"My mistress' eyes are nothing…"
According to the Yoga Alliance’s 2016 report on yoga in America, “36.7 million Americans or 15% of US adults practice yoga in the US.”
Of course, yoga is great for you. It promotes well-being through strength, flexibility, breathing and meditation. But is yoga good for everyone?
According to William Broad, author of The Science of Yoga, “The soothing practice … can lower blood pressure, spice up sex—and kill you.” He claims…(read the rest here)
I am.
Soh hahm.
Not affirmation.
Confirmation.
Truth.
I shed my skin slowly.
Infinitely slow.
But I discard it nevertheless.
For it serves no longer any purpose.
I change my clothes.
And no one sees me new.
Yet I emerge from the dressing door clothed.
Different shoes than when I went in.
Eternal womb.
Pixabay: butterfly
What shall I do when my skin pickles and my mind dries splintered?
I won’t stare into dirty window panes.
What shall I do when my eyeballs glitch shudder open-shut, right to left?
I won’t run, slaughter, spin out, or crash in stupor-ful grim.
Where shall I go when cars slam openings cabin space so tight it pierces skin?
To nowhere regret drives home.
How shall I survive the sandwiched time of somatic stares and twitching sleep–
unparalleled movement unceasingly on?
By leaving love notes in your lunch box and writing letters home.
Why do we contrive without power un-surrendering ourselves to the perpetual?
We won’t let the wheel go, let the world spin a’wheel.
Which is in? Which is out?
What matters?
When will the uncleaved door bend, ope-crack and whistle in the sizzling windy train of space,
belly breathe hoary air eons long, trellised and clinging to cilial body, shivering sensoranticipatorily?
When still–
Yet still–
Stillness is.
Pixabay: waterstillnesswoodnets
“If you don’t have good intentions, please just leave me alone. I’m tired.”
Right on. My gut reacted that way to these adorned, bordered words on my morning Facebook scroll. At second blush, however, this sounded grumpy. It’s the “leave me alone” part. A command that demands aloneness inevitably appears angry, sad, just a bad decision. I mean, who besides me would want to be alone? Well, many more might be better off if they were. They might not only be okay with it, but crave it after a while.
The world is always too much with us whether we live in the bush on the African plains or in New York city’s heart. We toil. We care. We think about how, what or if we feel from the moment our eyes open upon awakening to their closing in sleep.
We think of doing. We do. Our minds embalm themselves in constant “voice,” mostly noise. Our sensations form perceptions and the senses are always on, no matter how much we try to shut them down, tune them out or mute them with volume reducers (drugs, alcohol, love, food…).
We are lost in a thrumming hum of sensate being. How can we ever be alone? There is no alone, no solitude, except for sleep or death, and those only by outside appearance. Who knows who or what accompanies us in either? Our minds are constantly populated with people, thoughts, memories and plans with, about or in avoidance of those we carry.
We are never alone.
No wonder we’re tired.
So the demand to be alone is necessary. It seems nearly impossible to accomplish without intolerably long, hard dedication to removing thoughts–all of them–in practiced meditation.
And those–people or thoughts–with bad intentions whether direct or indirect, conscious or unconscious, it’s all too much. Each of us is on overload merely in the pace of one moment to the next–the bombardment of living with others, even among nature only. Nature is not benevolent. It too harbors malignancies, intended or not.
But those who move bent on destruction (think of the fearful-angry vibrations they emit and hit us with like sonar) overburden us beyond our sitting, resting, active capacities and raise our hackles, elevating our hormones with alarm bells. We, poised in self-preservation, fight or flight, consume and are consumed by nothing but the bad intent, defense in crush or aggression, certainly guardedness. Where does that lead?
Not to equanimity, nor to conditions amenable to hearing the silence, being with solitude, clearing the mind. We become filled with the chatter-ful greed, jealousy, deceit, mischief or envy of another. We endure gossip, lies and other violence. Our skin tingles and tightens with breath, tremor and howl.
We may suffer with our lives momentarily or forever.
It is not an unreasonable request–to hold out a stiff, unbending arm that impedes the onslaught of another–whether that takes the form of someone bumping into us, screaming hate or fear at our eyes, or onrushing our bodies to steal or otherwise injure.
We can act. We can will it, say it: “Leave. Don’t come near. Let me remove you from my mind. I can do it with or without your consent.”
In the end, it–all of it–is in our heads. Nothing. Everything.
So, usher in aloneness. Yes. I’m willing.
We’re in the car. I muse out loud, “I want to carry into the world the kindness and caring I feel when I do yoga or when I write about the garden I peek at sometimes through the fence separating our yard from the neighbor’s or when I’m baking apricot and garlic spread into baguette then topping it with sun dried tomatoes that have soaked in Greek olive oil a good long while, for our dinner guests.”
The one in the front seat is silent, but the wise ass in the back seat, snarkily asks in disbelief, “You?” Then she shakes her head slowly and says, “Nah.” They both laugh.
I laugh. She’s a quick witted funny kid. But as we drive a way into the silence, a momentary pause in conversation, each with our thoughts, I frown inside.
I meant it. The kindness does not extend far beyond the mat. I don’t want to manufacture it for myself by motion and feel-good-pat-on-the-back exercises and readings. I want to exercise it, stress test it in the throes of messy, even horrible existence, in the battles on the streets, on the road, in the supermarket, and on social media.
