. Not with images of the previous night constantly intruding into his thoughts, and the woman who played the starring role in those images sitting so close to him he could feel her warmth. He felt a small twinge, though, to see that Sharon was having no difficulty concentrating. She was reading an Email from Dr. Mulready that Steve had tried – valiantly, dammit – to get through, but had only been able to understand enough to discern that things were bad.

Steve was a smart guy, and quite capable of learning whatever was necessary to deal with the threat. The problem was, he kept catching a faint scent of the body wash Sharon had used in the shower that morning, which he knew because he had been intimately involved in the process. He looked at the way her hair fell over her shoulders, and remembered how it felt, softly tickling his skin, when he’d awakened with her in his arms. How was he supposed to keep his mind on documents in Spanish, and in code on top of that, or pictures of a weird-looking machine that made no more sense to him than the documents, when he could feel Sharon’s thigh against his? At the hotel, she’d been in her own room, videoconferencing with Director Coulson and other higher-ups at S.H.I.E.L.D. much of the day, and had her nose in her laptop, like it was now, the rest of the time. When Steve’s attempts to distract her had become too successful, she’d sent him to his own room.

He’d understood, but enough was enough. He reached over and shut the lid of her laptop.

“Hey!” she exclaimed, blinking and shaking her head with the disorientation that comes from being pulled from deep concentration.

Steve gave her what he hoped was his most winning smile. “That screen’s had enough of your attention for today. My turn.”

An adorable frown came over Sharon’s brow for a moment, and her lips parted to object, before her eyes truly focused on Steve and his comment registered. Once it did, the sides of her mouth curved up around whatever she’d been about to say and the frown melted into reluctant amusement. “I was reading Dr. Mulready’s email.”

“I know,” Steve said, taking her laptop from her and sliding it under his seat. “I’ll give you the short version. That weather’s not natural.”

“You don’t say,” Sharon replied drily.

“Actually, I don’t. Dr. Mulready does. In way too many words.”

Sitting back up, Steve looked expectantly at Sharon. “You’re the one who told me I need to relax more. Get my mind off things.”

“I did. I said that.”

“Well, there’s a problem.”

“What problem?”

“Now I’m having trouble concentrating on threats to the world. I keep thinking about you.”

Sharon’s expressive face practically glowed. “You do?”

“You’re much more interesting.” He grinned and slowly began to lean toward her.

“Holy shit, that’s lame. Has that line ever worked?” Bucky’s mocking voice interrupted the moment.

Steve squeezed his eyes shut. “It was about to,” he muttered through gritted teeth.

Bucky, standing next to Steve’s seat, looked down at Steve and Sharon with a heartless grin. “Come with me. I need backup.”

“For what?”

“To convince Joss to use that levitation thing she can do. She won’t listen to me.”

“Smart girl,” Steve muttered.

“Wait, Joss can levitate?” Sharon interjected with surprise.

“She doesn’t levitate, she can move things. With her mind. She thinks it’s something to be ashamed of. Thinks the government’s gonna come lock her up.”

“Well, there are some people who would like nothing better than to see all mutants rounded up,” Sharon noted.

She could have sworn Bucky straight-up growled.

“Not if we have anything to say about it,” Steve muttered, standing and putting a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky led them back to the table where Joss was sitting, looking agitated and nervous as she tore strips off the label of an empty plastic water bottle.

“You know what the best thing about working with Tony Stark is?” Steve asked, keeping his eyes on Joss but turning his body to lift up the top of the credenza across from the table to reveal a hidden bar that lit up when he opened it. The space included several padded, square cells, in each of which sat a bottle of liquor. On the other side was a hatch, which he also lifted, to reveal a built-in refrigerator, full of different kinds of beer.

Joss laughed at the unexpectedness of the compartment. “Nice!”

“He’s an absolute pain in the ass,” Steve said, “But there are compensations.”

Bucky took the seat next to Joss and caught the bottle of beer Steve tossed him, flipping off the lid with his metal hand. Sharon pulled a bottle of wine from a lower cupboard in the credenza and began to search in the drawers next to it for a corkscrew.

“You like white wine, Joss?” She asked. “Tony gets this Sauvignon Blanc from a guy in Bordeaux. This is from the vintner’s private reserve. It’s the best I’ve ever tasted.”

“Sure,” Joss answered, smiling uncertainly.

Steve sat across from Joss and Bucky, handing Bucky his beer. Without a word, Bucky flicked off the cap and handed it back. “So Buck says he’s trying to get you to use your ability.”

