My friend A. is becoming successful, and she’s encountering snark from some of her friends.
I told her, “You know who your real friends are because they’re still your friends when you’re successful.”
Something unfortunate happened for me with a so-called friend when I got the book contract for Immortal, and that person fell away. I cared about her but she couldn’t deal with her own jealousy.
At least that person wasn’t petty. She couldn’t continue as my friend, but she didn’t try to make me feel badly.
A. has been shocked at the petty jealousy of some of her long-time friends, who are trying to tear down and minimize her accomplishments. Obviously, their malicious behavior is a reflection of their own inner emptiness and insignificance. I tell her that, as other friends of A. also tell her, but she still feels hurt.
We are all of us all too human that way.
Others of us are very pleased for A., and proud of her. A. is a lively, creative sort, big-hearted, hard-working and fun, wildly talented and genuine. She has many real friends. I’m sorry she had to learn this particular lesson, but she won’t let it dampen her brightness of spirit.
On to a completely different subject, except that brightness of spirit connects it: Yogaglo.com.
My friends, family, and dogs know that I’m a dedicated practitioner of yoga. I do yoga every day, which is a good thing. Yoga contains my sometimes rambunctious energy. Last time my friend Paul was in town, and we were eating fried artichokes for lunch and drinking way too much wine, he sighed in the face of my gesticulating.
“You’re hyper today,” he commented, and turned down his hearing aid to tune me out. Or maybe he just ordered us both more wine so I’d get tipsy and giggle more and rant less. Or maybe he did both. Maybe I could say your real friends still love you when you’re hyper.
Truthfully, I have a lot of forward thrusting Mars energy these days, with Mars in Virgo in my first house by transit, squarely on top of my natal Mars in Virgo. This is in the Vedic system. But Mars in Virgo takes to the physical and mental discipline of Yoga like a duck takes to a pond. In fact, I secretly believe that Parvati, Shiva’s consort and the first yogi who was taught by Shiva himself, must have Mars in Virgo, as I do.
So, yoga keeps me calm. It regulates my energy. A little over a year ago I discovered an online yoga studio called Yogaglo.com. I was an immediate enthusiast, because yogaglo.com offers hundreds of classes for different durations and at different skill levels. I can do a two-hour hip opening class that opens my psoas and rocks my world, or I can do a half hour slow flow class, when I’ve already spent 45 minutes on the elliptical trainer at the gym.
There are some excellent teachers at yogaglo.com. I must mention Jason Crandell, whose intelligent, well-articulated classes are a special joy.
But this blogpost is a shout-out to the effervescent and inspiring Stephanie Snyder, whose classes are just wonderful, at any length, and at any skill level. I like to do yoga that is strong, supple, steady, and rhythmic, and Stephanie serves up her classes just that way, whether they are level 1 for beginners or level 3 for experienced yogis. I mean, I could always do without ekapadakounyasona (sp?), but I try twice as hard to master the pose when Stephanie is talking me through it.
