Signs Around Town (and Viveka?)
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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.
- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc)
Questions Around Town
The yoga texts talk about concerted effort (tapas) yielding boons in the form of power.
Privilege and Periphery
At about 10:30 am, I left my house and walked over to the Capitol. I knew that by leaving the house at that hour, instead of at 7am, I would be outside the fence, but I instead practiced in the morning and opened myself to the sense of amazement and hope filling my city.
My friends who were inside the fence either are press or have other jobs that got them an invitation or they arrived at 5am to volunteer. I look forward to hearing their stories and seeing their pictures.
It felt urgent to be present for this occasion. One of the things that made it especially poignant is that where I went was on my walk to work. I forget, sometimes, the import of the capitol and the Mall because they are so much a part of my daily geography.
The audio visual we had in my spot just north of the Capitol (turned out to be next to the cannons for the salute) was a couple of ipods with speakers and boom boxes, rather than the big, fancy rock concert screens, but we were in fact physically closer than most on the Mall. Some of us were just happy to be there together celebrating and being less densely packed into the crowd. Some, so used to being marginalized by society — being able to see privilege and insider status, but have it be completely out of reach — grumbled that they might as well have stayed home as they witnessed even those with tickets not getting through the security lines towards the end.
But every one was hushed, even in the crowd, even without a view, for the oath of office and for the President’s speech. It was a privilege to stand with these neighbors and fellow citizens. It was an honor to see grown men unashamed to let their eyes fill with tears as they witnessed what they never saw they would see in the Nation’s Capitol, in their town, an African-American President.
I am filled with hope, not because I think there will be almost instantaneous and miraculous “change,” but because we have just witnessed an enormous step in a better direction.
