Community and Family

thoughts on how we fit into the web of community, family and society

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    John Friend on “The Art of Feedback”

    ByElizabeth

    I recently had a project that I did in connection with an organization of which I am a member.  The ultimate goal of the project was for me to transmit to another group a report of decisions made by the organization of which I am a member.  When I emailed my report, I “cc’d” my organization’s list serve.  In response, there were a few heated postings on the list serve about the subject matter, even though I had sent a “cc” of a final report, not a request for new input.  These postings in turn generated a number of emails both sent to me personally and postings on the list serve as a whole.  The “secondary” emails were as much about how we were responding and communicating on the list serve, as they were about the subject matter itself.

    It was hard for me to soften and to listen without defensiveness the emails that were well-intentioned, but stated strong opinions that could have been interpreted as suggesting the report was wrong or inadequate.  As I made an effort to finish my project from a place of service, which in my mind included appropriately addressing the after-the-fact postings and emails, I was deeply grateful for the teaching John Friend had offered last year to the Anusara yoga community on “The Art of Feedback.” It is an inspired teaching and one that applies with equal force to the situation I was in this week.

    For me, this is a deeply challenging area based on my personal history, but I work to grow.  What are your challenges in receiving and giving feedback?  How might shifts in how you receive and offer your opinions enhance your relationships and your goals for living and society?

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    A Slow Metro Ride, A Missed Yoga Class, and Meditations on the Costs of War

    ByElizabeth

    Yesterday I wrote to my DC elected officials and to the budget office to let them know how important it is to me that local municipalities fully fund public transportation, as the budget year comes to a close.  Metro officials are threatening to close down many bus lines entirely, which will mean that far too many people will be unable to get to work, especially for low-paying jobs.  Hundreds of workers are scheduled to  be laid off, which means (as an icy cold budgetary matter — the budget after all being a moral document) that they will need services and no longer will be paying taxes.  Disrepair, injuries, and accidents will become even more prevalent, and service will be slowed at already overtaxed and overcrowded times.  Our air quality will go from yellow/orange to orange/red from the increase in gridlocked traffic.  I discussed the issue and the urgency of making our voices heard with several co-workers today.

    I left the office at 5:40 pm this evening to go to take Suzie Hurley’s 6:15pm class at Willow Street, Takoma, Park.  I was standing on a metro train at 5:46pm.  The ride is supposed to take 13 minutes from Judiciary Square metro.  We reached Takoma Park at 6:27pm.  I went over to the studio when I arrived.  If the door was open, I would have looked in and caught Suzie’s eye and quietly seen whether I could slip in.  The door was closed, and I could hear that the class had already started doing standing poses.  Under circumstances where being late is clearly not my fault (and I try to avoid those by being willing to be early if it turns out the travel has been optimally sequenced), I will join the class just after centering and before the asanas begin.  As much as I would have liked to have taken a yoga class after the slow metro ride, I felt that I shouldn’t risk disturbing the other students by coming so late.  I instead will be doing a long, deep, slow, inward-moving practice when I am finished writing, corresponding, getting ready for practice and sleep, and doing some preparations for tomorrow’s work day.

    In my growing acceptance that I would be arriving too late to Takoma to take class, I thought about the email I had received earlier in the day about the Friends Committee on National Legislation’s “Our Nation’s Checkbook” campaign.  The email reminded me that a third of my tax dollars are being spent on war.  “What about investing in green jobs, preventing more home foreclosures, and funding diplomacy to prevent wars?” I was asked.  “What about public transportation,” I thought, as I sat on the stationary train between stations.  “How many trains could be operated efficiently and safely for each fighter aircraft?”

    How do I want to live?  What are my priorities?  When does short-sightedness or immediate personal satisfaction impact my long-term health and happiness and peaceful co-existence on a crowded planet?  For what purposes do I practice?  How would I like to invite others to live?

    The ride home, of course, had nary a problem.  A train arrived in under five minutes.  The ride back to Union Station was exactly 11 minutes.  Everyone had a seat, and the car was nearly full,  so it was at perfect capacity.  It was still light, and lots of people were out because of the balmy night and the beauteous blossoms, and I felt safe strolling home instead of taking the bus.  What a beautiful night!

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    Making a Pledge (and sangha)

    ByElizabeth

    I get lots of emails asking me to engage in e-activism — write letters to Congress, write letters to corporate executives, write letters to the President, sign petitions — and, of course, requests for donations.  The requests I get are from a wide range of public interest organizations, including environmental, women’s rights, peace, civil rights, worker’s rights, care for animals and other wildlife, organic food, good science, enhancing education, the list goes on.  Sometimes I just hit the delete button.  Sometimes I sign the petition.  Sometimes I hit the send button on the form letter.  Sometimes I edit the letter personally to make it a more powerful statement.  Sometimes I give money.  Sometimes I both write and give money.  Sometimes I learn something that invites me to change how I consume or invest my money, and I try to make a shift.

