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Found Exhortation (and Be Here Now (Var.))
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Be Here Now (Var.)
Friendly reminder that living in the present moment includes being cognizant of the past and mindful of doing no harm or improving things for the future.
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The “Highest First” and Knowing What Is a Weed
Webster’s On-Line Dictionary defines a “weed” as”any plant growing in cultivated ground to the injury of the crop or desired vegetation, or to the disfigurement of the place; an unsightly, useless, or injurious plant.” At first blush, this might seem like an easy concept, but if we start breaking down the definition, we can see how much our education, assumptions, and prejudices come into play in deciding what is a weed and what is not. We need to recognize individual plants (when they first come out of the earth and when they are in full leaf or flower) and what they offer. We need to know how to foster growth of what we choose to plant, including knowing what will thrive in our location and bring more health and beauty to ourselves and the planet, and we need to have a sense of aesthetics that will cultivate not only our connection to spirit, but optimize the shining through of spirit in all that surrounds us.
Several years ago, I bought a sprig of epazote in a two inch grower’s pot. It went to seed and came back all over my little garden. It grows wild beside highways where it is a native plant. I really like the taste, and it is hard to find here, so I give seedlings away to friends who want it for their own gardens (locals just ask, and I’ll give you some). It is one plant I know I do not have to replace; it will come back every year if I let it go to seed. If I had not controlled it by taking it out of prime planting spaces and either using it right away or replanting it someplace nothing else will grow, though, it would be crowding out other plants in a way that is less than optimal. It is thus both a desired plant and a potentially invasive weed depending on how it fits in with the whole.
I have seen neighbors using Roundup to kill purslane and dandelions that have grown up between the bricks on the sidewalk in front of their houses. Although I think both purslane and dandelions are pretty plants and perfect for spots where nothing else will grow, I can appreciate wanting the front of the house to look tidy. Why not pick the free edible plants instead of spraying toxic chemicals? I let edible wild plants come up between the crevices and then either relocate them or treat weeding as harvesting, getting incredible flavor and nutrition from something that most are taught to try and eradicate.
There are other plants that are sufficiently invasive or poisonous, though, that I do my best to eliminate them from my space (though I do not use pesticides). The other day, I was walking down East Capitol Street after teaching the William Penn House class and saw some English Ivy climbing up a beautiful tree in one of the sidewalk tree boxes. I stopped to pull it all off because English Ivy left unchecked will kill a tree. While engaged in this activity an older couple who lived in the house next to the tree walked up to me and my fellow yogi who was helping me with the ivy removal. The woman thanked me, saying that she had been meaning to pull the ivy. Ivy is an example of a plant people think is pretty and appropriate to plant, but it does not belong in our climate and is incredibly destructive. By my lights, it is a weed, even though I can buy it in most nurseries in the area. I am blessed not to have poison ivy where I live, but it should be removed. It is too hard to live with it.
What does determining whether a plant is truly a weed, whether it causes injury or interferes with what is desired or is unsightly, useless or injurious have to do with the “first principle” in Anusara yoga of “opening to grace?” The first principle invites us to be ready in the first instance to recognize the auspiciousness of both what we seek out and what we encounter. In teaching meditation and related practices of Blue Throat Yoga, Paul Muller-Ortega speaks of this as “the highest first.” As we study and practice (jnana/vijnana), we approach the same and new things with ever more refined technique, knowledge and understanding. The progressive refinement from our efforts helps us then to open up to a deeper perception of the best of our nature. We keep repeating the cycle of studying and practicing, always remembering the first principle, and we, despite and because of ourselves, shift our relationship with the world around and inside us. To be open is a softness, a spaciousness, a willingness to see that is without effort. We temper what gets in the way of effortless opening with the fire to study and to practice with the intention learn how to be more effortless in understanding how things are part of the whole.
How do we apply first principle in knowing what to weed from our garden (or, for that matter, how to address in ourselves a physical, mental or emotional characteristic or pattern of behavior that may or may not serve us or both–our individual “weeds”)?
Is the “desired” vegetation a desire that would help align the gardener and the garden with nature or is it something that was taught that comes from an unsustainable aesthetic and social paradigm (for example, a perfectly green lawn with no plants other than grass)? If the crop is one that truly nourishes (so worth preserving from injury or interference), does it just mean that the “weed” needs to be relocated so that both the crop and the “weed” can flourish simultaneously? In other words, is the “weed” beneficial in its own way, but just needs to be shifted so that its inherent good can truly be appreciated and honored?
