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    Atonement

    The first question I ask myself just about every day, is how my life contributes to the causes of war and environmental harm. The the second question is what am I going to do to minimize the harm I have already caused and, by virtue of being a middle class US citizen and taxpayer with a 401(k) plan, will continue to cause as long as I remain alive?

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    A Long Day

    I left the house this morning around 7:30 to go up and teach my regular classes at Willow Street, Takoma Park.  In the afternoon, I led a restorative workshop.  It was delightful to be with two dozen yogis who decided the best way to spend the last Saturday in July was to take a mini-break from the heat and the bustle resting deeply and exploring inside.  I felt wonderfully supported, having had amazing assistants, an excellent work-study helping at the desk and with clean-up afterward, and truly enthusiastic students.  I could not have asked for more, especially given how long a day it was following an intense return to work immediately upon traveling back from the retreat with Paul Muller-Ortega all in the same week.  After the workshop, I went out for an early dinner at Woodlands (Indian food) with a friend who had taken the workshop.

    When I got home, feeling ready to do my  own deep relaxation, I found tall ladders leading up to the roof.  I had been warned by the project manager for the solar panel installation that I am having done that the roofer who was working on putting up the parapet structure to hold the frame might be here today.  I hadn’t expected the roofer to be here at 7:30 pm, though.  As long a week and day as I might have felt that I had, these guys, whom I am sure worked hard outside all week in the heat, were really having a long day.

  • Slumdog Millionaire

    I’d been thinking about going based on the subject matter and the reviews.  Studying and practicing yoga from such a Western perspective, I think it is important for me to understand more deeply how much and what of our culture India is embracing, while we embrace its philosophy and aesthetics and use it to supply us with cheap labor.  I am conscious that yoga has come to me through the filter of British colonialism (that is one of the many reasons for the name “Rose Garden Yoga”).

    I was worried about whether I could sit through the violent images, but I was talking to my sister last weekend, and she had it on the top of her list, so I decided to go after all.  The movie deserves its superlative reviews.  Don’t be misled, though, by the reviews that say it is ultimately a fairytale.  Although it is a story of compassion and loyalty, of the quirks of fate, memory, and the solace of philosophy, it contains candid depictions of abject suffering, unbearable poverty, and unspeakable cruelty.  It raises pointed questions about when violence is warranted in the face of injustice or for mere survival. It is certainly thought provoking and eye opening.  Most of the thoughts I’ll wait to share with those who have seen the movie.

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    “Reality is Unforgivingly Complex”

    Yesterday, the first of the year, I pulled off the shelf and opened at random Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird.”  I’d found it used some time ago and was interested,  but other things got ahead of it on my reading pile.  The page to which I opened seems highly topical for what is coming this year:

    For instance, I used to think that paired opposites were a given, that love was the opposite of hate, right the opposite of wrong.  But now  I think we sometimes buy into these concepts because it is so much easier to embrace absolutes than to suffer reality.  I don’t think anything is the opposite of love.  Reality is unforgivingly complex.

    May we find enough love to suffer well the complexities to come this year.  For me, I know that deepening and recommitting to my practice will help me find what more I can offer.

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