The look she threw at Bucky showed Steve he hadn’t been exaggerating about her reluctance.

“I never have. I don’t want to.”

Sharon handed her a glass of wine. “So you’re telekinetic?” She asked, her voice neutral, her face showing only interest.

“I… Not… I can move things. But I don’t.”

“Well, why not? I’d kill to be able to do that,” Sharon replied, taking her seat next to Steve. “You never get all comfortable on the couch and realize the remote’s across the room? And just…” She wiggled her fingers toward the other side of the jet, smiling.

“No.”

“Well, I don’t know about using it to get the remote, which I would absolutely do, by the way,” Steve grinned, “But I was thinkin’ that could be pretty handy in a fight.”

“Yeah, you said that earlier,” Joss said, perking up a bit. “How?”

“Lots of ways. Throw stuff at people. Take their weapons away.”

“Nudge their guns so they miss what they’re aimin’ at,” Bucky suggested.

“I don’t know if I can do any of that.”

“Well…” Bucky prompted, setting the water bottle she’d been playing with in the center of the table.

Joss scowled at the bottle, shifting uneasily in her chair. Not looking at him, she asked in a monotone, “What do you want me to do?”

“Um… just see how you can move it. Can you push it across the table?”

She did.

“Can you throw it?” Steve asked. “Just toss it to me.”

She did that, too, albeit clumsily.

“It’s interesting that you don’t move when you do that. Wanda –“ Sharon stopped herself. “Do you know who Wanda Maximoff is?”

“Of course,” Joss answered.

“She has to make motions to direct her energy. You could do all kinds of things without anyone even knowing it was you doing them. That could come in handy.”

Steve and Bucky both nodded with interest.

“What about people?” Bucky asked. “Can you use it to hit me? Or shove me?”

Joss looked at him intensely for a moment, but nothing happened. “Apparently not,” she said sheepishly.

“Still, you could hit him with something,” Steve suggested.

The empty plastic water bottle flew across the table and bounced off of Bucky’s forehead. But it wasn’t Joss who tossed it. It was Steve. Bucky just shook his head with a look of resigned annoyance.

Sharon, on the other hand, was intrigued. She picked the bottle up from the floor where it had landed and set it back on the table. “Try it,” she said. “This could be useful.”

Bucky caught Joss’s eye, but said nothing. Her expression didn’t change as they all watched the bottle leave the table and bounce off Steve’s forehead this time.

Bucky put an arm around her and squeezed as they all laughed. “Oh, we are gonna have some fun with this.”

“I don’t know, you guys…”

Steve was still chuckling as he put a hand on Joss’s. “Look, nobody’s going to make you do anything. None of us are going to tell anyone else, either. I just think you might want to give it some more thought. Maybe instead of thinking your ability is something to hide, consider that it might be something to use to help people.”

Sharon held up her glass to Joss. “I don’t know what the Secret Service is like. But I can tell you with absolute certainty that S.H.I.E.L.D. actively looks for people with special abilities. Something to think about.”

“Oh, man…” Joss sighed as she shook her head. “Look, I appreciate what you’re saying, but I’ve never wanted this. I hate it. I only told Bucky because… Well, actually, I didn’t tell him. He kind of figured it out.”

“So why’d you tell me?” Steve asked.

“Because I had to. Once Bucky knew … Well, I don’t get the sense you guys keep secrets from each other. I couldn’t ask him to keep mine. So if you were going to learn I’m a… I can do things, I thought you should hear it from me. Before I got on this plane, so you had a choice.”

Steve nodded gravely. There was a lot about that answer that he could respect.

“There’s something else,” Joss said to Steve. He gave her is full attention and waited.

“I know President Burke insisted that you work with the Secret Service at that event, and it’s only the purest circumstance that I’m here, because of what happened. But… I was responsible for President Lattimore. And if these phenomena aren’t natural, that means he was murdered.”

Bucky started to say something, but she turned her face to him and put a hand over his where it rested on the table. “I know there’s no way we could have known, and nothing I could have done. At least, in my head, I know that.”

She turned back to Steve.

“But my job was to protect him, and I failed. Being a part of finding his murderer is the only thing I can do to mitigate that failure. I owe him that. This is personal for me now.”

Steve nodded again. “I understand.” He turned to Sharon. “Can we ask Burke and Coulson to detail Joss to S.H.I.E.L.D. for now?”

“Consider it done.”

Turning back to Joss, he said, “Then, here’s my proposal. There’s a team meeting the day after tomorrow. We’re going to share everything we know and come up with a plan. Stay in New York. Come to the meeting, and we’ll plug you in somewhere. I can’t promise what it’ll be-“

“I’m not asking for a starring role. I just want to be involved.”

