The Art of Moving Meditation September 6, 2020
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Books, Buddhism, California, Changing Perspectives, Depression, Faith, Healing Stories, Hope, Japa, Japa-Ajapa, Life, Loss, Love, Meditation, Men, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Mysticism, One Hoop, Pain, Philosophy, Suffering, Tragedy, Vipassana, Wisdom, Writing, Yoga.Tags: dyana, John Cage, Paulo Coelho, Robert Pirsig, Zen Buddhism
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“If something is boring after 2 minutes, try it for 4. If still boring, then 8. Then 16. Then 38. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.”
– John Cage
“The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away, I’m looking for the truth,” and so it goes away. Puzzling.”
– quoted from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert Pirsig
Yesterday was about the truth… the cagey truth about nothing. Today we start with the truth about words.
Words are amazing! And, when you know where they come from, words (and the way we use them) can be really funny. Take the word zen, for instance. The word zen is a Japanese word that comes to us from Sanskrit by way of Chinese, from a word that means “meditation.” So, when we say that someone practices “Zen meditation” what we are really saying is that someone practices “Meditation meditation.”
It’s funny to think of it that way, but it is also true – not only of a Zen practice, but of all meditation practices. When we sit, or even when we practice a moving meditation, the mind focuses on something again and again and again; meaning, it keeps coming back to the object of focus. Similar to japa-ajapa, we repeat and repeat, repeat and remember, repeat and understand – in other words, we gain insight. Not coincidentally, the Sanskrit word dyana (“thought, meditation”), which is the source word for zen, comes from the Greek root meaning “to see, look.” So, when we look at something again, and again, and again – even looking, as Paulo Coehlo suggested, from different perspectives – we see things “in a special way” (which is just another way to say “insight”). Our understanding of the moment (and movement) is a matter of perspective.
It’s like a road trip. The vehicle is moving but we are still inside the vehicle; the scenery is still, but appears to be moving. Everything merges and converges while we are still. Do you see where we’re going?
It’s OK if you don’t. This is kind of like that old joke where someone says, “I’m not lost. I know exactly where we are. We’re in the car.” Now, consider what happens if we could get out of the box or cage we’re in and become part of the scenery. Not walking necessarily, but riding. So that the scenery is simultaneously still and moving… but so are we. And, just like with a moving meditation, there is some part of us that always stays still.
“Get yourself out of whatever cage you find yourself.”
– John Cage
“In a car you’re always in a compartment, and because you’re used to it you don’t realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You’re a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame.
On a cycle the frame is gone. You’re completely in contact with it all. You’re in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming.”
– quoted from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert Pirsig
Born today in 1928, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Robert Pirsig was a writer and philosopher whose way above average IQ was identified at an early age. While he ultimately served in the United States Army and became a professor of creative writing, he is most well-known as the author of a fictionalized autobiography that centers around a road trip Pirsig took with his son Chris. The trip took them from Minneapolis to San Francisco. The book takes the reader along for the ride and also on a philosophical road trip, moving readers through a history of philosophy and an exploration of “quality” (an object of contemplation). While Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values received over one hundred rejection letters and no one expected it to have much of a shelf life, the book initially sold at least 5 million copies worldwide and has consistently appeared on best seller lists.
Pirsig served as vice-President of the Minnesota Zen Mediation Center and spent two additional years on its board of directors. But while he was familiar with motorcycles and Zen Buddhism (as well as electroshock therapy, which is also chronicled in the book), Robert Pirsig said that his seminal book shouldn’t be considered “factual” about either. The same can be said about his follow-up book, Lila: An Inquiry into Morals, which recounts a sailboat trip down the Hudson River. Lila picks up where the philosophical road trip left off and explores “quality” as Static or Dynamic and divides everything in the universe into four “static values” (inorganic, biological, social, and intellectual). His exploration about morals is also an exploration of perspective, and how perspectives change over time. Even though biographies indicate that a 1974 Guggenheim Fellowship “allowed” him to write the second book and the philosophical discourse into metaphysics is continuous, there is a seventeen-year gap between the books.
In the 17 years between his books, Pirsig divorced his first wife, married his second wife, lost his oldest son (who had been featured in the first book), and had a daughter. His son Christopher was killed in a mugging outside the San Francisco Zen Meditation Center. Pirsig would eventually explain that one of the reasons he and his second wife had their daughter Nell was because they believed she was a continuation of Chris’s “life pattern.” In other words, Nell was part of the same trip (metaphysically speaking, of course.)
