Bottle-Cap Scupture @ Union Station
Trash into treasure in view of the Capitol Dome.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Similar Posts
Boycotting Arizona?
Having just returned from Arizona (yes, Sedona is in Arizona, as hard as that may be to believe from any perspective other than cartographically) from a meditation retreat, and having two more scheduled with my teacher at the same location during the year, I have pondered with my usual degree of self-questioning about the potential impact of my choices the suggestions to boycott Arizona.
I had decided — perhaps because continuing to study with my teacher, including on retreat is so important to me now — that as I pretty much go straight from the airport to the meditation retreat and back without shopping, I am probably supporting people who did not support the immigration law. On previous trips, in addition to paying for the food and lodging at the retreat (my teacher lives in California, so the tuition goes to California), we ate at a Mexican family-owned restaurant and a raw foods restaurant and bought some supplies at the natural foods store (eschewing the Whole Foods in favor of the local natural foods store). I’ve decided it is OK — perhaps even a good thing — to support those who clearly were not in favor of the immigration law.
What does it mean to engage in a boycott? Who does it hurt and help? What impact could the Arizona boycott have? Have you thought about whether to boycott Arizona?
Taking a Better Look
When I was walking to work yesterday, I was delighting in watching a pair of red-headed finches cavorting at the very top of a newly blooming cherry tree just outside the Friends Committee on National Legislation’s building, which is across the street from the Hart Senate building. An impeccably suited man in a suit who was walking towards the Hart building said to me, “it is wonderful to see everything starting to bloom, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is indeed,” I replied, and pointed out the finches.
“I hadn’t noticed them; good eye,” the man said, “look, they’re eating the blossoms.” The finches were tearing blossoms off the tree and singing with great enthusiasm.
“You can see them even better from the other side of the tree, because the sun is lighting them up instead of shadowing them,” I added.
“I’ll have to go back and take a look,” he said and walked back to the other side of the tree to watch the birds as I headed on to work, with my day brightened by this interchange.
I often get caught looking at the birds or the trees or the sky when walking around town. When there is an opening, I talk to others about what I am seeing to invite them to pause and delight along with me. It is a rare day, though, to hear from someone who is clearly busy and has important work to say, “I’ll have to take a better look.” It is so important to me, and for all of us, to pause and wonder, to remember and recognize the beauty as we go about our day.
“
Health Care Reform, Brick-Throwing, Death Threats (and Svatrantrya)
One of the six fundamental aspects of being (sat) in the “Shiva-Shakti” tantra that is the foundation of Anusara yoga is svatantrya — freedom. (The others are cit, ananda, spanda, purnatva, sri). Freedom in this sense is an ultimate freedom — the very cosmos is unconstrained and freely creates what we recognize as the fabric of being out of its own play (lila). We, as inseparable from being, although in some ways confined by our embodiment, are essentially free — free to choose whether to recognize our essential nature, to find bliss (ananda) in our embodiment, to recognize the fullness (purnatva) of being, and to honor the essential auspiciousness of being (sri) in ourselves and all that is around us.
In having that freedom, we can also turn away. We can stay cloaked. We can choose violence and anger rather than nurture and love. We can choose, out of our own essential freedom to remain cloaked in ignorance, to throw bricks and threaten death because of a perceived socialist tyranny because of the passage of health care “reform” that denies the right to choose, does not provide basic medical services for all (no single payor or even public option), and gives the pharmaceutical industry a pass, but does some modest regulation of insurance companies and employers. (“Better than nothing, I guess,” as one friend wrote on the internet.)
I see the t-shirt “it’s all good,” and I think, “not!” I also know that I have the freedom for myself to recognize and remember sri, to try and see it in all, including the play of freedom that includes the freedom to turn away from the light. It will be a lifetime of practice.
