A Joyful Practice

Getting Ready for A Possibility Party! (the “missing” Saturday post w/excerpt & links) October 5, 2024

“Chag sameach!” (“Happy Festival!”) to everyone observing the High Holidays. “Nine days and nine nights of blessings and happiness if you are celebrating Sharada Navaratri!” Many blessings to everyone and especially to anyone coming together with friendship, peace, freedom, understanding, and wisdom.

Stay safe! Live well! Hydrate and nourish your heart, body, and mind.

This is the “missing” post for Saturday, October 5^th. It includes an excerpt and some previously posted content. You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.

In the spirit of generosity (“dana”), the Zoom classes, recordings, and blog posts are freely given and freely received. If you are able to support these teachings, please do so as your heart moves you. (NOTE: You can donate even if you are “attending” a practice that is not designated as a “Common Ground Meditation Center” practice, or you can purchase class(es).

Donations are tax deductible; class purchases are not necessarily deductible.

Check out the “Class Schedules” calendar for upcoming classes.

“Through our experiences, each one of us builds a personal matrix of information within our minds. From the first glimpse of our mother’s face to our doctoral dissertations and beyond, we spend our lives trying to piece together some sense of order from what we see around us. Each bit of information we receive gets incorporated into that matrix, making it even more complex. As it grows more complex it tends to periodically ‘reorganize’ itself, finding higher levels of order which simplify its system…. allowing a new wholeness to be perceived. Enlightenment is a progressive understanding of ever greater wholeness.”

— quoted from the section entitled “Information” in “Chapter 8 – Chakra Seven: Thought” of Wheels of Life: A Users Guide to the Chakra System by Anodea Judith, Ph.D.

Whether we realize it or not, everything we do is the beginning of, and preparation for, the next thing we do. This is made apparent during the practice, when we bring awareness to the fact that the inhale is the beginning of, and preparation for, the exhale — and that the exhale is the beginning of, and preparation for, the exhale. It is also explicitly illustrated in a vinyasa practice, when we “place things in a special way” in order to match the movement to the breath and, also, when we use vinyasa krama to “place things in a special way, for a step-by-step progression.” What is not always as obvious is that what happens on the mat also happens off the mat.

Life happens — and is experienced — in a very special step-by-step progression, whether we realize it our not. This is true even when we change the way we count our days. Most babies roll over before they crawl, crawl before the walk, and walk before they run. Education builds on the knowledge we already have. An ideal career trajectory involves advancement and an expansion of skills and/or expertise. Psychological, spiritual, and religious development has also been mapped out. So, too, has energetic progression been described as we’ve moved through this year’s Saturday practices: beginning with the first chakra, our physical foundation, and where we begin in life and moving through various experiences until we reached this present moment and an awareness of our wholeness.

Recognizing where we come from, and how our past informs our present, helps us better understand how this present moment informs our future moments. We also gain a better understanding of why we think (and perceive things) the way we do and why we do the things we do. Ultimately, this knowledge can help us avoid making the same mistakes and plan for better days. In other words, this whole calendar year, we have been getting ready for a possibility party — and now it’s time to…

RSVP

— Acronym for Répondez s’il vous plaît [French for “Respond if you please”]

FTWMI: You’re Invited To A Possibility Party!

FOR MORE, CLICK ON THE EXCERPT TITLE ABOVE.

In addition to being the third day of the High Holidays (which started on Wednesday at sunset), Saturday was also the third day of Navaratri, the Hindu festival of “nine nights” celebrating divine feminine energy in various manifestations. The third manifestation of Durga, the divine mother, is Chandraghanta, whose name “one who has a half-moon shaped like a bell” comes from the image of the newly-wed Parvati. She is depicted as a combination of beauty, grace, and courage, with her third eye open — the result of all the (yoga) preparation performed by Her previous manifestation. That open third eye means that she is always ready to fight evil and demons. In fact, she is sometimes known as the “Goddess Who Fights Demons.”

Here “demons” can be a metaphor for anything that ails you physically, mentally, emotionally — even energetically, spiritually, and religiously. They can be challenges and hurdles that need to be over come. They can even be mistakes… sins… or vows (as we will refer to them in the coming days) that can be absolved or forgiven. In fact, the faithful of all the different religions believe that there are ways (and even special times) when mistakes, sins, and broken vows are turned away.

“But teshuvah and tefillah and tzedakah [repentance and prayer and righteous acts]
deflect the evil of the decree.”

— quoted from the poem “Unetaneh Tokef” (“Let Us Speak of the Awesomeness”)

Saturday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “Rosh Hashanah 2021”]

If you are thinking about suicide, worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, you can dial 988 (in the US) or call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call this TALK line if you are struggling with addiction or involved in an abusive relationship. The Lifeline network is free, confidential, and available to all 24/7. YOU CAN TALK ABOUT ANYTHING.

White Flag is a new app, which I have not yet researched, but which may be helpful if you need peer-to-peer (non-professional) support.

If you are a young person in crisis, feeling suicidal, or in need of a safe and judgement-free place to talk, you can also click here to contact the TrevorLifeline (which is staffed 24/7 with trained counselors).

### MAY YOUR NAME BE WRITTEN & SEALED IN THE BOOK OF LIFE ###