“The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away, I’m looking for the truth,” and so it goes away. Puzzling.”
– quoted from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert Pirsig
Please join me for a 65-minute virtual yoga practice on Zoom today (Sunday, September 6th) at 2:30 PM. You can use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. PLEASE NOTE: Zoom 5.0 is in effect. If you have not upgraded, you will need to give yourself extra time to log into Zoom. You can always request an audio recording of this practice (or any practice) via email or a comment below.
Today’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify.
“You look at where you’re going and where you are and it never makes sense, but then you look back at where you’ve been and a pattern seems to emerge. And if you project forward from that pattern, then sometimes you can come up with something.”
– quoted from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert Pirsig
“The thing to understand is that if you are going to reform society you don’t start with cops. And if you are going to reform intellect you don’t start with psychiatrists. If you don’t like our present social system or intellectual system the best thing you can do with either cops or psychiatrists is stay out of their way. You leave them till last.”
– quoted from Lila: An Inquiry into Morals by Robert Pirsig
“The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.”
– quoted from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert Pirsig
### ZOOOOOOM ###
Magic? No. Magical? Yes, yes! (*Updated) September 2, 2020
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in "Impossible" People, Art, Books, Changing Perspectives, Donate, Healing Stories, Hope, Karma, Karma Yoga, Life, Movies, Music, One Hoop, Pain, Philosophy, Suffering, Tragedy, TV, Volunteer, Wisdom, Women, Yoga.Tags: Army, breastfeeding, Christa McAuliffe, Cirque du Soleil, David Blaine, Guy Laliberté, inspiration, NASA, One Drop, Pete Docter, Romare Bearden, Salma Hayek, Space Shuttle Challenger, UP, water, World War II
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“The idea came from the idea of escaping the world, actually. For me, there’s definitely days where I feel like I’ve been overwhelmed by people, and I need to get away. So Bob Peterson, who is the lead writer and co-director, he and I were just sitting in a room thinking of ideas. And we were experimenting with this visual idea of a guy in floating house, and it just seemed really intriguing.”
– Pete Docter (b. 10/09/1968), quoted from an AV Club interview (dated 05/28/2009)
Today started with something that wasn’t magic, but it was magical. For reasons unknown to me, David Blaine and his team picked today for his YouTubes Original special Ascension. The stunt, to soar up thousands of feet with helium balloons and then parachute down, took years and planning and even more years of dreaming. Blaine kept saying he was doing it for his 9-year old daughter Dessa, but he was also doing it for everyone who has ever dreamed of flying, soaring, and floating above it all. He said it was amazing. I say that despite all the technology, and maybe because of it, it was magical – and it couldn’t have happened on a better day. Because, to me, September 2nd is all about magical dreams and the inspiring people who make them come true.
“I want to see how life can triumph.”
– Romare Bearden, Artist and Activist
The artist, author, and song writer Romare Bearden was born today in 1911. Perhaps best known for his collages, photomontages, and abstract and Cubist paintings, he originally aspired to be a cartoonist (and even supported himself, for a brief period, as a political cartoonist). While serving in the United States Army during World War II, Sergeant Bearden was part of the all-Black 372nd Infantry Division of the 15th Regiment. While I have read accounts that spent his service in the United States and other accounts saying that he served on the Western Front, one thing is not disputed: during the war, he saw mankind at its worst and he wanted, through his art, to express the humanity he felt was lacking in his wartime experiences.
“There are roads out of the secret place within us which we must all move as we go to touch others.”
– Romare Bearden, Artist and Activist
Of course, it is easy to imagine the atrocities one might have witnessed on the Western Front, but what would an all-Black infantry member experience if they served in the United States? Segregation, prejudice, racism – and this was experienced more by the domestic soldiers than those on the battlefield. While the enlisted men were Black, the officers were primarily white. In addition to the things we normally think of as being segregated during the 1940’s (housing, transportation, food service, church), especially in the South, parades and other ways people in the service were honored were also done separately. The separation and hostility included people who were part of the Officer’s Candidate School in North Carolina (like Sergeant Bearden) and meant that the Black soldiers were sometimes restricted to their bases even when they had time off.