“Then you will be.”

“Thank you, Captain. I appreciate that more than I can tell you.”

“Two conditions.”

“Name them,” Joss said, as though the idea that she might object to any conditions was ridiculous.

“First, call me Steve. Second, think about what I said, about your ability. Maybe do some experimenting, find out what you’re capable of. It can’t hurt just to learn what you can do. Then, if you still feel the same way, we’ll never talk about it again. We’ll all forget we ever heard about it. Deal?”

Joss still looked a bit dubious about using her ability, but said quietly, “Deal.”

She was looking at her glass, taking a drink of wine, and missed the look that passed between Steve and Bucky.

*****

The jet that brought Sam and Anita back to New York was the same one that had brought them to Marathon Key. This time, however, there were ten passengers, and nobody was in a partying mood. Those who weren’t asleep were nursing hangovers or, in the case of two guys, actual wounds that spoke of a somewhat serious brawl. Sam guessed they’d made up, however, because they were reliving the fight blow by blow, laughing at themselves and each other and toasting with no doubt medicinal cocktails.

Sam wanted to talk to Anita about what they’d found out, and he could see in Anita’s thoughtful expression that she did, too. But even with the engine noise, it was too dangerous on Arias’s jet. Instead, they napped for a while, hand in hand.

When Sam cracked his eyes open, it was fully dark outside the jet and Anita was thumbing through a magazine next to him. “I used to be able to party,” he groused drowsily.

“You did fine,” she grinned.

Sam rubbed his eyes, groaned, and sat up. “What time is it?”

“About eight. We’ll be on the ground in half an hour.” Anita closed her magazine and looked at Sam. “You’re cute when you sleep.”

“You’re cute when you’re awake.”

To Sam’s surprise, given some of the things they’d done in the past seventy-two hours, she actually blushed. “Good to hear.”

“You’re very beautiful, you know,” he said, serious now. Moving closer to her so that he could speak quietly enough that the engine noise should cover his words, and anyone looking would simply see a couple whispering to one another, he murmured, “When all this is over, I’d like to take you out on a proper date. Dinner, dancing…”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

“And, in the meantime, I was wondering…”

She smiled her dazzling smile at him, causing his synapses to short out temporarily. “Yes?”

“Well, we got the meeting day after tomorrow. So you’re gonna be in New York, and I’m assuming you’ll be staying at the Tower?”

“That’s the plan, yes.”

“Then, I thought, if you want, you could, uh, stay with me. I have an apartment I stay in when I’m there, and, you know, it’s nice, and we could, you know, stay there together, and I- I mean, if you don’t want to, that’s cool, I mean, God knows Stark’s got plenty of rooms to stay in, I’m sure he’d -”

“I’d like that,” Anita said, mercifully answering before Sam did himself some serious harm with his nervous fumbling for words.

“Oh. OK, yeah. Cool. All right.”

Like him, she leaned close so that her words could only be heard by him. “Not that it’s not adorable, but you don’t need to be nervous. I like you, Sam. I want to spend time with you. Maybe without any cameras this time.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. No telling what Friday sees.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Sam touched Anita’s face lovingly, hardly able to believe this exquisite, highly capable woman was here beside him, agreeing to stay with him in his apartment in Stark Tower. The way she dropped her eyes and smiled almost shyly made their kiss all the sweeter when their lips met. Sam couldn’t help but contrast this moment with their first, incendiary night together in the villa on Marathon Key.

*****

There wasn’t much more Bruce and Catherine could do without Tony. The three had agreed on the essentials of the weather and the machines, anyway. Now they were in a holding pattern, waiting for Bruce’s samples from the epicenter of the earthquake in Zambia, and for the team meeting where they’d put everything together and hopefully figure out the missing piece. And, of course, come up with a plan.

Right now, Bruce and Catherine were sharing another bottle of Tony Stark’s phenomenal wine, sitting across from one another in deep, comfortable chairs in the common room. They were trying to brainstorm ideas about who, or what, might be using the energy from the machines to create the destructive phenomena. Although it now seemed beyond dispute that Jarman Arias was behind it all, they were at a loss as to what “it” was, or why. Thus far, their strongest theory was that there were one or more other machines they hadn’t found yet, transforming the energy into storms and earthquakes. Something mobile that could use whatever machine was closest, maybe?

