When a hurricane that is predicted to be perhaps the worst in 50 years for the East Coast shares the same name as one’s mother, news of the impending destruction is bound to bring up childhood memories.
I grew up with the song “Good Night Irene” as part of my childhood mythology. My parents met in Greenwich Village in the late 50s, which was a time when folk music was the thing. We all love songs about someone with our own name, so “Goodnight Irene” was one our mother taught us. If memory serves, we had recordings in the house by Leadbelly and the Weavers to which my older sister and I danced around the living room.
A search in You Tube reveals that it has been a popular song to cover for decades. Which is your favorite?
The true tantric practitioner is fully engaged in the life of a householder. In my book, that means being educated about the issues, participating in social change, and fulfilling the citizen’s responsibility to speak by voting.
I hope all of you will not only be voting, but also will be encouraging others to vote–especially those who actually can elect representatives to Congress and the Senate (unlike those of us in DC who continue to be disenfranchised).
It astonishes me how much time is spent complaining that it is hot. It is July, and I live south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Much of what gives rise to the complaints has to do with trying to dress in accordance with traditional office dress, being active according to some preconceived exercise routine, and wanting to eat heavy food from a diet based on habit rather than season.
Yes. It is hot, and being hot can be uncomfortable, especially if we try to fight it.
If we wear loose, light clothing, exercise less vigorously and only in the morning or after the heat of the day has waned, and eat lightly of the fruits of the season, then we can experience less discomfort. We also then can better open to the delights of the heat–stretchier muscles, a call to stillness, and chilled watermelon are a few things that make summer a joy for me.
I’m attending via the Internet a year-long series of lectures through the Upaya Zen Center about Socially Engaged Buddhism. On the honor system (the program consists only of watching zoom or YouTube lectures and a Facebook forum with no interaction with any leading the program other than group emails), as part of the year, we are supposed to have a “social engagement” project informed by Buddhist principles of right living.
Social engagement as an intrinsic element of spiritual practice/observation seems completely consistent with the principle of Quaker practice I was raised with —that of putting one’s faith and recognition that there is good in every being—into how one lives and works. It also resonates with my understanding of the yoga practice of seva (“selfless” service), which I have tried to make a consistent part of my personal yoga sadhana.
After much intentional and spaciously open contemplation of this exhortation to have a project, and in response to my listening to the lectures and the questions and observations of others listening to the the program, I came to the conclusion that, actually, I could not take on another thing without it being toxic to myself.
In fact, after 30 committed years, I’ve given notice of my intent to retire from the Federal civil service at the end of the year. I am also doing less volunteer work than I had been prior to the pandemic. For the rest of the year, I am continuing my concerted efforts to share my experience and knowledge to make sure my co-workers are prepared to take on the responsibilities for the complex project that has been largely my responsibility to lead and coordinate for over a decade. That, along with what it is taking for a mindful emergence from pre-vaccine pandemic living, is taking all the energy I can give and still be healthy.
I continue to budget to make reparations, to speak out, and make other consistent offerings, but am at last releasing the need for measurable accomplishments, rather than feeling compelled to find or produce more.
As saying that I am doing what I have already been doing has not seemed sufficiently responsive, and after these months of trying to articulate what I mean in a way that would not sound dismissive of the task, I wrote this haiku:
This is my project:
Be kinder to myself and
Also to others.
PS It is, I am sure, just a coincidence that it is Bastille Day.
Willie Nelson.