When his service ended, Romare Bearden spent time in New York City and in Paris, where he studied philosophy and the history behind the art he had, primarily, taught himself to create. His work didn’t just depict African-American people; it showed the unity, cooperation, and collaboration within the African-American community. Along with his cousin, Private Charles H. Alston (with whom he also served in the U. S. Army), Emma Amos, Hale Woodruff, and 11 other artists of color, Sergeant Bearden founded the “Spiral” group, which discussed the responsibility of African-American artists to the Civil Rights Movement and “to consider common aesthetic problems.” It was during this same period that he began his collage work and started experiencing great success and recognition through exhibitions in major galleries and museums.
In 1984, four years before his bone cancer-related death, he was paid $90,000 for a 60×13-foot mural, entitled “Pittsburgh Recollections,” which was installed in a Pittsburgh subway station. In 2008, the mural’s value was estimated at $15 million. Two years after his death, the Romare Bearden Foundation was founded “to preserve and perpetuate the legacy of this preeminent American artist.” The non-profit foundation serves as the artist’s estate and has developed grants supporting children, young (emerging) artists, and scholars.
“If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat. JUST GET ON!”
– Teacher and Astronaut S Christa McAuliffe
Born today in 1948, S Christa McAuliffe was a teacher who became an astronaut – because she was a teacher. At an early age, she was inspired by the “Space Age” astronauts like John Glen. As an adult, she was chosen from over 11,000 applicants to participate in NASA’s 1985 “Teacher in Space” project. She trained to become the first teacher in space and planned to conduct experiments and teach two lesson plans on her first mission aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger. Tragically, the shuttle broke apart 73 seconds after launch killing all seven crew members on January 28, 1986. This American of Irish and Lebanese descent, who was also a mother and wife, was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor (in 2004). Schools and scholarships have been named in her honor; however, her students remember her for her advice on life:
“Reach for the stars. Reach for it! Push yourself as far as you can.”
– Teacher and Astronaut S Christa McAuliffe
Canada’s first “space tourist” was born today in 1959. Known for reaching for a different kind of stars and pushing himself (and others), Cirque du Soleil co-founder and former CEO Guy Laliberté turned 61 today. He believes in having a greater purpose and in taking risks, which probably explains his penchant for poker playing, but also his success as an entertainer and producer. While he is now billionaire and one of the wealthiest Canadians in the world, he started off as just another kid inspired by the circus. He started off as a busker, a stiltwalker, and a fire-eater, but eventually became a producer.
In addition to curating one of the most innovative and entertaining performing arts companies in the world, he is one of the founders of the non-profit One Drop Foundation, which aims “to ensure sustainable access to safe water and sanitation for the most vulnerable communities through innovative partnerships, creativity and the power of art.” He called his venture into space a “poetic social mission” designed to raise awareness about water issues addressed by One Drop. The foundation’s values are respect, integrity, collaboration, innovation, and fun – the same elements you need for a good circus. Mr. Laliberté said, “Inside every adult there’s still a child that lingers. We’re happiness merchants giving people the opportunity to dream like children.” Of course, to encourage others to dream, one has to dream big; always, always, always, believe in the dream; and have the resources to make it so.
“I am blessed for what I have, but I believed in it from the beginning. Today the dream is the same: I still want to travel, I still want to entertain, and I most certainly want to have fun.”
– Guy Laliberté, Cirque du Soleil co-founder, polker player, and Activist
“Life is tough, and if you have the ability to laugh at it, you have the ability to enjoy it.”
– Salma Hayek, Actor, Director, Producer, and Activist
If I didn’t have all the other birthday people to honor, but I wanted to get across the same advice and inspiration, I would defer to a Mexican-American woman who stands not quite two inches taller than me. Born today in 1966, Salma Valgarma Hayek Jiménez, now Salma Hayak Pinault began her career in the award-winning telenovela Teresa. By 25, she had won an Ariel Award (the Mexican equivalent of an Academy Award) and was ready to take on Hollywood, where she would receive more accolades and critical acclaim. She has appeared in sitcoms, children’s specials, and every imaginable genre of movies.
