I looked away from my colleague’s computer screen. Though I was still thinking about the topic at hand in the middle of a demanding day requiring much multitasking, there was still room. There was still room to stop and notice beauty in plain sight.
The trishula represents all the philosophical threesomes:
sat cit ananda (being, consciousness, bliss);
iccha, jnana, kriya (will, knowledge, action);
siva and shakti and the dance of relationship between the two.
The me and the you and the us–for where there are two ones there is also the third and all the play (lila) and pulsation (spanda) that is part of the dance cosmic and divine and personal.
On this anniversary of my Grandmother Rose’s leaving her body and her daughter, my mother, entering hers, on this Armistice day though none in my lineage were warriors, I made in remembrance and recognition of my ancestors, this mala with a locket (still empty of pictures) that my grandmother bought at the Brooklyn Museum’s shop in the early 1970s–
Rudraksha Seed – auspiciousness and oneness
Iolite – connecting with angels
Laboradorite – perfection and protection
Amethyst – gentle, tranquil, soothing healing
Pyrite – fierce creativity, ingenuity
Avilokitesvara– god(dess) of compassion had one head and two arms. Zhe didn’t have enough ears to listen to all the stories of suffering, so one of the buddhas busted one head into eleven. Avilokitesvara’s two arms broke from the weight of helping, but instead of two arms broken and worn out, two arms broke into a thousand arms.
I’ve never understood the t-shirt saying that “it’s all good.”. It just isn’t. This morning I found myself near to tears reading the news of violence, greed, malice, and willful indifference.
I do believe that we need to do our best to respond to everything we face with the greatest good we can offer. The ability to respond from spacious, illuminated awareness for the good and to discover the possibility of good in the most difficult and abhorrent is what yoga and meditation–or any other spiritual discipline–makes progressively more possible. No amount of yoga will make me love crisis, but it will make me better able to experience and offer love when in crisis, so I hope.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
