We’re all fine, and the problem is definitely outside of the house, but this is the gas company’s immediate response to the phone call saying, “I smell gas.”
With your body and home, do you know what needs prompt intervention, what might go away on its own, and what can wait?
I went with a friend from volunteering at the youth garden yesterday morning to join with others to heighten awareness of the potential impact on the fabric of our fragile democracy of what the current Supreme Court decides in Moore v Harper, which was being argued.
We got to talking to one of the fellow demonstrators. I had pictures of N (for more from N, see @blacklivesmattermemorialfence), from a previous demonstration relevant to voting rights earlier in the year. After we confirmed the connection, N asked me if I was a lawyer for the government; it turns out N also remembered that I had given directions and ended up walking a few blocks together to the gathering near the Capitol for the one year anniversary of the January 6th insurrection.
We all talked about impact and whether it makes a difference if we only inspire a few people. I shared a story about one of the very few comments saying I had inspired being more politically active and outspoken in the yoga context. Maybe, I conjectured, it doesn’t matter if we only reach one person, because we don’t know who is that person and how they will be moved. N plans to make a t-shirt that says, “each one, reach one.”
To whom will you reach out? What moves you?
I saw a hawk when I was walking to work this morning. It was in one of those stately oak trees in the park just north of the US Capitol. I have occasionally seen hawks in the neighborhood alleys, but never one at the Capitol. The hawk stood out for two reasons: it was very large, and it was the only living being about. Usually, there are a number of squirrels, pigeons, and maybe crows, sparrows, and common grackles about the park. This morning, it was unearthly quiet; all of the other animals and birds were all in hiding. It was probably a red-tailed hawk. As I stood to watch this special being, a woman walked past me with her head hunched down, her hands shoved in her pockets, her briefcase weighing down her shoulder, and her face preoccupied, a common going to work look. I called out to her, “look, a hawk.” She was startled, maybe even a little upset at first that I had interrupted her thoughts, but then she, too, stopped and watched. When I finally continued on to work, she stayed watching for a while, and she no longer looked preoccupied. At the bottom of the steps of the park, I went past the police, who are there every morning with their cars parked on the sidewalk (blocking the way). The police rarely say hello. One of the cops, who had his dog out of the car, called out a good morning to me today, though. I greeted him back, “good morning, did you see the hawk?” “Yes, I’ve been watching it,” he said. We had a nice chat about the hawk and about his being able to watch the bald eagles at Blue Fields in Virginia, where they do the training for the police dogs.
It would have been easy for me not to see the hawk. I use my morning walk as a time for contemplation, and when I am in the park (leaving aside the Architect of the Capitol vehicles that sometimes intrude), it is a time I can be less careful about traffic and be more inward. But it is also a time to look and to appreciate the opportunity to be outside, whatever the weather and the season. The trees and birds and small animals and plantings and sky look different everyday. While I go inward on my morning walk, I am also always noticing. This is a kind of mindfulness — to be able to be resting with inward attention, but still be open to observing whatever is in view. Is it less mindful to be so drawn inward that the outside disappears? That perhaps depends on whether one has deliberately gone so far inward that the outside ceases to exist for a time, which is a meditation method, or whether one is just so preoccupied with the churning of the mind that one becomes less conscious.
I practiced, including a Zoom class led by my friend Suzanne Lynch, I asked for help, I expressed appreciation to various friends and colleagues, I went out into the garden at lunchtime, made several more donations, and sat under the cat. And I re-centered enough to be able to persist.
I hope you all are finding your way in this. Let me know if you want to practice–on-line.1
This morning, without thinking, in apparent keeping with the dark, wet, gray day, I picked out a brown sweater to wear. Then I thought, “what, am I crazy? I could bring color into the day.” Now I am dressed in the colors of the ocean on a bright, sunny day. To add some more light to my day, I started the day with some backbends and arm balances. If I had the luxury of staying inside all day, I perhaps would have done a more inward practice. I have committed to go out, though. To be happy to go out in the rain, I needed to create an abundance of bright, wide awake energy on the inside.