In 2002, Salma Hayek produced and starred in Frida, a biography of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, which was directed by Julie Taymor. In addition to paying tribute to her Mexican heritage with Frida, honored her Lebanese heritage by producing (and voicing the character Kamila) the animated movie Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet. As she continuously racks up awards and nominations for her work as an actor and producer, she has also modeled; worked as an official spokeswoman for Avon and Revlon cosmetics; and worked with Proctor & Gamble Company, in collaboration with UNICEF, to promote the funding of maternal and neonatal tetanus vaccines. She practices yoga and has developed a juice delivery program and her own brand of cosmetics.
In addition to all this and more, Ms. Hayek has had overcome dyslexia, navigated America’s immigration system to become a naturalized citizen, and overcame sexual assault and harassment during one of the high points of her career. Her personal experiences are part of the reason she works to increase awareness about violence against women (even testifying before the United States Senate to support the Violence Against Women Act), donates to anti-domestic abuse shelters and groups (in the United States and Mexico), and is a breastfeeding advocate who once breastfeed a newborn in Sierra Leone when the baby’s mother could not produce milk. She once said, “What is important is to believe in something so strongly that you’re not discouraged.” Inspiring words, for sure! However, I always follow another bit of her advice….
“I act tall!”
– Salma Hayek, Actor, Director, Producer, and Activist
Please join me today (Wednesday, September 2nd) at 4:30 PM or 7:15 PM for a magical-birthday inspired yoga practice on Zoom. Use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. You will need to register for the 7:15 PM class if you have not already done so. 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.
Wednesday’s playlist is available is available on YouTube and Spotify. (The practice music is the same, but one playlist includes David Blaine’s Ascension and the other includes Romare Bearden’s “Sea Breeze.”)
“People often say that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves.”
– Salma Hayek, Actor, Director, Producer, and Activist
Format updated and quote added 09/2023.
### REACH FOR THE STARS! HAVE FUN. ACT TALL. BEHOLD… & LIFE WILL TRIUMPH ###
When Did It Start, Where Does It Stop? August 29, 2020
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Depression, Healing Stories, Life, Loss, Pain, Peace, Philosophy, Suffering, Tragedy, Wisdom, Yoga.Tags: Gulf Coast, Hurricane Betsy, Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana, New Orleans, St. Bernard Parish, UK Mirror, yoga, yoga philosophy, Yoga Sutra 2.35
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“For most of us, this distorted self-identity constitutes our personal world. Because this is what we feel ourselves to be, the prospect of losing it is deeply frightening. We do everything in our power to protect and perpetuate our distorted identity. When we fail, we become angry and we direct our anger at people who have harmed us or who have the potential to harm us., This is how animosity is born and how it thrives.”
– quoted from commentary on Yoga Sūtra 2.35 in The Practice of the Yoga Sutra: Sadhana Pada by Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, PhD
Fifteen years ago today, August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina decimated the Gulf Coast, causing over 50 levees and flood walls protecting to New Orleans , Louisiana to fail. At least 1,245 people died in the hurricane and subsequent flooding and the total property damage was estimated (at the time) at $108 billion (USD). At the time it was ranked as the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane to make landfall in the contiguous United States. It was also ranked as the costliest tropical cyclone on record – although, it is now tied with Hurricane Harvey, which hit the same area in 2017. While Katrina affected the Bahamas, Cuba, Eastern Canada, and multiple states in the United States (including two deaths in Ohio), the majority of the world’s attention landed in Louisiana – specifically because of the levee breaks that flooded 80% of New Orleans and all of St. Bernard Parish, with the Ninth Ward taking the hardest hit.
Along with all the other emotions people were feeling as a result of the death and destruction was anger. People were angry about the response – or, in some cases lack of response – by FEMA. People, specifically Black Americans, were angry at what they viewed as yet another sign of America’s racism. People around the world were shocked, appalled, and then angry at the poverty they didn’t know existed in the Ninth Ward and then at the disregard for suffering that people endured before, during, and after the storm. Fueling the anger was a rumor, a powerful conspiracy theory that the levees didn’t just fail because of the severity of the storm. According to the conspiracy theory (which was ultimately investigated by the United States House of Representatives) the levees “failed” because they were dynamited in order to save the more white-populated neighborhoods. While many, including the press, called the theory an “urban myth,” it had a foundation in history: when Hurricane Betsy flooded the Mississippi River in 1927, city officials reportedly set off 30 tons of dynamite at one levee in St. Bernard Parish, in order to ease pressure on the levees protecting New Orleans.
