A few of the guests at Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party, on view at the Brooklyn Museum, in particular caught my attention when I visited last weekend.
It’s worth visiting if you have never seen this invocation to the many facets of the goddess–calling her by many of her many, many names, reminiscent of the yogis invocations to the 330 million god(desses).
If I have done this correctly, it is Christmas day (Boxing day for those of you who are email subscribers). If all is on schedule, I am basking in warmth (though possibly with lots of rain) witnessing ritual that in form is another world than Christmas in the cold United States. At another level, it is all one–a deep and heartfelt yearning for and an offering of love. Whatever your beliefs, whatever you are doing on this day, and however you might practice or worship, if at all, I wish you all much love, peace, and joy.
On unexpectedly beautiful days like yesterday, I make sure that I get out during the workday. I’ll ask a co-worker, “did you go out?” Often the response is, “I couldn’t go out; if I went out, I wouldn’t have wanted to come back in.” This is not an uncommon response. I so treasure the spaces of delight in the midst of any day, that it is hard for me to appreciate that response on an emotional or visceral level.
But what my co-worker is saying is that she will get so caught up in longing (pain) that pleasure for a short time is not worth the pain. Thinking about it in that way, I understand. Patanjali cautions us not to get caught up in the “pairs of opposites,” pleasure and pain. Both the longing for pleasure and the avoidance of pain take us out of the moment and make it hard for us to connect to the essence of being. If we are always yearning and avoiding, we cannot rest in the bliss of being.
When we take a walk outside, or stop to eat a nourishing lunch, or pause for five minutes to meditate during the work day, it will only have fleeting benefits if we do it just for the pleasure. If we can consciously bring ourselves into the moment and simply rest in our own being, then it will help us just be (in the state which is free from pleasure and pain/longing and avoidance) while we are in the whirlwind of activity and challenges of our day.
