Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
Be Here Now (Var.)
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Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Photos | Quaker
Call and Response
I went to a Lenten service for ceasefire that was led in front of the White House today. First there was a Catholic Mass and then an ecumenical service.
I sometimes participate in religious rituals outside of my own, as a way of honoring our shared and diverse experience of being.
This is the first time I have gone to a Christian service on Ash Wednesday. No ashes for me. I was willing to, however, to participate in the invitation to participate in a call and response. The speaker listed the heinous atrocities that our tax dollars are funding, and the response was the acknowledgment that “I have blood on my hands.”
I’m still complicit even if I am letting those with power know that I do not agree, although that is better than being silent. One of the religious speakers suggested that repentance does not mean regret. It means acknowledgement and a change of behavior.
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Reflection (Prakasha and Vimarsha)
At the Thillai Kali temple in Chidambaram, and at other temples I am sure, but that was where I particularly noticed this aspect, there is a mirror on the altar, so that one also sees one’s reflection when watching the abhisheka puja.
One is there, too, along with the priests and the gods—watching and a part.
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What to Say When
It appears from my long silence here (but not on other social media, where I am regularly posting photos), whatever I might have to say about yoga has been eclipsed by the fact that when I think to write about anything else, I think about calls for peace and justice and, and, and…
I say this then to those, like me, who are not struggling to have enough food and a safe place to sleep and have either never known or long forgotten what that is like, I use what I have learned from my practice of asana to keep my bones and muscles in alignment and I meditate to keep perspective. I make sure to be contributing in someway to share the safety and abundance I am privileged to enjoy, and I question myself regularly about whether I have the capability and capacity to do more.
And —a key teaching of yoga from my perspective— I let myself have hits of joy from encounters with beauty. Every day.
How are you holding up?
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Found Exhortation
Contact your local representatives asking for or thanking them for a permanent ceasefire resolution.
Contact your federal representatives asking for or thanking them for working for a permanent ceasefire, tax dollars for humanitarian aid not bombs.
Learn, listen, talk about it.
Do what you can about one of the crises in our current world.
Enjoy a moment of beauty.
Say something sweet to someone today.
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Tandava
Siva Nataraja spied doing his wild dance.
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Standing Vigil
My walk in the neighborhood led me to Eastern Market this morning although I was not looking for anything in particular. A small group of people were standing at the four corners of 7th and C Streets Southeast, standing vigil for the children in Gaza and asking for ceasefire.
I asked if I might join them and they offered me a sign. The demonstrator next to whom I was standing was most curious about what led me to be supportive of Palestine and we mostly talked about Quakers and Quaker emphasis on peaceful and fair solutions.
How could I not, in this small way, not add my voice and add my physical presence when I imagine how much more brave to be speaking out and how much more painful for those with friends and family and familiar places under siege.
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