Outside the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, PA
It was good to get outside for awhile, as wet as it was. The mild air promised spring.
Yesterday morning, when I came out of savasana following my regular a.m. practice, one of my cats was happily stretched the length of my side with his chin resting on my upper arm. He had not been there when I first moved into savasana. I looked at the clock and realized that I had been in savasana for 45 minutes, which was ample time for the cat to get comfortable. It would be, perhaps, more accurate to say I had been in savasana for several minutes (exact number of minutes unknown) and many more minutes blissfully asleep.
I very rarely fall asleep in savasana. Falling asleep in savasana regularly is a pretty good indicator of sleep deprivation, which is something I make an effort to avoid for my overall health and happiness.
On Saturday night I had stayed out fairly late, enjoying a meal, followed by dessert and book-browsing with a friend. When I got home at around 11:30 I felt a strong need to write in my journal about my initial reaction to the tragic shooting in Arizona. The cats were excited that I was awake at that hour, so I also spent some extra time petting them. This meant I was awake about two hours later than is usual for me.
The morning wake up sound (currently a recording of the Sri Rudrum) went off at its usual 5:57 a.m. Oof. The temptation was high just to turn off the sound and go back to sleep.
I know from long experience that the next several days will be better if I get up and do my regular hour to an hour and a half morning practice, which consists of a little asana, some pranayama, meditation and meditation-related practices, and savasana, and then trust that I will find an opportunity for a quick nap later in the day. My practice is my center, my delight, my exploration, my grounding; at this point, I come close to saying it is an essential part of who I am. When I have a busy day scheduled–as I did yesterday–it is still almost unthinkable to miss the practice, though on rare occasions out of necessity I will shorten it to just 30 minutes of meditation.
It turned out that the end of my practice turned into the nap I needed. The practice followed by the blissfully long rest was, though, far more what I needed than staying in bed for longer and wondering when and whether I could fit in a practice later.
Last month, Sianna Sherman taught a weekend workshop at Willow Street Yoga. At the beginning of one of the segments of the workshop, she talked about the story of the monkey god Hanuman and his leap to Lanka (he did this to rescue Sita, who had been abducted by her own demons. Sita sent Hanuman back to India without her, asking Hanuman where was Ram, but that’s a whole different thread in the Ramayana.)
The first demon Hanuman encountered was Mainaka, a golden mountain who rose up out of the sea. She gave Hanuman a place to rest. She was helper. But she was also demon in that she wanted Hanuman to stay and rest with her and to give up his journey. Some of the stories characterize Mainaka only as a helper, and not as a demon. If Hanuman had become stuck in the comfort Mainaka offered, though, and failed in his journey, she would have been for him the demon of complacency. The question Sianna left with us to consider about Mainaka was where have we been too comfortable? Where do we need to express gratitude and appreciation, but move on?
The second demon, Surasa, was a fierce water serpent who emerged from the water to swallow Hanuman up as he was flying over the ocean. To escape, he first tried making himself so big that she Surasa could not swallow him, but she just opened her mouth wider and wider, gnashing at him with her razor-sharp teeth. Hanuman escaped by then shrinking himself to the size of a dust mote and flying out from between Surasa’s teeth. Being able to make himself immense was one of the powers he needed to be able to fight the various demons, but he needed also to be willing and able to make himself small to complete the journey. He would have been stuck if he had not been capable of taking on different shapes and approaching things from different perspectives. Surasa may have tried to swallow him up, but she also taught him perspective. “Are there places where you could use more perspective?” asked Sianna.
The third demon , Sinhaka, at least according to some versions, tried to eat Hanuman’s shadow. Inseparable from his shadow, the only way to escape was to turn back to face and claim his shadow as his own to battle Sinhaka. Running away would have just kept Sinhaka champing at his tail and dragging him back from success. We have to recognize and face our shadows in order to be complete and to understand the full spectrum of being. We were invited to ask whether there were particular fears from which we were running.
What stayed with me, and has me still thinking about the workshop, was that the emphasis was on treating ourselves and the obstacles we face on and off the mat with compassion. We often give lip service in Western tantra to seeing the good or the necessary in our demons. For example, whereas classical yoga thinks desire needs to be eradicated, tantra recognizes both that we would not get out of bed in the morning without it and that desire is what can lead us to practice and seek spiritual connection. When we can truly look at our demons (both our own personal ones and those we see in both wider and more intimate relationships), our demons are not evidently nor necessarily to be slain or eschewed or to be seen as only malignant or pestilent. When we approach our own demons and those of others with true compassion, we open the possibility of change through deeper awareness, connection, and recognition of humanity.