“Many things about the United States are wonderful, but it has a vile underbelly which is usually kept well out of sight. Now in New Orleans it has been exposed to the world.”
– quoted from an article in the UK Mirror dated September 3, 2005
Just like with Katrina, people died and homes were lost in unequal numbers that can be attributed to race (and the United States historically race-related policies). Just like with Besty, people living in the Ninth Ward during Katrina said they heard what first sounded like gunshots and then the sound of explosions. Granted, in the middle of hurricane, concrete cracking and breaking would sound the same as concrete being busted apart by an explosion. Ultimately, the facts don’t matter once the seed is planted and the anger takes root. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if you mow down the top of the anger-flower; you still have the roots… waiting for the next good rain.
After laying the foundation for the practice of yoga, Patanjali starts to explain the benefits of practicing the yamās and niyamās. Specifically, he explains how cause and effect extends beyond the person practicing: non-violence leads to peace, a dedication to truth leads to realization, non-stealing leads to prosperity, walking in the footsteps of God leads to spiritual power, non-possessiveness leads to full awareness, cleanliness leads to an awareness of impurities before they take root in the mind-body, contentment leads to unsurpassed happiness, discipline and austerity lead to beauty, self-study leads to the ultimate connection to wisdom (intuition), and devoted surrender leads to the enlightenment. The detailed instructions and explanations Patanjali offers in the last two chapters of the Yoga Sūtras makes the accomplished yogi sound like a mystical wizard capable of all manner of Jedi Knight tricks and Vulcan mind melds. Before we get to those detailed explanations, however, Patanjali offers us a little taste of what’s to come: the promise of cause and effect.
Yoga Sūtra 2.35: ahimsāpratişţhāyām tatsannidhau vairatyāgah
– “In the company of a yogi established in non-violence, animosity disappears.”
Please join me for a 90-minute virtual yoga practice on Zoom today (Saturday, August 29th) at 12:00 PM. You can 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.
Today’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify.
You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email me at myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.
### REST IN PEACE, REST IN POWER – ET & CB ###
Heart Filled… August 26, 2020
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Books, Changing Perspectives, Faith, Healing Stories, Hope, Life, Love, Music, One Hoop, Pain, Peace, Philosophy, Religion, Suffering, Wisdom, Yoga.Tags: Anjeze Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, Chris Pine, Christopher Isherwood, compassion, Diamond Sutra, Jesus, loving-kindness, lovingkindness, Mother Teresa, Nobel Peace Prize, Swami Prabhavananda, The Gospel According to John, Yoga Sutra 1.33
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“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
– Mother Teresa
“When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.”
– quoted from (“the last words of Jesus”) in The Gospel According to St. John (19:26 – 27, KJV)
I have officiated three weddings as a yogi and I did this after pretty in-depth conversations with the couples about their relationships, their backgrounds, their expectations, and their love languages. Each wedding was uniquely beautiful – as the relationships are uniquely beautiful. However, I ended each ceremony with the words (above) of Mother Teresa. When someone says, “Start as you mean to go on,” I again think of Mother Teresa’s words; because to me they are as vital in a marriage as they are in any other relationship – including (maybe especially) our relationships with our master teachers and our precious jewels, people with whom we have no peace.
Born Anjeze Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, today in 1910, Mother Teresa’s words remind me of one of the Stations of the Cross that falls in the rubric of “the last words of Jesus.” According to The New Testament, specifically The Gospel According to John, when Jesus looks down from the cross to see his mother and one of his disciples, he tells them that they are family. Now, I know that everyone doesn’t treat every member of their family with love and respect. I know that everyone has a moment when we forget what many great minds and sacred texts keep telling us – and yet, the lesson on love and kindness persists. Even before Johannes Gutenberg created the first printed Bible on August 24, 1456, the lesson was there in the Hebrew Bible and in the Christian New Testament. The lesson appears in the Diamond Sūtra and in the Mettā Sūtra.
“Undisturbed calmness of mind is attained by cultivating feelings of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and indifference toward the wicked [ or non-virtuous].”
