Similar Posts
on the train
I am on Amtrak heading to the Anusara teachers’ gathering in
Morrisville, NC. The train is surprisingly crowded and not surprisingly a whole different vibe than the train to NY.By day we will be practing and gathering in a hall at a Hindu temple. The grounds are reported to be beautiful and welcoming. By night, those of us who don’t have local friends will be staying at hotels off the highway with cable TV that usually serve the visitors to the big university ball games and events. We’ll then all be driving back and forth to the venue and out to eat.
I find it of mild interest that I spend more time in cars and more time in a place with TV when I travel to study yoga than at any other time during the year.
- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Gardening | Photos | Quaker
Blossoms Around Town
I spent much of my day divided between errands and home repairs and checking the latest news. Before beginning my day, I got deeply immersed in Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, which I cannot recommend highly enough for more perspective on the current state of our society.
It was sticky walking about the neighborhood, and things are lush. Easy to pretend everything is ok and for now, it is for me. From that privilege, what can I give? Amidst sharing that I am again reviewing what time and resources more I can offer, sometimes I want to connect through offering beauty.
Needless Anxiety (and messages from the universe in my spam folder)
From a German language spammer advertising “female viagra” comes this bit of universal wisdom on a day when I found myself needlessly anxious about a mistake that was fairly easily rectified: “It sounds like you’re creating problems yourself by trying to solve this issue instead of looking at why their [sic] is a problem in the first place”
If I were one who just trusts naturally that many simple things can be fixed easily if I just ask for help, there wouldn’t have been any need to be anxious. It would have been better not to have made the mistake in the first place, but as much as I might dislike it, I will inevitably make mistakes–here, not getting my dates right for asking for sub coverage for a yoga class. With the wonderful community in which I am blessed to be a member, it only took a few phone calls to work things out.
It is one of my biggest challenges to have to ask for help. Having to ask for help because I made a mistake made it even more challenging. A big part of my yoga is learning to soften and trust in such situations. When I did just that, I not only was able to ease away from needless anxiety, I was able to allow in more love and support. Sometimes we need to be put face to face with our toughest stuff to open at another level.
Altar for Dia de Los Muertos

National Museum of the American Indian (just across the Mall from my workplace)