A companionable silence fell between them when they’d exhausted their theories. Bruce lifted the bottle from the low table between them inquiringly, and Catherine stood and took the few steps toward him to reach out her glass for a refill. She didn’t return to the chair she’d been sitting in. Instead, she took the chair right next to Bruce’s. Neither commented, but it was uppermost on both their minds.

“I know it’s a bad situation, but can I tell you how much I’m enjoying working with you again?” Bruce asked timidly, his eyes studiously on his wineglass.

“Me, as well, Bruce. We always did work well together.” She held out her glass toward him.

Clinking it with a small grin, he said, “Yeah. We did.”

“I’m glad you called me.”

“I had no choice. You know more about this stuff than anyone else. It had to be you.”

“That’s probably an exaggeration, but I’m glad nonetheless. I wondered whether I’d ever see you again.”

Bruce sighed quietly. “You weren’t supposed to.”

“Yes, so you decided for both of us. I’m glad it didn’t work out that way.”

He looked up at her face. “Nothing’s changed, Cathy. I’m still dangerous.”

“Bollocks.”

Bruce waited for her to say more, but she simply sipped her wine, her face expressionless. “That’s a masterful argument, Dr. Mulready.”

“Did you want a masterful argument? Would it do any good? Because I’d be happy to lay it out for you, but if your mind’s still made up, I can’t be arsed.”

“My mind’s still made up.”

“Next subject, then.”

For a few minutes, they sipped in awkward silence, both thinking their own thoughts. “If it makes you feel any better,” Bruce murmured after a while, “I’ve missed you.”

“No, Bruce. That doesn’t bloody make me feel any better. I’m not even sure you’re entitled to say that, since you’re the one who bin-bagged me. Let’s just drop it.” There was now a bite to her comments that told Bruce she wasn’t over him any more than he was over her.

“C’mon, Cathy, you know I had to. You know why.”

She set down her glass. “Like I said, it’s good to work with you again. I’m going to bed. Good night.”

Bruce sighed and shook his head slightly as he listened to Catherine’s footsteps retreating across the room. He took another drink – a rather hefty one – as he heard the door to the stairway open and close. He knew that she would be muttering to herself as she took the stairs to the floor where their apartments were. He had a love/hate relationship with that particular habit of hers. It was cute as hell, but she was also spewing annoyance about him. Apparently, he could still get to her.

Which was the dangerous thought that had him rising from his chair, the slight buzz from the wine making itself known as he did. He followed her, purposely not thinking about it. Even as he took the first steps, he felt his body begin to hum with an excitement he hadn’t felt in years. Since that last day with Catherine in her office, in fact. He was about to take a chance with her but, strangely, it didn’t feel like that. It felt more like giving in to the inevitable.

He caught up to her as she left the stairway and entered the hall to their rooms. He’d been right. He could hear her voice, soft but percussive, as she went down the hall with a definite stomp in her walk. He couldn’t hear the words, but he was definitely being quietly savaged. He smiled involuntarily.

She saw him as she stopped at the door to her apartment. Her eyes flashed with irritation as she nodded curtly and opened her door, apparently assuming that he would be going into his own apartment. He didn’t. Instead, he put a hand on her door as she turned to close it, and pushed his way past her before she could do anything about it.

“Bruce-“

“I wonder if Tony stocked this room with any wine,” he said over his shoulder, moving toward the small kitchen nook.

“If you wanted wine, there was still some in the bottle.”

“I know, but I didn’t think to bring it with me.”

“Just go get it. Don’t you have any wine in your own apartment?”

“Actually, I do, but I’m here now.”

“And about to leave.” She opened the door and waved a hand toward the hallway. “C’mon. On your bike.”

“A-ha! Gotta love Tony.” Bruce turned to her with a smile, ignoring her request for him to leave and holding up a bottle. “Maybe not as good as what we were drinking, but-“

“Bruce, I don’t want any more wine. I want to go to bed.”

“Good. That’s what I want, too.”

“We’ve had this conversation already, remember?”

He set the bottle down on the counter and started walking slowly toward her. “Do you know what your problem is, Cathy? You’re too absolute. You’d give up the opportunity for us to spend the night together – which you want as much as I do – just because it’s not perfect. Well, nothing is.”

“I never asked for perfect. But what we had was pretty bloody good, if you remember.”

“It was fake. You didn’t know what I was.”

“More bollocks! I knew exactly what you were. What you still are. I’ll admit that you had a fairly significant secret that I wasn’t privy to, but the minute I learned it, you buggered off without even giving me a chance. I think it was you who didn’t know me. You just assumed I couldn’t handle it-“

“He would have hurt you, Cathy.”

