Yes. That would be blooming wisteria. In December.
It was good to practice with old friends and acquaintances. Moses, suggested, towards the end of the practice, that the best way to become skilled yourself, is to practice regularly with those who are themselves skilled.
Svatantriya?
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Current stack of to be read in anticipation of upcoming travel. Though I’m on a brief detour into a reread of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” which appeared the other day in a nearby “little free library.” The Arundhati Roy is so finely wrought, I can only read a few pages at a time. The Madhur Jaffrey, by serendipity, has a bit about one of places I will be eating.
Hanuman, the monkey god, is one who reminds us to serve. When Hanuman was a kid, he was rather full of himself. That was not surprising, really, as he had wonderful and magical powers of strength and agility. When he got too audacious playing with his powers against the bigger gods, he was cursed to be able to remember his powers only when he was serving with true love and devotion. When he was serving Ram and Sita, then, the full force of his powers were available to him to help in their dilemma. (Yes, this is a rather creative summation).
Some of my strongest memories from childhood were observing my father when he was providing draft counseling for those conscripted to fight in the Vietnam War. My father did not talk on the phone because it was tapped, but we heard a lot of conversations about whether to be a soldier, be a conscientious objector, find a basis for deferral, or otherwise protest or avoid the draft. Although I was raised to think that war did not serve humanity (though my parents engaged in debates about whether all wars were bad, discussing the difference between fighting against Hitler and fighting in Vietnam), I was also raised to believe strongly that we all have a duty to serve. I meet many in the military here in Washington, DC. What I find is that those who have chosen military life have a strong sense of service. Even if I do not believe in most of the basis of the service (just as I don’t hold much truck with whom Sita was expected to be and the basis of the battles in the Ramayana — more on that some other time perhaps), I respect that those who were conscripted and felt they had no alternative or those who chose to be in the military put their lives on the line to serve.
I try to think of Memorial Day as honoring those who have served and not, as I did when I was younger, dismiss it because it was more societal indoctrination to perpetuate the war machine. When Natalie and Joe Miller invited those at Willow Street to join them in service by helping to clean up part of Long Branch Creek, I signed up. I appreciated their way of making it easy both to honor peace (by helping the environment) and those who have served (by ourselves serving). We will be taking our yoga of the mat and into the world with a morning of seva— selfless service.
The space between the spheres thins and the wind creates passageways.
The spirits are outraged; how could they be otherwise? Their dance tramples
And blows things down, but still cannot help but create beauty.
The leaves–green, red, gold, brown from the drought, that distant memory–
Hang listlessly with the weight of rain and a bit of slush
Hardly even dancing in the wind, but still becoming perhaps
More extravagantly lovely by the storm’s grey light.
When I was waiting for the metro to go to Willow Street Yoga this Saturday morning to offer a free gentle/therapeutics class (new session starts for the class next Saturday, January 15th–all welcome), I heard a very disturbing announcement on Metro. I only take Metro once or twice a week. I am pretty certain I would have noticed it if I had heard it before; in rush hour, of course, it is hard to hear the announcements when the platforms are full. What I heard was this: “Metro police have advised that all passengers are subject to random searches of their carry ons.” A reasonable person might want to know what is a “carry on” for these purposes. My first question to myself was “don’t random searches of this type violate the Constitution?” (Yes, the American Civil Liberties Union is actively engaged in the issue).
I find random searches just for boarding the metro with a carry on an unfortunately not particularly shocking example of how far we have allowed the “war on terror” to be waged against all of us. Perhaps there are readers of this blog who are not shocked or perhaps believe that these searches are warranted; I am open to listening to why. I know that it was not front page news, and my friends have not been talking about it. This was just another one of those awful things we have started taking for granted, which is something that I hope is getting progressively harder to do.
My biggest question for myself was what I would do if the police asked to search my handbag. The odds are slim to none that “random” would in practice include a reasonably well-dressed, clean, small, middle-aged, middle class, fairly evidently American-born, white woman. But what if random was really random and I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? Would I refuse to let my bag be searched on principle? Would I be willing to lose my job and possibly go to jail for my conviction that such a practice misses the mark completely for its intended purposes and tears at the very fabric of a free society and our individual liberties? I find that I do not know the answer. Partly it is attachment to my own security. Partly it is that I do not know whether it would be better just to allow my bag to be searched and not engender conflict than to engage in conflict that will certainly harm me, severely limit my ability to give financial support for important fights and causes, and potentially could harm others around me, even if ultimately, with the help of many I am sure, I were to be a participant in reason prevailing and the practice ceasing.
In thinking about how unsure I was of my ability to act if I were to be put to the test, I was reminded of the situation at the beginning of the Bhagavad Gita, where Arjuna is paralyzed by inability to act in the face of the hideous spector of violent death and destruction that would result from going to battle even to rectify an injustice. Arjuna looks out on the battlefield where battle is enjoined because of the injustices that have been done (we’ll leave it for another day as to whether the violations of law in the Mahabharata are ones that a modern thinker might agree should give rise to the epic battle in the Bhagavad Gita.) Krishna explains to Arjuna that it is his dharma to go to battle; he is a warrior and these wrongs must be rectified. The general day to day principle that governs the life of a yogi — ahimsa or non-harming — is trumped by the greater need to rectify the societal injustice. Arjuna must join in battle because leaving the injustice uncorrected will in result in greater harm to the order of society, even the cosmological order itself. See Stephen Phillips, “Yoga, Karma, and Rebirth” (discussing the interrelationship between the individual practice of ahimsa and the need for cosmological order in Indian philosophy).
I am not likely to be put to the test here, but that is part of the evil of the practice. What can I do? What should I be doing in the face of a direction in society that gives rise to policies like these and the gunning in Arizona yesterday? It takes great discrimination (viveka), more perhaps than I have, to know how and when to act. I do know that it is not right for me as a citizen or a yogi to stand aside. I offer this very public statement of my beliefs and I gave a generous donation to the ACLU yesterday. I am sure that is not enough, but it is a start. As our society moves in the direction it is moving, more and more of us must contemplate, evaluate, and begin to expand how we act and participate to see a world where ahimsa is not just personal, but all persons and beings have the possibility of being free from suffering.
