The Hindu pantheon has a trinity in which Brahma is the creator, Vishnu is the preserver, and Shiva is the destroyer. Have you ever wondered why it is Shiva, the destroyer, and not Brahma, the creator, who is represented by the lingam–symbol of the progenitor?
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Here’s the garden after the thunderstorm. Please take some healing, grounding breaths and then take action about increasing federal military presence in cities with peaceful protests.
I am lucky to have a non-stop. The storm is supposed to have passed through. So I can enjoy myself know matter what travel brings, I pack up a variety of reading materials — philosophy, handouts for the workshop, and fiction. I switched my ankle warmers to bamboo knitting needles so I could get through security and knit (the ankle warmers are on size 2 needles, so it is taking me as long as a sweater). I have my journal and a pen. Best, I am traveling with two friends (all different flights, but no one waiting alone in the airport) with whom to visit, who are going to the same retreat. Takes the edge off of the early wake up time. Starts the retreat when I leave the door instead of when I arrive at the retreat center.
This morning I was deep into my regular meditation when I felt the cat (whom I had not known was next to me) swat my shoulder. He has been wanting much attention for the past couple of days, but he has never actually pawed me the way some dogs do to get a petting. I went back into my meditative space and then a couple of minutes later noticed my shoulder was itching. Sully had tried to get a mosquito that was biting me. Good kitty.
A few months ago, I succumbed to the brilliant marketing at one of those yoga studio boutiques filled with enticing outfits that make one feel like part of the in crowd and bought a pair of leggings covered in an allover peacock feather print that made me think of Murugan whose temple we visited on the trip to South India and whose steed is a peacock.
One of the stories about Murugan, who is Ganesha’s brother (Ganesha being the beloved elephant god and remover of obstacles), talks about a competition between Murugan and Ganesha for divine knowledge. (Let’s leave aside for now the question of why a divine being would need to enter a competition to gain divine knowledge as too big a question for a blogger who has no academic or priestly expertise in the Hindu pantheon). In the story, as I have heard it (and as described in the Wiki article that I have shamelessly linked to above, despite all the disdain one might appropriately have for one who cites to a Wiki article), Murugan loses because what he does is try to show off his prosaic prowess by tearing around the world three times. Ganesha wins by quietly circumambulating with quiet worship Shiva and Parvati, the god and goddess, the essence of being, the pulsation of opposites.
When we were out walking in the woods the other day, my friend ER took an incredibly insightful picture of me trying too hard to look like the yoginis who grace the magazine covers and can do the most magnificent asana. The brilliance of the photo is its revelation of the empty ridiculousness of my posing like the beauty I am not, and of pointedly demonstrating how neither wearing wild peacock pants, nor being able to do a tolerably deep backbend reveals anything to the self about spirit. But perhaps it also shows, in its candid and ironic look at an all too human yogini, that like Lord Murugan, who despite of or perhaps because of his absolutely flawed nature is actively and devotedly worshipped, I in my laughable striving may still have in my human being something of the divine. I can only hope.
Merry Christmas.
