Durga Vahana Vyaghra


The space between the spheres thins and the wind creates passageways.
The spirits are outraged; how could they be otherwise? Their dance tramples
And blows things down, but still cannot help but create beauty.
The leaves–green, red, gold, brown from the drought, that distant memory–
Hang listlessly with the weight of rain and a bit of slush
Hardly even dancing in the wind, but still becoming perhaps
More extravagantly lovely by the storm’s grey light.
A woman on a list serve I read invited others to a “mending party.” “How delightful,” I thought. I have a few things in my mending basket. I usually use mending or knitting time as an opportunity to sit and think and listen to music and sometimes write down in my journal what seems like an interesting thought. It would be a most enjoyable alternative to sit and converse with others, all of whom have at the least a shared interest in beautifully mending clothes so that they last. And at the end of the evening, my mending would be done. I am sure it would be quite alright to knit or crochet or embroider, if there was no mending that needed to be done.
I witnessed this family standing on the train platform while I was listening to a teleseminar from Paul Muller-Ortega on the “four stages of the word.” That a family dressed this way was waiting for the train gave rise to much thought for me about how I seek to integrate yoga practice into my daily life in a modern Western culture. How much is compromise or disservice to the “purity” of the teachings and how much of it is a part of a pulsing, growing, changing intersection of peoples and times?