    I received an email today from the Rainforest Action Network asking me if I would make a pledge to help end mountain top removal.  I power my electricity with 100% wind energy, now through Clean Currents, so I am not using coal-powered electricity myself at home.  I sent RAN another donation; I really believe in what they do.  I also agreed to do a blog post on why it is important to end mountaintop coal mining as part of my pledge.  It’s utter and nearly permanent devastation is horrifying and wakens me to the repercussions of consumption without conscious knowledge of the impact.  Seeing the pictures makes me think about everything I consume (and I am already an overthinker).  I welcomed the invitation to pledge to spread the word.

    In yoga, the concept of “sangha” or community carries with it the meaning that you become those with whom you keep company (so therefore keep good company).  I subscribe to all these activist list serves and seek out those who are more engaged than am I, so that I will be inspired progressively to live with more consciousness.  I thank RAN for inspiring me to extend the invitation to look more closely at how we can shift our energy consumption still to enjoy reasonable fruits of our technology, but not in a way that destroys the possibility of a good life for others in the present and for eons into the future.

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    Gratitude and Self-Acceptance

    ByElizabeth

    On Friday night, Betsy Downing was at Willow Street’s Silver Spring studios leading a weekend workshop.  The focus of the weekend was learning how yoga practice can assist us in “interesting times.”  In this regard, Betsy invited us to recommit to two practices that we know support us when we fully practice them.  I did not feel the need for more meditation or asana or pranayama.  I do those steadily.

    I have been struggling, though, with where I am lately — I think something was triggered with all the confined time during the great snows.  This morning I decided that for me, this invitation would best serve if I allowed it to help refocus my practice.  In getting a little off-kilter, I forgot to practice fully gratitude and self-acceptance.  Remembering to practice those fully will nourish me well in these challenged times.

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    Health Care Reform, Brick-Throwing, Death Threats (and Svatrantrya)

    ByElizabeth

    One of the six fundamental aspects of being (sat) in the “Shiva-Shakti” tantra that is the foundation of Anusara yoga is svatantrya — freedom.  (The others are cit, ananda, spanda, purnatva, sri). Freedom in this sense is an ultimate freedom — the very cosmos is unconstrained and freely creates what we recognize as the fabric of being out of its own play (lila).  We, as inseparable from being, although in some ways confined by our embodiment, are essentially free — free to choose whether to recognize our essential nature, to find bliss (ananda) in our embodiment, to recognize the fullness (purnatva) of being, and to honor the essential auspiciousness of being (sri) in ourselves and all that is around us.

    In having that freedom, we can also turn away.  We can stay cloaked.  We can choose violence and anger rather than nurture and love.  We can choose, out of our own essential freedom to remain cloaked in ignorance, to throw bricks and threaten death because of a perceived socialist tyranny because of the passage of health care “reform” that denies the right to choose, does not provide basic medical services for all (no single payor or even public option), and gives the pharmaceutical industry a pass, but does some modest regulation of insurance companies and employers.  (“Better than nothing, I guess,” as one friend wrote on the internet.)

    I see the t-shirt “it’s all good,” and I think, “not!”  I also know that I have the freedom for myself to recognize and remember sri, to try and see it in all, including the play of freedom that includes the freedom to turn away from the light.  It will be a lifetime of practice.

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    Taking a Better Look

    ByElizabeth

    When I was walking to work yesterday, I was delighting in watching a pair of red-headed finches cavorting at the very top of a newly blooming cherry tree just outside the Friends Committee on National Legislation’s building, which is across the street from the Hart Senate building.  An impeccably suited man in a suit who was walking towards the Hart building said to me, “it is wonderful to see everything starting to bloom, isn’t it?”

    “Yes, it is indeed,” I replied, and pointed out the finches.

    “I hadn’t noticed them; good eye,” the man said, “look, they’re eating the blossoms.”  The finches were tearing blossoms off the tree and singing with great enthusiasm.

    “You can see them even better from the other side of the tree, because the sun is lighting them up instead of shadowing them,” I added.

    “I’ll have to go back and take a look,” he said and walked back to the other side of the tree to watch the birds as I headed on to work, with my day brightened by this interchange.

    I often get caught looking at the birds or the trees or the sky when walking around town.  When there is an opening, I talk to others about what I am seeing to invite them to pause and delight along with me.  It is a rare day, though, to hear from someone who is clearly busy and has important work to say, “I’ll have to take a better look.”  It is so important to me, and for all of us, to pause and wonder, to remember and recognize the beauty as we go about our day.

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    Great Inspiration

    ByElizabeth

    Saw this as an email signature from an email on a list serve I follow and had to share:

    To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
    –Ralph Waldo Emerson

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    Bulk Trash

    ByElizabeth

    I am working from home today or I would have missed the arrival of not one, but two very large bulk trash hauling trucks pulling up on the block.  For the past two hours, a team of workers have been loading furniture so decrepit that it would be impossible to give away on Freecycle or to have the Salvation Army or Goodwill Industries take away and resell.  There have been dozens of huge plastic trash bags and who knows what else (I am only watching intermittently as work presses on) going into the trucks.

