Feb 12 “Yoga Fever”

As I laid in the bed for 12 hours with a sweatsuit on and all the windows closed, I kept wondering: What IS this? If there is a fever, systemic body aches, and no diarrhea, chances are it could be “yoga fever”. I’ve had it before. I felt a bit cool, like I could easily break out in goosebumps, but my skin was hot to the touch, except for the hands and feet. It was when I felt my sacrum and how hot it was last night that I began to suspect Yoga Fever.

It began after the breakfast. Lead Intermediate class was full-on, my first one of the trip. Those of us who were left standing at the end (people stop when they get to the point in the second series where they are presently working appropriately- same as primary series) were taken through the first 4 poses of third series. It was fun and very hard work. I often feel a bit wacky after the Sunday class. Sharath holds us longer in the postures, we move at a steady pace, and we all end working way harder. I end up trying to decide between going home to lay down and eating food. I ran into Erin Cooney who just arrived and we went for breakfast.

Although I wasn’t really desiring eggs, this was one of the spots that serves them and I haven’t any animal protein in 6 weeks. I chose my meal through intellect, not intuition, and I suffered for it. After the meal the aches started everywhere and I had to leave the table. I didn’t feel like moving, but the pain made me restless. I burped up breakfast until 5PM, so it obviously wasn’t digesting. I finally made it home after conference and got in the bed at 6:30 unsure if I would make it to class in the morning and a little scared of what I was experiencing.

Am I going to wake up the night shitting water for the next 2 days?

Am I going to go into a delirium?

My back was so hot and my legs felt like they were trying to detach from my body. As I stayed in the bed, I meditated on what I was feeling, what I was thinking about what I was feeling. Again, suspecting this was not a cold or virus or bad food, but the Yoga Fever. “Well Kate,” goes the mental dialogue, “why do this yoga, why come here? You want transformation don’t you?”

“Yes. I do not want my same hang-ups. I want change.”

“Do you think you can choose how the change will come, what it will look like?”

I had just had a conversation earlier that day about how the Gita reminds us how karma and the nature of creation and destruction, good and bad, are beyond our intellectual understanding. Doing the right thing isn’t always how it seems. What looks like a flu bug may be something else. I surrendered to whatever this was and stopped trying to figure it out or be afraid of it. I instead welcomed it in as a harbinger of transformation.

“Hello change,” I repeated, “have your way with me. I trust you.” And I finally fell asleep. I woke in the night so many times and had some water and peed. 12 hours later I got up and began to move into the morning, seeing if the fever was gone. I felt a bit stiff, my belly a bit sensitive, but otherwise so much better.

Practice was hard, I got nauseous after Pincha Mayurasana and it didn’t go away. I meditated on maintaining my welcoming attitude. That’s the only way here, surrender to the process because you want the transformation.

So Yoga Fever is a fire of purification. As I sat in Badha Padmasana after practice, without thinking about anything in particular, a word flashed into my field: POISON. Like that, in caps. Mayurasana is the pose that removes all poisons from the body and that was the one that worked me today. This Yoga Fever was a detox reaction. Fever is heat in the blood, and perhaps some toxicity came out of the tissues and my body was moving it out of the blood layer.

At this point in the practice for me, its more about the nervous system and the mind. The goosebumps, the heat, the digestion, are all signs of a tonifying nervous system. We do it on purpose and then we go home and take rest. I continue to oil myself and try not to socialize so much or go walking about. Rest on all levels is the way to allow the purification to work on the deeper layers. Energy going outward into others things may stop the process, and with this, I have found, the nerves will pay for it later.

There is a karma here. If I am going to dredge up poisons safely, I must remove the addition of poisons in my life at this time: bad foods, bad words, bad associations. The texts of yoga and Ayurveda tell us what this looks like. The furthur I go with this yoga, the less acceptable are old vices. Bad habits must be removed for transformation to occur.

This yoga starts by changing the body, and everything else must get in line, or we can get hurt. Each series of Ashtanga yoga raises the bar to a deeper level of being that is purified. Ouch. But what’s the alternative? A. Choose a softer path, which I sometimes do. B. Fall off the wagon, which I sometimes do. But I always come back from both.

Still, with Surrender and Acceptance and Patience, all is coming. I really believe that, and in 13 years of practice I have seen it to be true. Those 3 qualities of mind are what I aspire to in all moments.