– quoted from How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali (1.33), translated and with commentary by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood
I often say that the lesson on offering love, kindness, equanimity, and joy also appears in the Yoga Sūtra – and it does. However, Patanjali makes a distinction that is overlooked in some translations. Christopher Isherwood, who was born today in 1904, joined Swami Prabhavananda in translating and providing commentary for The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali. They called their collaboration How to Know God and, as noted above, they were very explicit and specific about sūtra 1.33. In the commentary, they note, “As for the wicked, we must remember Christ’s words: ‘Be not overcome of evil.’ If someone harms us or hates us, our instinct is to answer him with hatred and injury. We may succeed in injuring him, but we shall be injuring ourselves much more, and our hatred will throw our own mind into confusion.”
This, too, seems to be a lesson Mother Teresa carried close to her heart. She was considered a saint by some, a pariah by others; but, there is no denying that she served, taught, and ministered to the poor, the sick, and the hungry in a way that fed bodies as well as minds. She heard her (religious) calling at the age of 12 and left home at 18-years old. She was an ethnic Albanian who claimed Indian citizenship; Catholic faith; said, “As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus;” and considered August 27th, the date of her baptism, as her true birthday. She took her religious vows in Ireland in 1931. Here chosen name was after Thérèsa de Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries; however, she chose a different spelling as the Loreta Abbey already had a nun named Theresa.
“The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.”
“The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.”
– Mother Teresa
While teaching in Calcutta, India, Teresa heard God telling her to leave the safety and comfort of the convent so that she could live with and minister to the poor. With permission from the Vatican, she started what would become the Missionaries of Charity. 13 nuns joined Teresa by taking vows of chastity, poverty, obedience, and devotion to God through “wholehearted free service to the poorest of poor.” When Pope Paul VI gave her a limousine, she raffled it and gave the proceeds to charity. When she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, she asked that the money that would normally go towards a gala dinner be donated to charity. When the Nobel committee asked her what people should do to promote peace, she said, “Go home and love your family.”
When Mother Teresa died in 1977, Missionaries of Charity had expanded beyond India. It had become a worldwide institution with more than 4,000 workers in 133 countries. The organizations efforts included orphanages, homes for people suffering from tuberculosis, leprosy, and HIV/AIDs. Mother Teresa opened soup kitchens, mobile health clinics, schools, and shelters in places like Harlem and Greenwich Village, while also brokering a temporary cease-fire in the Middle East in order to rescue children trapped in a hospital on the front lines.
This is why some consider her a saint. However, the celebrity status her work earned her, as well, as her pro-life position was criticized by people who felt she was hurting the poor as much as she was helping them. For every documentary, book, and article praising her, there is a documentary, book, and article demonizing her. While she was known to have “dark nights of the soul,” or a crisis of faith, she continued to wash her $1 sari every day and go out in service to the world.
“Love is a fruit in season at all times, and with reach of each hand.”
“Love begins at home, it is not how much we do… but how much love we put into the action.”
“Intense love does not measure, it just gives.”
– Mother Teresa
Please join me today (Wednesday, August 26th) at 4:30 PM or 7:15 PM for a heart-felt yoga practice on Zoom. Use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. You will need to register for the 7:15 PM class if you have not already done so. 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.
Wednesday’s (heart-filled) playlist is available is available on YouTube and Spotify.
(Or, since it is Chris Pine’s birthday, you can also use last week’s (Courage filled) playlist is also available on YouTube and Spotify.)
“Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.”
– Mother Teresa
Format updated 08/26/2023.
### ALL WE NEED IS LOVE… (or just less hate) ###
All These Easter Eggs Are About Hope… Not Blind Optimism August 23, 2020
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in "Impossible" People, Abhyasa, Art, Books, Changing Perspectives, Depression, Healing Stories, Hope, Life, Loss, Music, Pain, Philosophy, Poetry, Suffering, Tragedy, Vairagya, Wisdom, Writing, Yoga.Tags: Adrienne Wilkinson, Captain Lexxa Singh., Gospel According to Matthew, J. M. Barrie, Robert Louis Stevenson, Stoicism, Teddy Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, William Ernest Henley
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“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
– quoted from “The Man in the Arena” portion of the “Citizenship in a Republic” speech by former President Theodore Roosevelt (delivered April 23, 1910, Sorbonne, Paris)
It is not uncommon, when we turn inward, to find a head full of doubt; but, we also find a road of promise. We may find fear; but also strength, wisdom, and courage. Even when life is hard, strenuous, if we keep on pushing, we get a little bit stronger. There may be cracks, but that’s how the light gets in and…
OK, you get the picture. There’s a point where certain kinds of inspiration becomes a little syrupy, a little much, and even a little trite. This can especially be true when we are enduring a challenging time – or, as is the case now, challenging times. But, you know what never gets syrupy? You know what never gets trite? The story of someone who demonstrates that despite their hard times, they can still feel the spirit in their soul. The story of someone who is in a dark place, and yet still express gratitude for their unconquerable soul. The story of someone who may be far from home, with broken bones and a broken heart, a little rusty, but still runnin’.