“For a brilliant scientist, you’re a bleedin’ eejit, you know that? The Hulk saved my life. That man would have kicked seven shades of shit out of me if he hadn’t appeared. He did nothing but protect me, and get me to help.”

“He destroys things. He hurts people.”

“People who are trying to hurt him, or those he loves. Nobody else.”

Bruce had reached Catherine, and tentatively reached out a hand to push the door closed. She let him.

“You’re wrong.”

“I’m not wrong. Do you think I haven’t been paying attention? He makes news, Bruce, whatever he does, and I’ve a keen interest. He’s never hurt someone who didn’t need hurting, and you know that.”

“He could,” Bruce retorted, now standing chest to chest with her, looking down into those flashing, emerald-green eyes. He put his hands on her waist and pulled her flush against him.

“You don’t know that. You never have.” Her arms wrapped around his neck and she tilted her head while they leaned their faces in toward one another. “Your problem is that you’re a self-flagellating arse, as I’ve said before now, and you think you don’t deserve to be happy.”

“Well, your pro-“

“Shut it.”

Their kiss was hard, and immediately insistent. At first, the meeting of their wet, invasive mouths was enough, far more intimate - and honest - contact than they’d allowed themselves since seeing one another again. Neither of them were able to keep from moaning with the pleasure and relief of giving in to their attraction.

“I love you, you bloody fool,” Catherine muttered against Bruce’s lips.

“I love you, too…”

This time, Bruce wasn’t going to be exercising any kind of patience. He had none. He was a little shocked at himself, the way he was already pulling at her blouse to untuck it from her slacks, but when she slid her hands down and began to unbutton his shirt, he felt her undo only two more buttons before she pulled roughly at it. He did the same, so that they pulled each other’s shirts up until they realized their arms were entangled. Catherine gave an impatient, frustrated grunt and let go of his shirt to tear her own over her head before helping him pull his off.

He backed toward the sitting room, pulling her with him as they continued their assault on each other’s lips and mouths. He’d meant to reach down and pick her up, but she apparently misunderstood and, when he bent down, she pushed him to the floor and was quickly on top of him, grinding against him.

“I missed you… I love you…”

He lost no time beginning to undo her belt, kissing her back as he did and loosing a loud groan when she found the perfect angle with her hips. She didn’t immediately help him get her slacks off. Instead, she leaned over him, sucking at his lower lip while she moved against him.

“Why do you have to be the only man who kisses like that?”

“I’m sorry,” he gasped, unhooking her bra and beginning to run his hands across her now bare back, already fully hard and rolling his hips against hers.

“Bastard…”

Bruce laughed into their kiss and rolled her off of him, leaning up on an elbow to work her slacks and panties down her hips. She reached down and began to unbuckle his belt, but he moved out of her reach as he lifted his lips from hers to strip her slacks down her legs, taking her footwear with them. When he moved to lie beside her again, she pushed him to his back impatiently and attacked his belt again, yanking his pants, boxers and footwear from his body even faster than he’d removed hers.

“I knew you wanted me,” he teased, rolling over onto her with no further preliminaries.

“Too fucking right, I do,” she growled, moving her hips and legs to envelop him. She threw her head back and let out a little scream as he entered her, uttering his own cry.

“Aah, fuck, Bruce…”

“I love you, Cath… I do, I love you so much…”

“Just shut up and fuck me, Banner, I don’t want to hear it right now.”

The sound he made was somewhere between a groan and a growl. He shifted weight to his knees so he could speed his movements and deepen his thrusts, which her reaction told him was exactly what she wanted.

“Tough shit. I love you, and you know it.”

“Fat lot of good that does me, when you won’t let me be with you.”

Bruce was well on his way to losing control of his grunts and groans. It took him several breaths to get out, “So fucking stubborn…”

“I hate that there’s no one but you,” she complained, on a moan. He could feel that she was tensing, moving against him with definite emphasis on hitting a particular angle.

He rolled them over once again, lifting her on top of him so that she straddled his hips and was in control of their rhythm. It didn’t matter anymore; as long as she didn’t stop, he was going to come in seconds, no matter what else she did.

“Yeah? Well, I love it,” he gasped as best he could.

“I’ll bet you do,” she hissed, and those were the last coherent words she spoke for quite a while. She cried out and mumbled disjointed words in her ecstasy, letting Bruce know that she was as close as he was.

“Do it, sweetheart,” he moaned. “Come. Do it now…”

As soon as he felt her start to shake and heard her sharp intake of breath, he plunged over the precipice with her. He had never thought about it before, but he didn’t know how soundproof these apartments might be. He spared a tiny thought of gratitude that none of the rest of the team was around just then, and let himself shout as loudly as he felt like.