    When I first moved in to my house 20 years ago December, Mrs. J was already elderly — probably in her mid to late 70s) and her son, who lived with her was not a young man.  I tried being polite when I first moved in, but there was no receptivity even to ordinary saying hello and good day.  The son (I had originally thought husband by his looks; he was gray, heavy, and unhealthy), used to sit on the porch at night and smoke cheap cigars that stank so much I needed to keep my front windows closed.  After he died, only a few years after I had moved in, Mrs. J, started having even more difficulty connecting and making sense and was progressively more hostile in her interchanges with me.  She did still go to church and people from the church would visit, unfortunately often to take advantage of her.  A grand daughter also would stop by on very rare occasions in recent years (more it seemed to check out the property then to take care of her grandmother).  As the years went by, the house has fallen into serious disrepair to the point that it, being attached to mine, has started impacting my house as well.

    Every once and a while, Mrs. J would ask me for help.  She was afraid of the young men who lived next door (who appeared based on both things I have witnessed, circumstantial evidence, and interrelationship with law enforcement authorities to be consistently involved with drugs, guns, and a variety of criminal activities).  But that family had lived next door to her for years, and she did not know how to lock her door to them.  She asked me what to do, but I did not really have an answer that would serve.  Over the years she occasionally would come out and yell at me about the rats in her yard, even though she had open garbage cans stored on the side of her house.  I did not disabuse her; what would have been the point, but I did regularly treat for rats in a way that would take care of both of our yards.  A couple of years ago, when she had gotten truly frail, she came outside one day when I was working in the garden and complained to me that a homeless person she had met at church brought bed bugs into her house.  I found someone from the church and asked the church to find someone to treat for the bedbugs.  It appeared that the matter was resolved, because she did not bring it up again.  Over a year ago, Mrs. J was hit by a bus and sustained a minor fracture to an arm.  It was discovered, though, that she was incapable of taking care of herself, and she never came back.

    Now the bulk trash trucks are here.  What would it be like to have lived for decades with things that others see only as trash?  To have had (along with whatever good) so much fear, bitterness, and frustration for that time?  What will happen to the house now that the trash and the memories are being cleared out?  To some extent we choose how we will live.  The house itself is in structure almost identical to mine and in the same wonderful location just blocks from the US Capitol.  Although the contents do not seem able to be salvaged, will someone treat the house as a treasure?  Witnessing the trash hauling makes me want to be ever more mindful of what I consume (materially and energetically), what I hold on to, and what I release and send out.

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    Sunchokes (and Anusara “first principle”) (a bit out of date, but not really)

    ByElizabeth

    I realize that this blog entry was in my drafts page; I never hit the publish button.  As I ponder the few intervening weeks of snow (in some ways it feels as if time just stopped, except for the work that piled up and the lengthening of the light of day), I treat this as a reminder to myself to come back to “first principle” to respond with the most light — even in this unusually harsh winter:

    On my way to Friends Meeting yesterday, I stopped at the Dupont Circle Fresh Farm Market yesterday to buy whatever was fresh.  When I got in line with a daikon radish, a bunch of turnips, and a couple of leeks, I noticed the way the woman in front of me in line was holding her selection:  sunchokes.  Her hands were held as if she had just received prasad — the offering sometimes made after a puja so that the fruits of worship may actually be tasted and injested, incorporated with our senses and our whole bodies into our being.  “Your hands and those sunchokes are so beautiful,” I said, “may I take a picture and use it for my blog?”  “Sure,” she replied, “and shifted her hands a little so that it would be easier for me to frame the picture.”  We talked while we waited in line about potential ways to cook sunchokes and how happy we were that the farmers (these particular farmers’ must be incredibly good at working with cold frames) were out all year.

    Seeing this offering of the earth itself, the farmers who tended the earth and grew the vegetables, the workers who made and repaired the vehicles that enabled the food to be brought into the city, the city and neighborhood for allowing the market to block off a street, the shoppers for supporting it, brought me back to my contemplations this week of what “first principle” means to me.  I mentioned in an earlier post that my focus for winter classes would be Anusara sequencing principles.  No matter what else we are doing or focusing on, it always starts with “first principle.”  The “first principle” is what we call in Anusara “opening to grace.”  For me, a large part of “opening to grace” is a recognition that all the nourishment we receive is a gift.  When we practice such a recognition, then we practice receptivity, openness, gratitude, courtesy, respect, delicacy, and reciprocal desire to serve and make offering.  How could one mindfully receive nourishment such as this fresh, beautiful food on a bitterly cold winter day, and not want to celebrate it by giving thanks, nurturing the earth, supporting the farmers and the market, learning how to prepare it as tasty and healthful as possible, and share it and other things with those around us?

    gift