This election circus distracts me (a Trump funk), foments mental terror and pulsing anger that requires the quelling by kindness, everyone’s. But mine is especially important in my world, to the people I touch. Hiding inside words, playing nice with language won’t do. I won’t be jailed by the surrounding toxic vitriol. I vow to melt it, laser it with the heat of my passionate dispassion.
Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love…
August 2, 2016
I used to have so much fight in me, so much conviction, indignation, righteousness and determination. I was ambition. I was striving.
Now I’m heart-fatigued, deadened by weather, watches and people, so I can’t be bothered with so much of what bothered me. My ambitions are quieter, steadier now. And while before everything turned to anger–contradiction, injustice, oppression–now those conditions are met with a profound sadness that shatters my steady, moves my once immovable tears from the dammed up reservoir of hurt, pain, disappointment, fear, shock and panic to come, future furies and frustrations.
For example, I know someone who takes advantage of my inability to say no, sometimes. She plays me, and I know it and accept it. I allow her to do that–use me for her own gains and pleasures. I can only surmise I permit her to take advantage; otherwise, I would simply make her stop.
That slight, that injustice, that unfairness, how she treats me, would have enraged me in younger days. I would have ached to avenge my pride, my dignity, scraping my imagination with retorts, come-backs, equalizing actions and humiliating reconciliation.
But today, I observe her making me uncomfortable, forcing me to vocalize the dirty rotten truth between us. And I watch myself watching her watching me. Awaiting the courage and the words, I witness her machinations, manipulations and movements, and mull the situation over, slightly anxious, confident the solution will find me.
Observing the world through the wrong end of the telescope
again jitters me anxious.
Everything appears near and far
all at once, and yet,
the horror bursts under my skin–like inverted leeches
and the loud clown faces stretched wide
like reflections in a round, polished door knob,
gold, red, bleeding before my mind.
Their insane grins rattle the dendrite bones .
The shouting matches pervasive from Twitter to the barroom
to the soccer field to my inner universe, debating
whether to sit or lie, kick or run, vote or march, rail or listen…
all at the same mad, ear-splitting volume, nerve-splintering.
And yet, the glass distorts the all of everything–
the faces, voices, coughing, snarling and sweat–
keeps them remote though their breath cooks my calm,
no matter whether in ear shot or scope range,
targeting me and mine.
I witness the movie screen from miles away,
despite the price of dislocation—death,
a deadness like numb itchiness in sleeping limbs.
It’s no good at all is all I’m trying to say.
Nothing good can come from so far away, distance
that does not create peace,
does not create…
Distance invited, procured and deliberate,
not fortresses defended.
I am neither my title,
surname,
job
or
thick toes.
I am a traveler
into the sheaves of human margins,
turning the book inside out
and rewriting the musical notes
to sing the paper strings.
I am a digger
in ancient French tongues,
salt and euphony,
and a forgiver of rhymes,
slight
and fever.
My daily question mark half circles
to dot the when of things,
bring them face to my own blind eyes,
up close like cilia sensors:
steam,
pallor
and frankincense.
Our skin aflame
scented musk and cream,
I mean,
as if all of us
walked to the holy house,
succumbed to the chewy silence,
perched on velvet crushed cushions
with our mouths circled
and vibrating
in the register
of C(osmos).
Image: cosmos via Flickr
June 30, 2016
Woke up with a pleasant, little hang-over, feeling calm and assured, recalling the spatial quietude both inner and outer of the Rama Krishna Vedanta Monastery in Rancho Santa Margarita. Snapshots of the musty, library thick with sound-absorbing books with titles like Yoga, the Vedanta, and You. I sat down on a faux leather sink-in couch and perused a few images on instructional pages before moving on to the meditation room. This dark sanctuary, replete with incensed-burning altar centered with a framed photo of one of the Rama Krishna disciples, I assume, compacted, thick, chewy air. I did not get close enough to examine the framed face heading the room. No, I stayed back in the sunken square dotted with cushy meditation pillows and blankets in deep wine and maroon velveteen or faux silk.
Pulling one aside, I sat on the pillow and lapsed into my habitual meditation pose, legs in half lotus, palms down and forefinger-thumb circled knees. I don’t know how long I breathed into the space which sucked out all noise save the air conditioner among three breathers. The desert outside did not exist in this room resonant with an abundance of meditations past: innumerable daily practicing monks and others since the 40s. Rich with endeavor and calm, I fell into the room’s focused peace.
The sweaty outdoor hike that followed contrasted deeply with steep climbs and declines along a narrow, mud-hardened, bramble-lined, winding path amid the chaparral—the shrine trail–leading to five meditative spaces symbolic of five religions or practices: Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism and Vedanta. The highest spot is the last, the Vedanta, which embraces both physically (highest climb) and spiritually all the others.
On the way out, the 18 year old son of a friend who accompanied me, purchased in the gift shop a jar of honey produced by the bees the monks keep on the property and allow to swarm the lily-laced fountain pool surrounding the shrine statue located between the mess hall and library. He had never tried honey before. And so the little jaunt ended as it began with the same, sweet, subdued astonishment.
Please enjoy a little shared yoga after glow in today’s The Mindful Word.
In a mind-drifting moment during Yoga practice this morning, I flashed on a childhood fantasy about leaping in zero gravity like the astronauts. How fun it would be to float freely without burden, without weight forcing me down to the earthbound reality that I could never fly…read more.
In the gaze of the other 