The enforced time away afforded quite an opportunity to gain some perspective on how our work shapes, contributes to, and informs our very human being.
A little before 6pm my cell phone rang while I was sitting at my desk at work in the throes of a complicated task. It was a friend and fellow yogi calling. “All you alright?” he asked. “I’m in the middle of a horrible assignment and I have cramps, but I guess I am OK” I replied, “why do you ask?” He told me about the metro crash. He didn’t see me at Willow Street and was worried that I was on the train. Had I gone to class instead of staying late at work, I well could have been on the red line at the time of the crash.
I was grateful for my friend’s call and warmed by his concern. I am busy checking in with the many people I know who could have been on the train. I know many friends, neighbors, Willow Street colleagues and students, and co-workers who themselves or whose friends and loved ones may have been in the crash.
I am filled with concern and compassion for those from whom I have not heard and those who were injured, trapped, and afraid. I will spend much of the evening practicing and holding all in the light.
Please all who commute on the red line, comment, post on face book, and send emails to let us all know you are OK.
The goddess dancing
Wildly in a ring of fire
Smiling cool, serene.
First too hot, now cool.
It wasn’t until the weather cooled and the reality of a second week of work not being done that needs to be done to meet deadlines that the impulse arose to make the first batch of homemade granola of the season. This batch could be called maple nut granola with raisins.
Harvested last of the sweet banana peppers and a fire engine red cayenne pepper. Also picked as a baby one last eggplant before pulling the plant to make way for tat soi.
Most of the tomatoes I found on the ground still unripe. With a generous portion of red wine and nice herbs, and the traditional way of cooking them for hours and then running through a food mill, and then reducing until reaching the desired thickness, it won’t matter that the tomatoes ripened on the counter.
Assorted apples from the farmer’s market. Dried fruit is different when it goes into the dehydrator within a couple of days of having been picked and early in the season when the apples are best. An upside of being required to stay around home is that I have been able to experiment with the dehydrator that was a most generous birthday gift.
There’s a bunch of difficult stuff going on, but there is no need to write about it anywhere except possibly in my journal, for much of it. And as for the shutdown and its impact on real people around the globe (and all that interconnectedness stuff), I prefer today to write about granola and stuff from the garden.
Anyway, I’m thinking I would just be preaching to the choir if I wrote another blog post about the importance of trying to keep up and understand as much as possible, speaking with others to shape your understanding and your voice, being in contact with your elected officials and signing petitions, and reaching out to friends and family open to such discussions to invite them to be engaged.
It is times like these when I think of Patanjali’s sutra: heyam duhkham anagatam (the pain that has yet to come can be avoided.) I have contemplated this sutra much over a long period. It is a good one for when I am reaching into the yoga teachings for insight into how I might respond more optimally under the circumstances at hand, especially that which is entirely out of my control.
The first of Patanjali’s niyamas (part of the ethical precepts that are precursors to the practice of asana, pranayama, and meditation) is sauca — purity or cleanliness. The practice of sauca includes in it a literal exhortation to be physically clean. I think it also carries with it a sense of order, a cleaning out of physical, mental, and emotional clutter, so that we have more clarity. When we find more clarity, we can be more in the flow with the inexorable sequence of time and space.
Experiencing how we fit into the pulsation of time and space is one of the exquisite joys of gardening. This time of year, avid gardeners are eager to get int the garden, and it is tempting to get started to soon, to start new things without cleaning out the old. When we are more experienced (and know better the optimal sequencing of starting the garden with the shifting of the seasons), we also know that we might have gotten a few days in the 50s F, but it is still winter.
Emphasizing the practice of sauca now will serve the whole gardening season. When it is still cold, but the heart yearns for the garden, is the time to be planning, reorganizing, and cleaning to get ready for the days when it will stay warm enough for growing outside a cold frame or protected area. As I use a lot of containers, now is the time for me to see what containers need repairs, removal of perennials that did not make it through the winter, and new soil. It is the time to prune what is better pruned now than in the fall. This is not just trashing everything, but seeing what should be preserved, what should be repaired, what should be cleaned, and what should be discarded or given away. It is cleaning out what gets in the way of an optimal flow of energy to experience the greatest effulgence of nature. By practicing the cleaning and clearing out phase with intention and enthusiasm, I am present with the garden and also in sequence with the light and the temperature. In this way, just as I am when I practice these principles on the mat, I get the bliss of yoga.
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Magnificent photo, Elizabeth!