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- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Body | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Photos
Hot Day (and aligning with it instead if fighting it)
It astonishes me how much time is spent complaining that it is hot. It is July, and I live south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Much of what gives rise to the complaints has to do with trying to dress in accordance with traditional office dress, being active according to some preconceived exercise routine, and wanting to eat heavy food from a diet based on habit rather than season.
Yes. It is hot, and being hot can be uncomfortable, especially if we try to fight it.
If we wear loose, light clothing, exercise less vigorously and only in the morning or after the heat of the day has waned, and eat lightly of the fruits of the season, then we can experience less discomfort. We also then can better open to the delights of the heat–stretchier muscles, a call to stillness, and chilled watermelon are a few things that make summer a joy for me.
Petting the Temple Cows
After a day of teaching and more discussion and emails regarding the upheaval, I had a memory of petting one of the temple cows at Chidambaram. I was jetlagged and in sensory overload, and then I petted a most wonderful cow. I dropped into a space where I was perfectly at peace and unaware of the time and all the things going on around me. This space is always there for us, even in the absence of a sacred cow, and we practice so that we can find it more and more consistently, especially when we are being challenged.
I did not photograph the Chidambaram temple cow, although a nice Indian lady asked me if her husband could photograph the two of us with the cow, so she has a photograph of herself with the strange American lady in a sari who was petting the cow. I stopped to pet many cows after that. In one town, a man told me, as I was scritching a cow between ears and horns, that the cow would enjoy a banana.
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Walking Cheerfully
Quaker, George Fox famously called people to “walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone.”
I have been thinking about that in the context of joy as part of the resistance. One might also think about it in the context of “right action” in the Bhagavad Gita.
It’s not just enjoying oneself however one might or having fun.
It’s finding and expressing joy in kindness, generosity, community care.
I wake each morning thinking not just how I can fight, but how can can spread comfort and safety so that those who are being threatened have some room to cheerful themselves.




