There is an unreality to the beauty of the Spring blossoms. If you look closely at the photograph, you can see how terribly dry is the ground. How long can trees blossom when in drought? If we fail to nourish the whole, beauty is much less likely to manifest.
First I spent a couple of hours in the garden, then I walked to the grocery store and the pet supply shop. The next walk was a loop first to the hardware store and then to the farmers’ market for fruit and eggs.
The last walks were round trip to the Sunday contact improv jam. I mostly did asana in the corner, which is not really dancing, but nobody seemed to mind.
On the way home I extended the walk to do one last errand. The weather was perfect. Gardens everywhere bright and lush from the unusual rain.
It is my intention to write a newsletter talking about the shift in my life that is leading me, effective this week, to take a partial sabbatical from teaching yoga. I will still have my Tuesday night class at William Penn House and hope to see many on at least an occasional basis. I will also be available for single and group privates and expect to teach a workshop or two in the Fall. But after eight years, I will no longer be traveling up to Takoma Park every weekend, currently on Friday nights and before that Saturdays, to teach. In this shifting, I have much to say about Kali–goddess of sequencing–and moving within the limits of time and space and some other things beside.
In the meantime, while I am wrestling with how to say what I believe are among the things I want to express and as I deal with a bout of being very busy at work and spending far too much time at the computer to want to spend more time writing in the evening, I just want to mention that it is indeed possible to make decent granola in the slow cooker. I experimented with that today, in between conference calls and emails and document reviews (slow cooking, after all, takes very little consistent attention). The cooking reached its conclusion while students and I gathered for Wednesday night practice. More important than requiring little attention after the initial preparation stage, the slow cooker doesn’t heat up the kitchen, and I refuse to turn on the oven if it is going to be 80F or above. Slow cooker granola is an excellent compromise between no homemade granola in the hot months and turning on the oven.
When I’ve experimented some more, perhaps I’ll create a recipe, adding to the many dozens on the internet. My first attempt was relatively low fat and no refined sugar. Yum. And if you’re a local, do come join me this Friday for a sweetly nostalgic and celebratory evening of restoratives. 5:45pm-7:15pm, Willow Street Takoma Park. Drop-ins and make-ups welcome.
I have a set of cards that I keep on my altar that are designed to be used for contemplation. There are about fifty cards, each of which has a sanskrit word and its meaning. Just as one gets a fortune cookie randomly or picks a tarot card from a deck, but the message often seems right on point, the word that arises from the card picked from the stack often seems uncannily timely. Early Saturday morning, after not having used the cards in a few months, I picked a card from the middle of the stack to see if it would help guide my contemplation and meditations as I was getting ready to say good-bye to Becky. The word on the card I picked blind from the middle of the stack was “moksha” or liberation. In classical yoga, moksha does carry with it the implication of being liberated by transcending body and mind.
Later on Saturday, when I was on my way home from teaching for the appointment with the vet, I stopped at the metaphysical supply shop for a piece of rose quartz (to use in a ritual to assist with the transition and loss that a friend taught me). At the check out were “dolphin saying cards.” There was a sign next to the cards inviting customers to take one for free. The sign also said that it was not necessary to take the one at the top. The cards were face down; I did not look for a particular saying. I dug a few cards down, and the one I selected read: “freedom has its roots within yourself.” In other words, “moksha” for the second time on this day, when I was facing with Becky her transition of the spirit from the body.
Was it a message? Was it a coincidence? I do know that I knew when it was time, as I did with Henrietta. Becky just did not want to be embodied anymore. When I held her in her arms after she stopped breathing, she was released and relaxed in a way she had not been in months. That the signs were saying “moksha” resonated with Becky’s power and connectedness. I hope that when I am ready to go, I will truly understand moksha, that I will be released. It is so resonant of Becky’s life, for all her quirks, that she was still teaching me even as she was dying.
