Watching the Storm
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State of the Garden (Front)
For a few precious days each year, the light in the house and underneath the Japanese maple in front of the house glows red.
Rothko in the Tower Closing This Sunday
Walk quietly and meditatively to the National Gallery’s East Wing right away if you have not yet seen the Rothko in the Tower exhibit and you are in town. Exquisite. I have been many times while it has been open (one of the best things about my job is its proximity to the National Gallery, allowing me to go visit a painting or two at lunch), but have left if more than a couple of people are in the exhibit with me. Sometimes it is others who appreciate the subtleties and then we get the joy of communal appreciation and connection. More often with a group of visitors climbing the steps to the Tower gallery space, it is tourists who come up, see that the paintings are mostly black and loudly exclaim that they don’t get it. The act of not getting it without effort tends to make them louder and more inclined to just chat about whatever and not look at the art. When I find an art exhibit that is not to my taste, it is my practice (as I was taught) to make an effort to appreciate the technique and intention, if not the aesthetics, and then move on with some insight gained for the broader art world–knowing there is another opportunity just down the hall or the street for me to find deeper delight and inspiration.
- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc)
Devil in the Details (and jnanam bandaha)
The second sutra of the Siva Sutras is “jnanam bandhaha” (knowledge is bondage). In the context of the Siva Sutras, this tells us that getting caught in trying to acquire knowledge of the manifest world and all of its infinite minutiae can lead us away from a sense of connection to a universal spirit.
We have the phrase in the work place that the “devil is in the details” both because getting caught up in the details can take us away of accomplishing a desired result and because the details need to be worked out to realize the result, and the details (not the theory) are the hard part. At the societal level, for example, working out the details of a health care bill and how it will actually function seems to be preventing us, as a society, from offering health care to all. On our yoga mats, we need to understand the details of physical alignment so that the practice strengthens and optimizes our health, rather than taking us physically and energetically out of alignment, but we do not want concentration on the details to take us away from heart and spirit.
The “devil may be in the details” but we cannot stop the details from being part of our existence. As much as we need not to get so bogged down in the details that we have discord, distrust, unhappiness, and ineffectiveness, we also need to cultivate knowledge of the details. As beings embodied in space and time in the manifest world, we need to cultivate knowledge so that we can recognize when the details are not in optimal alignment, so that we have sufficient knowledge, strength, intuition, and subtlety to be able to shift the details so that they lead towards good for ourselves individually and collectively.
What a devilish conundrum.
- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation
Your Grief and Anxiety Are Valid
Yesterday, in response to the question, how was I doing, I responded that though I was personally fine, I was mourning deeply those suffering from the wars and disasters around the world and anxious about the state of this country and what was to come. I feel most ok when I am making efforts to make things better and to contribute less to future harm.
I was told I was being unreasonable; real grief was only if one has just lost a relative or a close friend. This might have had something to do with the fact that this person believes in Israel’s unconscionable aggression and needed to justify their position.
I’m here to tell you that it is nonsense to say that grief is only real if so narrowly circumscribed. It was not as though I said my grief and anxiety were keeping me from helping; to the contrary, they inspire me to give more of myself.
Everyone’s grief is valid, including grief for the climate and society and our ideals. And grief does not have an expiration date.
Meditation and yoga may help you stay with the full range of human experience and better see and appreciate what joy is there is to be had. It has for me, but I already have my basic needs covered.
May you be happy and safe and healthy.
