I was working late, but comfortably in my beautiful study at home, when the light shifted in such a way that I was called to move quickly out onto the sleeping porch. This is what I paused to witness before going back to my desk:
Afghanistan Lebanon Dreamers Haiti
Wildfires Hurricanes Earthquakes
Ebola Plague Delta-Variant
Vaccine Refusers
Etc
As long as I am well fed in my comfortable home, far better, when I am not actively working/serving, to garden and meditate and study and try to create some joy than to wallow in hopelessness. And make a little art to remind myself of beauty.
I saw this beautiful roll of chicken wire in the Enid Haupt garden when I was walking back to the office after a quick visit to see the Gods of Angkor exhibit at the Sackler Gallery (sorry about the absence of links; blogging from the BB).
I was first introduced to the idea of “found poetry” in junior high school and have developed a life-long habit of photographing words to change, enhance, and/or question their meaning and hidden beauty by the act of extracting them from their original place and presenting them as a photograph. Marcel Duchamp and others did what poets and photographers were doing with words with ordinary objects by presenting them as sculpture.
Here, where I have photographed the chicken wire roll, is the art a sculpture (because I could treat it as such) of which I have taken a photograph–the photograph being mere documentation? Is the art the photograph of what I have seen to the extent I am offering it as a vision and a dialogue generated by what I saw? Or is the photograph merely a snapshot taken with a hand-held computer device documenting an object that happened to be sitting there–not art at all? If it were not for artists such as Duchamp, could I or would I even be able to ask this question?
I think that analogous types of questions have been and can be asked about the variety of religious and mystical experience. Is there a particular way they must be experienced? Do such experiences have to fit within a prescribed framework to be valid? When are such experiences madness or delusion and when are they the voice of the spirit? Who gets to decide? Does it depend on the era and the culture in which the experiencer lives? Does the answer to any of these questions matter if the experiences lead one to a more loving, compassionate, and beauty-filled life?
Only after walking along the two lane streets in a sari and sandals, sharing the road with exhaust-fume spewing buses, three-wheelers, motorcycles, mopeds, bicycles, cows, goats, dogs, street vendors, and pedestrians amidst dust, puddles, sewage, potholes, cowpats, dog shit, goat turds, and piles of organic and non-biodegradable trash, could one understand how a campaign to end the practice of littering would link it to evil. Thanks to my fellow traveler Eric for pointing out this sign.
Yes. That would be blooming wisteria. In December.
It was good to practice with old friends and acquaintances. Moses, suggested, towards the end of the practice, that the best way to become skilled yourself, is to practice regularly with those who are themselves skilled.
Asteya in Sanskrit means non-stealing and is the third yama of the yamas and niyamas set forth in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras as a critical part of the path of yoga. White people giving themselves a holiday created by Black people for themselves without both taking action against current injustice and inequity is a classic example of what would be stealing.
Could you give extra support to a Black business today? Donate to a Black-run organization working to fight for civil rights or voting rights or equal access to health care, education, and support services or against police brutality? Give mutual aid? Write to your elected officials about said issues?
We don’t have to do everything every day, but it is not ok to do nothing.
The moon had risen in all her glory when I left Willow Street Yoga in Silver Spring (from a talk with Dr. Manoj Chalam about archetypes yesterday evening and headed for the metro home. I thought about how the moon shines fully no matter what is below: a pristine mountain lake, a construction site, a palace garden, a land devastated by one of the Four Horsemen, or the street in front of my house. What I think is the goal of most “spiritual” practice is to find a place where, being able to see the light all the time, one can live with uncertainty and challenge and have a greater capacity to serve from one’s unique place.