A solid five minutes later, Catherine was still melted bonelessly over him, practically purring with satisfaction. And she was still angry.

Bruce held her with one arm across her hip, his hand gently caressing her buttock. With the other, he ran his fingers through her short, jet-black hair, feeling the slightest damp of sweat at her hairline. “I love you, Cathy.”

“Fuck you, Bruce,” she murmured.

“You first,” he chuckled, and rolled her over onto her back, lifting up on his elbow so that he could kiss her while he fondled her. She didn’t argue, and they didn’t make it off the sitting room floor and into the bed until much later.

#The Avengers #Captain America #Bucky Barnes #The Winter Soldier #Chris Evans #Sebastian Stan #Sharon Carter #Sam Wilson #The Falcon #bruce banner

0 notes

chocolate-brownies · 6 years

Link

There are no flashy outfits or fancy postures on display at my Tuesday morning yoga class. No handstanding selfies being posted to Instagram. Just a handful of curious students, of all shapes and ability levels, gathered around a thoughtful teacher in a tiny, backyard studio.

Our teacher guides us through a few minutes of chanting and recreation, a series of asanas (postures) and a lengthy Savasana (also called Corpse Pose or deep relaxation), before we sit for meditation. During the active part of class, we move with precision and quiet concentration. Occasionally, we discuss how the poses affect us—one woman notices that a gentle leg stretch has released tension in her hips. Another finds that a long stay in Downward-facing Dog Pose has soothed her anxiety. I discover that a simple visualization practice—imagining the exhale expanding from the base of my skull around the sides of my head toward my temples, the inhale traveling from my forehead into the center of my head—instantly quiets my mind.

The class is demanding, but not in the way of the strong and sweaty vinyasa classes I sometimes enjoy. The challenge here is to refine our awareness, to focus our minds, and to soften our hearts. Again and again our instructor asks us not to push our bodies to do more, but to quietly attune ourselves to their needs, to adapt our postures to create more ease. Our mission is to be gentle and kind to ourselves and to simply experience “being” while sitting and while moving. This invitation to become intimate with oneself, to experience a steady mind and a compassionate heart, this is the essence of yoga as I know it.

It seems odd, then, that a deeply satisfying class of this sort is not all that easy to find, even in yoga-saturated Northern California where I live. This quietly attentive, inward-facing practice feels, in fact, like a refuge from much of the contemporary yoga scene, where workout-type classes—pulsing with music and impossibly tiny, flexible bodies wearing next to nothing—exude a subtle pressure to push harder and to achieve ever-more advanced poses. These yoga classes often feel like another venue for challenging and judging myself, setting goals, and measuring progress, rather than one in which to step away from all of the striving I already do in life so that I might see and accept myself as I am.

This quietly attentive, inward-facing practice feels, in fact, like a refuge from much of the contemporary yoga scene, where workout-type classes—pulsing with music and impossibly tiny, flexible bodies wearing next to nothing—exude a subtle pressure to push harder and to achieve ever-more advanced poses.

“The reality is that, as yoga grows as an industry and a commodity, there’s one BIG thing that is being lost: Yoga,” says New York City-based yoga teacher Alanna Kaivalya, founder of the Kaivalya Yoga Method. “The actual state of yoga, which is union and manifests as self-confidence, independence, and self-empowerment.”

I met Kaivalya a few years back when she was a rising star on the traveling-yoga-teacher circuit and I was editor-in-chief of Yoga Journal, a media company dedicated to all things yoga. Today, she is finishing a Ph.D. in mythological studies and “trying to stir things up,” she says, with social media posts asserting, cheekily, that “yoga is broken—let’s fix it” and suggesting that modern-day yogis would be better off demonstrating the beauty of their practice not with images of their kick-ass asana on Facebook, but through personal transformation making them noticeably more content and easy to be around.

She is one of many teachers I know who are questioning how “yoga,” which is traditionally defined as a state of mental steadiness or the union of body, mind, and spirit, has become synonymous with a butt-beautifying workout, and who would like to help more of the 20 million Americans currently practicing discover the full spectrum of yoga’s benefits. “I see a lot of glorification of the body, a lot of ego-reinforcing. Yoga is meant to lead you deeper,” she insists, “not stop at the surface.”

After having a front row seat for the mass adoption of yoga as a feel- good, look-good lifestyle—a popular perception that’s helped turn a once-obscure Eastern practice into a $27 billion Western “industry”—I’m thrilled to see Kaivalya and others celebrating yoga as an awareness practice.

