Found Exhortation (Women’s March DC 2018)
Similar Posts
Azalea Walk at the National Arboretum (and Sadhana)
As it is every year, the Azalea Walk at the National Arboretum fills me with joy and wonder. “Was it really this splendid last year?” one of my companions asked. “I go every year,” she said, “but I forget how gorgeous it is!” She comes back each year to remember the beauty and the awe. So, too, it can be with our practice. We stop going to class or practicing our meditation or asana for a while because we get too busy. Then we come back, and we ask ourselves how we could have forgotten the joy and beauty a steady practice brings us, and we are inspired to commit again.
- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
“Jobs Not War” (and the Power of Mantra)
I walked over to the Capitol building at lunchtime to see the rally in support of the Jobs Bill. As I approached, attendees were chanting “jobs not war, jobs not war, jobs not war, jobs not war, jobs not war, jobs not war, jobs not war, jobs not war, jobs not war….”
The act of chanting gathered the energy together. The chanting empowered those at the rally to deepen their resolve. In this instance, their resolve was to seek in an ever more coordinated and expansive way a shift away from war and big finance and to community, environment, education, and infrastructure repair and development, employing the millions who have been out of work in this double recession. Chanting also helped bring the message into the conscious awareness of those hearing the chant, which in its simplicity served as a sign post both for the more elaborate meaning and for a more universal call for unity and change. This power to work both within and without with chanting at a rally can give a taste the powers attributed to the yoga practices of mantra repetition (japa) or meditation with a mantra. Just how mantra and chanting work is a curious and wondrous matter, but it is hard to think of a culture that has not spontaneously used chants for both individual and collective worship and power.
What Wakes You Up in the Morning
A little after 5 this morning, the sound of the unexpected rain brought me out of my dream state. I was not ready to rise, so I realigned myself into a good savasana and just listened — following no other thoughts — until the morning musical awakening arrived at 6.
I could have thought of it in this language: the rain woke me up and I couldn’t get back to sleep, but I was still tired so I lay in bed until the alarm went off.
Hotels, I think, were on to something when they started offering “wake up calls,” though the sound of the phone ringing in the middle of an intense dream can be shocking. When did we start naming the sound we use to bring us from dreaming to waking “the alarm?” What perspective does it give to our day to think we need an alarm to start it? Why not at least “alert” or “signal” for the days when the only technology (think about that piece of it) was a jarring sound?
I have been thinking a lot about what wakes me up since Becky passed away. For 21 years, either Henrietta or Becky was lying on or next to me purring before any electronic signal could go off. They knew when it would go off and every morning sought a little petting (and then food) before they heard any signal to start the day. They incorporated it into their rhythm and created a good waking routine around my schedule.
Some of my waking with the cats instead of the electronic sounds must have been me ready to be shifted from sleeping to waking by the cats’ attention, because I am still waking 10-20 minutes before Bose technology utters an automatic sound (usually yoga chants) to make sure I get off to work. I also know from conscious attention to the effects on my sleep from when and what I eat and what I put into my day and until how late, that when I am keeping my eating, practicing, and sleeping schedule steady, I have no need to be called awake by something outside myself to start the day.
