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    Standing Vigil

    My walk in the neighborhood led me to Eastern Market this morning although I was not looking for anything in particular. A small group of people were standing at the four corners of 7th and C Streets Southeast, standing vigil for the children in Gaza and asking for ceasefire.

    I asked if I might join them and they offered me a sign. The demonstrator next to whom I was standing was most curious about what led me to be supportive of Palestine and we mostly talked about Quakers and Quaker emphasis on peaceful and fair solutions.

    How could I not, in this small way, not add my voice and add my physical presence when I imagine how much more brave to be speaking out and how much more painful for those with friends and family and familiar places under siege.

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    Cause/ Effect and Integrity

    Earlier in the week, on my way home from a conference on the other side of town,  I found on the $1 cart outside of Second Story Books, Starhawk’s Dreaming the Dark — Magic, Sex and Politics.  Though I always learn something from reading Starhawk’s books and I had not read this one yet, the book was so heavily underlined, I thought twice about getting it.

    Something made me hesitate before putting it back, and I opened it at random.  On the page was the following:  “Directed energy causes change.  To have integrity, we must recognize that our choices bring about consequences, and that we cannot escape responsibility for the consequences, not because they are imposed by some external authority, but because they are inherent in the choices themselves.”

    I wondered why this had not been underlined in full when so much of the rest of the page had been underlined because I thought on reading it:  “Exactly right; that speaks to our current condition.”

    And being in the midst this dialogue in which there has been so much discussion of integrity (along with what we might have caused and how we might have been affected by certain actions), I dismissed the possibility that the underlining would be too intrusive for my own reading because, yes, this teaching comes at just the right time in just the right context for deep contemplation of the deep truth that to act with integrity, we must appreciate our own contribution to causes and results/responses in the undulating fabric of our connected being.

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    45-Minute Savasana

    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.

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