Growing some of your own food–even if just herbs on the countertop–connects us to the earth and the rhythm of growing things and to the place we are inhabiting. And if we all grew some of the basics, what needs to be shipped to us is reduced.
A co-worker of mine said today that he hated that everything we do gets criticized by someone. During part of the conversation, he also mentioned that once something written was made public and then questioned, an alternative meaning to the one meant (the alternative then necessitating clarification) often happens.
Writing, art, and other expressions do seem to have a life of their own. We need to do our best to be clear and then just go with the flow as what we say gets interpreted and passed on. An example, for me, was that until the change in administration, no one thought to ask me whether the name “rose garden” yoga had anything to do with Washington, DC. After the shift in January, a few people noticed how DC it could be and asked if my intent was to refer to the White House Rose Garden.
It was not my original intent to have that be one of the many things that came to mind when I chose the name, but I it works well enough if people think of the Rose Garden as one of the many possible referrents.
To see the heart of things takes making more spacious and softening one’s vision not looking ever harder.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
On Friday, we received an email from the Office of Personnel Management that strongly suggested federal workers be given permission to take annual leave (foregoing the opportunity to take vacation on another day during the year) or telework due to the number of street and metro closings for the nuclear summit. I will be walking into work today and am hoping I won’t have any detours. Although some of the entrances to my building are closed, my usual entrance is supposed to be open.
What happens when we have one of these events that fills DC with the world’s potentates, is that residents tend to forget the purpose of the event and what power for good or ill the event can have because we get caught up in its interference with our ability to go about our daily work and life. I am trying to focus on the import of why the streets are being closed — it is hard to think of a world issue that is as important as global nuclear disarmament — and not the inconvenience.
A few months ago, I succumbed to the brilliant marketing at one of those yoga studio boutiques filled with enticing outfits that make one feel like part of the in crowd and bought a pair of leggings covered in an allover peacock feather print that made me think of Murugan whose temple we visited on the trip to South India and whose steed is a peacock.
One of the stories about Murugan, who is Ganesha’s brother (Ganesha being the beloved elephant god and remover of obstacles), talks about a competition between Murugan and Ganesha for divine knowledge. (Let’s leave aside for now the question of why a divine being would need to enter a competition to gain divine knowledge as too big a question for a blogger who has no academic or priestly expertise in the Hindu pantheon). In the story, as I have heard it (and as described in the Wiki article that I have shamelessly linked to above, despite all the disdain one might appropriately have for one who cites to a Wiki article), Murugan loses because what he does is try to show off his prosaic prowess by tearing around the world three times. Ganesha wins by quietly circumambulating with quiet worship Shiva and Parvati, the god and goddess, the essence of being, the pulsation of opposites.
When we were out walking in the woods the other day, my friend ER took an incredibly insightful picture of me trying too hard to look like the yoginis who grace the magazine covers and can do the most magnificent asana. The brilliance of the photo is its revelation of the empty ridiculousness of my posing like the beauty I am not, and of pointedly demonstrating how neither wearing wild peacock pants, nor being able to do a tolerably deep backbend reveals anything to the self about spirit. But perhaps it also shows, in its candid and ironic look at an all too human yogini, that like Lord Murugan, who despite of or perhaps because of his absolutely flawed nature is actively and devotedly worshipped, I in my laughable striving may still have in my human being something of the divine. I can only hope.