Yoga has the power to transform yes, perhaps our bodies, but definitely our moment-to-moment experience of life.

A physical education

It wasn’t too long ago that American yoga suffered an entirely different identity issue. Considered a pastime of hippies and an esoteric spiritual practice taught by Indian gurus in ashrams, yoga was perceived by many to be uncomfortably foreign and woo-woo.

Then, in the 1990s, yoga in America started to boom and I discovered a physically challenging brand of yoga, with lots of “yoga push-ups,” handstands, and ab-toning poses that punched up my endorphins at the end of hectic days as a tech editor at Wired News and Salon. A hip, mostly young crowd packed into my regular studio, 50 at a time, creating an exhilarating buzz. The experience was light-years removed from the slow-moving alignment classes I was used to, but I loved this athletic practice, the community and, vainly, the look of my newly-toned body. I, along with millions of other Americans, had embraced an experience of yoga that was fueled by strength, speed, and sweat.

“The flexibility plus strength plus breath of Power Flow Yoga undoubtedly makes you feel good,” says Dina Amsterdam, a San Francisco-based yoga teacher who once led fun, sweaty, flow classes. She has since founded InnerYoga, an approach that incorporates traditional yoga and other modalities into a self-care practice designed to support students in all aspects of their life. “In a culture that is so sedentary, these fast-moving, joyful, aerobic classes serve a huge purpose. They get students back in their bodies. But it’s a bit of a misnomer to call it yoga,” she smiles. “Yoga is the union of awareness and embodiment.”

Nuno Silva/500PX Prime

No limits?

A strenuous yoga practice can be fantastic. There is something undeniably seductive about becoming more physically capable. It’s fun to challenge yourself and to feel your stress melt into a sweaty smile. Plus, the strength and mobility you gain with practice means you’re soon able to do more than you ever thought possible. When that happens and you suddenly find yourself touching your toes instead of your knees, or flying up into your first handstand, you feel alive in the best possible way—inspired, empowered, transformed.

For many of us, that physical transformation comes with a powerful revelation: Your perceived limitations may be nothing more than an imagined set of boundaries, easily pushed aside by a few months of dedicated effort. At some point, you might discover that this is true of life as well as asana—if you apply yourself, expand your view of what’s possible, and take bold actions that you were previously afraid to consider, you will set yourself on a course of transformation. You realize that you are more capable than you thought of living your dreams!

Many people have transformed first their bodies and then their lives through dedication to an intensely physical practice. Yoga truly can be life-changing. But I’ve experienced, too, how incredible experiences of transformation fueled by discipline and determination can fan the flames of the ego: It’s a short slide from feeling your own personal excitement about a newfound ability to showing it off.

When I’m not practicing with awareness, the loudmouthed voice of determination and pride in my head can quickly override the quiet voice of my actual experience, which, if I listened to it, would prevent me from feeling smug about my accomplishments, as well as from injuring myself or torturing myself because my body can’t do what I want it to. The trick, of course, is to practice just to practice and to enjoy the changes yoga produces without putting too much stock in them—to practice without expecting or striving for or celebrating any particular result.

The effort myth

Life sometimes throws you a challenge that cannot be solved by making yourself stronger or more capable. Sometimes the limits before you are not imagined, but scarily real, and trying to push past them only results in injury. Plus, when things get truly difficult—when your body falls ill, your lover betrays you, you lose your job—you need something more potent than willpower and six-pack abs.

When things get truly difficult—when your body falls ill, your lover betrays you, you lose your job—you need something more potent than willpower and six-pack abs.

“Our culture perpetuates this myth that if you ‘do everything right,’ you just get stronger, healthier, more advanced, richer, etcetera, but nobody has that life,” says Amsterdam, the InnerYoga founder, who is also a visiting scholar in the social computing group at the MIT Media Lab where she is developing awareness-based self-care tools for educational and workplace environments. “We have to acknowledge the nature of reality, which is that every life is full of challenge and change.”

When you encounter a challenge, it helps to have a calm, steady mind that doesn’t run from the truth of a dismal situation, but can focus on understanding it. You might benefit from being strong, but also soft enough to let in pain, anger, and grief without mindlessly reacting to them. You would be well served by the ability to concentrate, despite the emotional distractions, and act intelligently in a crisis.

These are, of course, skills that yoga can teach us—if we are not too busy powering through our push-ups to practice with awareness. As Kaivalya says, “It really doesn’t matter whether you can do the pose, what matters is experiencing a state of wholeness that allows you to become awesomely OK with everything that’s happening in your life.”

