For Those Who Missed It: This is one way you can hear me SINGING BOUT MY STUFF (a slightly expanded repost) October 18, 2021
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in "Impossible" People, Art, Bhakti, Books, Changing Perspectives, Confessions, Dharma, Faith, Gratitude, Healing Stories, Health, Hope, Life, Lorraine Hansberry, Meditation, Movies, Music, Mysticism, Ntozake Shange, One Hoop, Pain, Philosophy, Suffering, Tantra, Texas, Wisdom, Women, Writing, Yoga.Tags: Buena Batiste, Caroline Myss, chakras, Lorraine Hansberry, MKRx2, Ntozake Shange, SONY, Texas Instruments
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Over the last few days, my brother and I have engaged in a multi-medium discussion about certain controversial current events. During one part of this discussion, he described the idea that certain agencies / people may use
climatic(I mean) climactic events as an amplifier of other events. That thought put a slightly different spin on the following, most of which was previously posted on October 18, 2020.
“Our minds and all that functions through our minds generate a continual stream of micro and macro activities through the complex of our non-stop brain. Our emotions are always active. We are constantly making choices, consciously and unconsciously. And – think about this – our “choices continue to make choices.” How’s that for a thought? But it’s pure truth. And because it’s truth, we need to find a way to evaluate the micro and macro impact of our thoughts, attitudes, belief patterns – the whole of our energetic personality and nature – as the energetic reflection of the landscape of our physical life.”
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– quoted from “What Can You Heal in Five Minutes” (from the 2014 Online Salon) by Caroline Myss
The way the world communicated (and was entertained) changed dramatically today in 1954 when Texas Instruments and the Regency Division of Industrial Development Engineering Associates (IDEA Inc.) introduced the Regency Model TR-1, the first commercial transistor radio, to markets in New York and Los Angeles. When the device first went on sale (on November 1st) it cost $49.95 – which was a lot of money back in the 1950’s – but almost 100,000 of the pocket radios were sold in the first year and a technology (as well as an entertainment) revolution had begun.
Prior to the “pocket-sized” TR-1, radios were mostly considered a piece of household furniture. They were essentially big dressers or medium sized jewelry boxes that housed circuitry centered around breakable vacuum tubes. The tubes used a lot of energy, took a long time to warm, and were incredibly fragile. There were “portable” tube radios, but they were about the size and weight of a lunchbox; were powered by several heavy, non-rechargeable batteries; and they didn’t even pretend to be shock resistant. So, few people invested in them. Instead, families huddled around the radio, waited for it to warm-up, and paid attention to the energy output (especially during the war).
No one really thought about listening (or even watching) something they whole family wasn’t going to hear (or see). Furthermore, no one (outside of the electronics industry) really thought about walking around with your personal choice of music, news, podcasts, and other forms of entertainment streaming out of our pockets 24/7. That possibility, that is our reality, became reality because of the introduction of transistors.
Like the old-fashioned vacuum tubes, transistors are devices used to amplify and switch (and also convert) electronic signals and electrical power. Unlike the tubes, transistors are made of semiconductor material which means that that they have an electrical conductivity value which falls between a metal conductor and an insulator (like glass). One of the main benefits to using semiconductor material in electronics is that its ability to conduct electrical current increases as it heats up (meaning its resistivity decreases), which is the opposite of metals. Semiconductor devices, like transistors, offer a lot of versatility and flexibility – especially when you want to pass current in more than one direction – and provided the radios with an “instant-on” capability. All of which allows people to conveniently and quickly share their stories.
“Our psyches are governed by archetypal patterns, containers of myths and symbols that continually feed our unconscious. Our health and well-being feeds off of the stories we tell ourselves, stories that are created, generated, and rooted in our myths. Every person I talk to tells me a story in some way about his or her life and that story inevitably contains at least one symbol or hints at one myth. As each of the participants of the Help Desk told me a bit about themselves, I listened for both the details they were sharing as well as any symbols or metaphors in their descriptions through which I could then identify an archetypal pattern. We can’t stop ourselves from revealing our archetypes. All of these systems that combine to make up each human life need to be understood in terms of how they speak to each other, how they participate in acts of creation, how they interact with the creative mechanisms of our psyche and soul, and how their sensitivities influence the development of physical illnesses. And further, how do we interact with this extraordinary system of life that is US when it comes to healing an illness?
