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State of the Garden (and Still More Snow)
Today’s snow was a soft and beautiful one. Mostly, though, people were complaining that it was still snowy and cold.
With camera in hand this morning, I thought that to have more when we have already had too much makes it hard to appreciate the intrinsic good of a thing. I enjoyed this snow as a reminder of how moderation can enhance pleasure.
I then surrendered to the fact of the snow and to its beauty, letting go of my preference for spring mildness.
Appropo of Ayyappa
Reading today’s article in the Washington Post, “Women Fight for Access to Sacred Places in India,” and appropo of my recent blog post on Ayyappa, reminded me of what led me to the law. I am conscious that relative to most of the billions of women on this planet, I have had extraordinary opportunities.
I think I have a responsibility to live to the fullest the opportunities I’ve been fortunate enough to have. And I think that part of that responsibility is to make my own contribution to eliminating injustice and to keep working with creativity and dedication and passion, while ultimately, like Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita and his right action, letting go of the result, knowing I am not in control of any particular outcome or sequence of events.
What is your story? The opportunities explored? The barriers that need not have been there?
Shakti Pilgrims, Tamil Nadu, India, 12/11
- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Body | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Poetry
Great Gary Snyder Quote (and Sadhana)
My friend Dan just posted on his blog a great Gary Snyder quote on the need to do maintenance (of the self) in order to be most creative. The idea that we need to maintain our tools and toolbox, as it were, in order to be most creative, is exactly what we are taught about the tantric yoga sadhana — practice. With our yoga practice, diet, lifestyle, work, consumption, participation in community, we seek to live progressively more in alignment with the undulating fabric of space, time, and apparent world so that we have maximum well-being best to serve ourselves and others with delight. In our sadhana, we include both study and experience (experience includes meditation, asana, and pranayama). As both John Friend and Paul Muller-Ortega teach, we engage in the practices and studies to learn with ever expanding insight how to see and experience the highest first and live from that place. Living and practicing with such an intention is, I think, the maintenance done so we can live out all of our lives as a reverential and creative act.
Dan–I look forward to reading the sermon.
Miami En Route to Havana
As I have been getting prepared to travel to Cuba the best way I know how–reading, watching films, and talking to friends and acquaintances who are Cuban or are otherwise connected to Cuba–I have been thinking much about how a titanic clash of ideals impacts real, individual lives.
I may be able to post while there. I may not. I’m sure that if I had more time and my trip was less programmed (as required to get permission to go), I’d be able to find yoga. I think it most likely I will have to practice on my own or with my traveling companion.