Is a determination of injuriousness, uselessness, or unsightliness based on ignorance or true discriminative wisdom? We cannnot know unless we both sweetly open to recognize the potential for discovering the good in what seems most harmful (perhaps one day scientists will find an extraordinary benefit from poison ivy, just as the deadly poisonous plant digitalis is also a powerful heart medicine) and continue to study and practice with an intention to open ever more deeply.
From left to right: volunteer epazote, lemon balm, purslane and dill. Dinner: black beans flavored with epazote; greens, including purslane. Lemon balm (aka melissa) makes a delicious and quieting evening tea.
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The Svadharma of the Pinky Toe (and Radical Affirmation)
Svadharma, from sva (self) and dharma (duty) means our personal path, duty, calling, or place. The principle of svadharma is a significant teaching in various yoga texts, such as the Bhagavad Gita, especially emphasizing the importance in acting in accordance with one’s caste (for example, Arjuna needing to act in accordance with his dharma as a warrior) or one’s sex (consider Sita’s role in the Ramayana).
Extrapolating this teaching and taking it onto the mat, during one of the practice sessions the previous week at the Certified Teachers’ Gathering, John Friend said that “every part of the the body has its own svadharma to increase the pranic flow.” He then said that if you just took a photo of the feet of an Anusara yoga practitioner in any pose, you should be able to see that the whole body was fully engaged and active. John Friend’s teaching here was not just using the yoga philosophy as a catalyst to better understand the body. By using the principle to illuminate the practice, the practice reflectively illuminated the principle itself, without denying or denigrating its original context or getting bogged down in its historical baggage of perpetuating the caste system and demarcated, subservient roles for women.
Thinking about the svadharma of the pinky toe has no such baggage. The pinky toes are homely looking things, they do not fit well into most women’s shoes, they rather painfully bump into things, and they are hard to move independently. They are not essential for living and do not have the emotional charge of the heart and brain, the exquisite connection to the world of the sense organs, or the connection to life itself of the lungs. Despite this, the call to lift and spread the toes, to draw the pinky toe toward the heel, or the hip happens just about every time I go to the mat in my practice or teach a class. Activating the pinky toe by opening it and spreading it apart from the other toes is a conscious act of opening that helps hug the shins to the midline. In hugging the shins in by means of activating the pinky toe, the yogi on the mat can then safely move the thighs back and apart, creating an expansion of the pelvic floor that provides room for more strongly tucking under the tailbone to access core power. The pinky toe thus is an important part of our practice, even if we could manage to get by without it.
But the svadharma of the pinky toe on the mat is not just to be able to help us access the movement of “shins in” so that we can better do “thighs out,” although that is an important physical part of its essence. The toe does not move on its own. We have to start by bringing our awareness and consciousness to the toe. Part of the pinky toe’s svadharma, then, is to invite the infusion of consciousness to show how full participation of even an apparently insignificant part of the body can lead us to a better understanding and personal experience of the pulsation between reaching out and hugging in and affirming ourselves. By intentionally bringing our awareness to the power we can unleash in the pose by the movement of the pinky toe, we bring the opportunity for greater strength, expansion, and flow of energies. This is why, I think, John Friend suggested that by just seeing the toes we should be able to know the engagement of the whole body and mind in a particular pose.
As a practical and therapeutic matter, recognizing and bringing into play the svadharma of each and every part of the body serves to help us increase the flow of energy and expand our range of movement. In addition, activating the parts of the body that are inclined to slack (for example, the pinky toe or the adductor and abdominal muscles) will bring ease to the muscles that tend to overwork to compensate, such as the neck and low back muscles. We are not just stronger and more flexible when every part of the body does fulfills its svadharma, but we eliminate much pain and suffering. (More to come on this particular concept in other posts.)
Off the mat, when all parts of the whole are fully conscious of and know their svadharma, the whole will itself have more consciousness, more light, and better experience the bliss of being. It is easy to see, without judgment or question, that the pinky toe cannot do the work of the heart, although when the pinky toe is working it can help contribute to an integration of mind and body that will further the opening of the heart and thus the whole person. Finding our svadharma as a whole person within society does not have to be about conforming to preconceived social norms that no longer serve. The better we are able to understand where we are in time, space, and the interconnected web of being, though, the more fully we can participate in leading society itself to a more conscious and light-filled place, just as bringing our conscious awareness to the actions of the pinky toe can do the same for us as individual yogis on the mat. When we recognize and live out our true svadharma as such, we radically affirm ourselves, the community, and the very essence of all being.
Found Exhortation and Affirmation
At lunchtime, I walked out to go to the bank and to pick up some pre-ordered kitchen supplies. Every time I go out, things have changed.