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I view the realm of health and healing through this lens now. In fact, it’s more of a parallel reality in that the real power of who we are truly exists in the realm of energy, or our energy field. Our health is regulated by far more than chemicals and nutrition, as we know. But adding on knowledge about the chakras, for instance, is hardly enough to span the spectrum of all that we have come to discover about the depth and width of our interior selves. Speaking about “chakras”, for instance, represents a great deal more than energy dots laid over the physical anatomy. The recognition of our energy anatomy – of energy consciousness itself – represents an entirely different paradigm of how we need to consider the nature of our concept of power.”
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– quoted from “What Can You Heal in Five Minutes” (from the 2014 Online Salon) by Caroline Myss
The physical practice of yoga (hatha yoga, regardless of style or tradition) is simultaneously physical-mental, emotional-energetic, and psychic-symbolic. In the same way we are not always aware of how are mind-body communicates with itself and ourselves, we are not always aware of how we are communicating with others. The practice, however, gives us the opportunity to start paying attention to not only how we communicate, but also why we communicate. Every part of our being has a story to tell (and a method to tell it); every part of our story is connected to someone else’s story; and they way the stories are told (or not) determines how we think of the story, the storyteller, and the other players.
Consider, for instance, the story of the transistor radio. If you didn’t know the significance of today and someone mentioned transistor radios, your first thought might not be Texas Instruments or IDEA. Instead, your first thought might be SONY. Because not long after Texas Instruments and IDEA went on to new innovations, a Japanese company rebranded itself and (in 1957) introduced the TR-63, a smaller and cheaper transition radio that conveniently preceded with a global “music” mania. And that mania, is not only the stuff of musical legends, it’s the stuff that makes up the story.
Today is the anniversary of the birth of Ntozake Shange. Born today in 1948, she was an award winning playwright and novelist who changed her name to the Zulu words meaning “she comes with her own things” and “who walks like a lion.” The beginning of her story predates the transistor radio, but it is a definite element in her stories. The remainder of this post is part of a 2018 Kiss My Asana offering, posted slightly before Ntozake passed.
“somebody/anybody
sing a black girl’s song
bring her out
to know herself
to know you
but sing her rhythms
carin/struggle/hard times”
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– The Lady in Brown with all the other Ladies from for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange
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“somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff
not my poems or a dance i gave up in the street
but somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff
like a kleptomaniac workin hard & forgettin while stealin
.
this is mine!
this aint yr stuff
now why don’t you put me back
& let me hang out in my own
Self”
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– The Lady in Green from for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange
I said it before, and I’ll say it again: The danger in not telling your story isn’t only that it might not be told, it’s also that someone else might tell your story. Someone else might, to quote the choreopoem, run off with all of your stuff. And, if someone else tells your story, they may (at best) leave out your rhythm, your tone, and what is most important to you. At worse, however, someone else telling your story can objectify you or turn you into a caricature, a living breathing stereotype come to life on the page – or on the stage.
Up until recently, certain individuals had a hard time telling their own stories in a way that they could be heard, seen, and validated. They didn’t have the money, the prestige, or the influence. I say this knowing full well that certain marginalized groups (people of color, women – of almost any color, LGBTQI+, people who practice certain faiths, people who have been abused by people with power, the physically disabled, and the mentally disabled…just to name a few) still have a harder time getting their stories told, heard, seen, and validated than people who identify in a way that is not marginalized. Slowly but surely, that is changing. Still, as hard as it is, it would be harder were it not for people like Lorraine Hansberry and Ntozake Shange and works like Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and Shange’s choreopoem for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf.
“Write if you will: but write about the world as it is and as you think it ought to be and must be—if there is to be a world. Write about all the things that men have written about since the beginning of writing and talking—but write to a point. Work hard at it, care about it. Write about our people: tell their story. You have something glorious to draw on begging for attention. Don’t pass it up. Don’t pass it up. Use it. Good luck to you. The Nation needs your gifts.”
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– from a speech to Readers Digest/United Negro Fund creative writing contest winners (May 1, 1964) by Lorraine Hansberry
Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun was inspired by real life events. It was also the first play written by a Black woman (and directed by a Black person) to appear on Broadway (1959). At some point during high school, I read excerpts from Lorraine Hansberry’s play What Use Are Flowers? and her autobiography To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words. Reading her words, I thought, “I could be that. I could write, I could act, and I could represent the world…as I see it.” I can only imagine where I would be if that idea – of being on stage while putting my work on stage – hadn’t been cemented in my mind. But, there it was, an inspiration not unlike the Langston Hughes poem that inspired the title of Hansberry’s most famous play. And, like a raisin in the sun, my dream kinda got deferred.