Listening on the inside

The physical practice of yoga can be a fantastic place to begin to know yourself, to become intimate enough with yourself that you can ask: What do I need to feel physically and mentally balanced and content? And what kind of practice can help me get there?

Yoga as an awareness practice neither celebrates nor discourages strong physical practice. It asks only one thing: that you approach practice from within, cultivating a relationship with yourself and exploring your own feelings, thoughts, and relationships to the poses, rather than striving to fulfill an expectation of what yoga should look like, feel like, or do for you.

Perhaps the most valuable (and sweetest) thing I’m reminded of at each Tuesday class is something that we can all try, whether we are practicing yoga or not: To take a moment at the beginning of a practice or a new day and greet yourself with kindness and tenderness, as you would a dear friend. You can do this on your mat before moving a muscle, or on your meditation cushion before your first attempt to focus the mind, or in bed before starting your day. You might spend a minute or two appreciating yourself for making it to the mat or cushion or for your willingness to take on the challenges of the day. Then, take time to notice how you feel in the moment—energized, depleted, calm, agitated, strong, hungry, or something else.

If you listen truthfully to yourself, you may discover that you are actually too tired for more than a few gentle poses today. Or that you absolutely have to write down a brilliant idea before you can let go of your thoughts and meditate. Or that your plans for the day are stressing you out and you need to make changes.

Too often, a brief moment like this is the only time in the day that you stop and let “you” influence the course of events, rather than demanding that you get up when the alarm says you should, sit down and work because you must, or get busy taking care of someone else’s needs without considering your own. You may find when you take this time for reflection and showing concern for your own well-being, that anger or tears well up from some issue you haven’t addressed. That, too, can be welcomed gently and kindly into the experience of the moment.

This intimacy with oneself is the root of compassion, for oneself and others. Amazingly, it is easy to discover and strengthen it by simply spending a few moments exploring how you feel and then acting in a way that honors those feelings.

This same intimacy can be cultivated as you move through poses. It requires concentration and commitment to listening to yourself, especially if you are practicing in a group class. To begin, shift your intention from mastering the form of each pose to feeling the sensation that accompanies it. What is your experience of moving into it, being in it, and moving out of it?

Temporarily set aside the idea that there is a “right way” to do each pose, the striving to do better. Instead, observe yourself with curiosity, honesty, and genuine receptivity: How does your body feel in the pose in this moment? What changes can you make to find more ease in the pose? Can you choose greater ease for yourself, even when it means backing off from a deeper version of the pose?

Carried away by experience

It is easiest to begin yoga as an awareness practice in a class that emphasizes self-exploration over achievement—like the Tuesday class I attend. I asked Patricia Sullivan, our teacher, about her intentions for the class. “I don’t want to impart knowledge,” she says, “but rather to evoke the experience of awareness of and within the body and heart/mind.”

It seems radical to me that a teacher isn’t interested in imparting knowledge—isn’t that what we commonly think of as the role of a teacher? And yet her words capture the essence of her class: While she offers pose instructions and shares her vast knowledge of the physical practice, she insists that we let our individual experiences (and the different needs of our bodies) take precedence over her instruction. Taking a cue from her, I’ve realized that practicing with awareness often means setting aside my ingrained desire to learn how to do things better, in an effort to see myself more clearly.

In my notes from a class I took in 2005 with B.K.S. Iyengar (1918-2014), founder of Iyengar Yoga and one of India’s leading exporters of asana practice, I found a potent message: “Don’t be carried away by others’ words. Be carried away by your own experiences,” he counseled. “I’m not doing the asana for some purpose like being physically fit and mentally poised, I’m doing the asana to see myself.”

Yoga is so much more joyful when I try to do the same. When you practice with awareness, yoga truly becomes a moving meditation, a moment in which to become intimate with yourself and the smallest details of your experience. The ultimate benefit, of course, is not simply more awareness of a particular moment, but a sweet recognition of who you are that extends far beyond the mat.

Try this: a moving meditation to quiet the mind

By asking the mind to concentrate on breath and movement at the same time, this morning yoga practice clears away distractions and emotions. With six short, strong movements, it is a simple way to find balance before — or during — a busy day.

This article appeared in the October 2015 issue of Mindful magazine.

Rise up, Tune in

Body and Mind Integration

The post Using Yoga to Stretch the Mind appeared first on Mindful.

#sleep sounds #sleep music #white noise app #nature sounds #relaxing sounds #rain sounds for sleeping

0 notes