I auditioned for The Sunshine Boys during my first semester of college. The directors kept asking me to read with different people who were auditioning, which I took as a good sign. Unbeknownst to me, they weren’t considering me for a role on stage. Instead, the directors asked if I would be their assistant. I said yes and then found myself in the role of their stage manager… and their producer and their publicist. Fast forward 7 years and I was working as a professional stage manager for the writer/director who’s most famous play was the second Broadway play written by a Black woman: Ntozake Shange.
“hey man
where are you goin wid alla my stuff?!
this is a woman’s trip & i need my stuff”
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– The Lady in Green from for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange
In 1974, Shange and four other women started performing the choreopoems that would become for colored girls…. Seventeen years after Hansberry’s Broadway premiere, Shange’s work found its way to the Great White Way. (I say, [It] found its way,” but in truth, Ntozake is (to this day) was a force of creative nature and moving across the country was the least of the things she did to shepherd her work.) Twenty years after she wrote and first started to perform the poems, Shange was in Houston directing a revival.
Ntozake Shange was not the first arts and entertainment legend with whom I worked – and she would not be the last – but holy cow did she leave an indelible impression. I worked with her twice and both times I was struck by her unwavering commitment to her own vision. While it is not unusual for a director to be strong, fierce, and artistically determined, she was one of the first woman (not to mention one of the first women of color) with whom I worked who was unapologetic about who she was and what she wanted. Also notable, she saw the world and, therefore, presented the world in a very different way from the mainstream. She was (and is) defiantly herself, singing her songs, dancing to her own rhythms, and – in doing so – giving us permission to do the same.
Everybody has a rhythm, a cadence, a pace of life and one big part of the physical practice of yoga is to find your rhythm and to move to it. Your breath sets your pace, but even within the pace there is room to (physically) harmonize. Find your pace, find you rhythm, and let the movement tell your story.
“I was missing something
something so important
something promised
a laying on of hands
fingers near my forehead
strong
cool
moving
making me whole
sense pure
all the gods coming into me
laying me open to myself
I was missing something
something promised
something free
a laying on of hands”
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– quoted from for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange
At the end of the choreopoem for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, the women come together, bringing their lines, the elements of their stories, and then repeating the final words, “I found god in myself / & I loved her /I loved her fiercely.” Regardless of the production, this powerful moment brings all the women and all their stories – and all the colors of the rainbow – together. When I worked on that anniversary production in 1994, I was (as I think everyone is) on a path to/with God, but I hadn’t started on the yoga path. And, even though I had heard of yoga, I had no idea it was an eight-limb philosophy culminating in Samadhi, which is sometimes translated as “perfect meditation” and sometimes as “union with Divine.” So, I never considered why the rainbow might be enuf. Nor did I previously wonder if each woman’s personality is reflected in the color of her costume as well as in her poems.
Even if you’ve never practiced yoga, you may still have heard or seen the colors of the rainbow associated with seven points along the center of the body. In yoga and Ayurveda (yoga’s sister science), the energy of the body flows through energy channels or rivers (nadis) which overlap to create energy wheels (chakras). There are more than seven energetic intersections in the body, but the three primary nadis overlap at seven points and these are associated with the colors of the rainbow, starting with red. The lower chakras are associated with tangible or physical elements of being, while the last three (sometimes four) are associated with the metaphysical.
The term metaphysics was first applied to the work of Aristotle in reference to topics sequentially appearing beyond discussions on the physical or “natural” world. It has come to mean anything beyond the physical or beyond our understanding of the physical. Even if you are only interested in hatha yoga (the physical practice regardless of style or tradition) stepping on the mat is a first step towards transcending the physical. It doesn’t matter if we practicing standing on our feet or sitting in a wheel chair, at some point the practice takes us beyond what is easily explained. At some point we may even stop trying to explain and just be, just breath…and feel what we feel – even when we’ve been told/taught that there’s nothing to feel.
“& this is for colored girls who have considered
suicide / but are movin to the ends of their own
rainbows”
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– The Lady in Brown from for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange
Please join me today (Monday, October 18th) at 5:30 PM for a 75-minute virtual yoga practice on Zoom. Use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. Give yourself extra time to log in if you have not upgraded to Zoom 5.0. You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below.
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