We may not always want to hear one of those stories of people who are having the same hard time as us – or a significantly harder time than us – and still manages to find some joy in life, smile, and move forward. Sometimes we want to wallow in our muck, moan a few verses of “Oh, woe is me” and “Nobody Knows the Troubles I’ve Seen.” And we absolutely get to do that. Everybody gets to deal, cope, grieve, rail (or rage) against the machine in their own way and in their own time. But, let’s be honest, even that gets old and trite.
You know what never gets old? The stories of people who wrestle with the demons inside and outside, seen and unseen, and are still unbroken never gets old.
“I will now make a confession: It was the sight of your maimed strength and masterfulness that begot Long John Silver … the idea of the maimed man, ruling and dreaded by the sound, was entirely taken from you.”
– quoted from a letter to William Ernest Henley, written by Robert Louis Stevenson
Born today in 1849, in Gloucester, England, William Ernest Henley was a poet, a literary critic, an editor, and poet whose work and life has inspired billions of people around the world, including presidents and prime ministers, royalty, soldiers, athletes, captains of industries (and of starships), and other writers. Even though he wrote and published thousands of poems, he is remembered for one: an originally untitled work that we now call “Invictus.” It is a poem that in many ways encapsulates the old fashioned understanding of stoicism.
In modern times, we often think of someone who stuffs down their pain and pretends like it doesn’t exists. We might even associate the philosophy with having a “stiff upper lip” – which is the characteristic of someone who “grins and bears it” (but is in too much pain to actually grin). We might even think of someone who is stoic as someone who is unhappy. However, to the ancient stoics like Epictetus, Seneca, and the Emperor Marcus Aurelius stoicism was about finding happiness within a given fate, which meant accepting ones fate and figuring out how to move forward. And, William Ernest Henley was nothing if not stoic.
Henley wrote a whole slew of poems, including “Invictus,” which are referred to as his hospital poems (and one of his published collections is called In Hospital), because he spent a great deal of time in the hospital. From the age of 12, he suffered from a kind of tuberculosis that affected his bones and resulted in partial amputation of his left leg by the age of 20. His boisterous attitude, massive size, cleverness, and ability to laugh (loudly) – not to mention his one leg – inspired Robert Louis Stevenson to create the character Long John Silver in Treasure Island. (Although she died at a young age, Henley’s daughter Wendy shared some of her dad’s spirit and inspired one of the main characters of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.)
Not long after the amputation of his left leg, doctors told Henley that they need to amputate his right leg. Henley fought against the idea, sought out other treatments, and eventually came under the care of the surgeon Joseph Lister, whose work with antiseptic surgery would save billions of lives (and inspire the creation of Listerine™). Dr. Lister, thorough a variety of treatments, was able to save Henley’s leg and enable Henley to live a relatively active life for almost thirty years. It was during one of those Lister-related hospital stays that Henley wrote “Invictus.”
“Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”
– quoted from “The Sermon on the Mount,” The Gospel According to Matthew (7:14)
“It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”
– quoted from “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley
Please join me for a “spirited” 65-minute virtual yoga practice on Zoom today (Sunday, August 23rd) at 2:30 PM. You can use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. PLEASE NOTE: Zoom 5.0 is in effect. If you have not upgraded, you will need to give yourself extra time to log into Zoom. You can always request an audio recording of this practice (or any practice) via email or a comment below.
Today’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. (The playlists have slightly different before/after practice content.)
If you are thinking about suicide, worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, you can call 1-800-273-TALK (8255). You can also call the 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.
Format updated 08/2023.
### I WILL LEAVE A LIGHT ON ###
Consider What’s Upstream August 22, 2020
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Art, Books, Buddhism, Changing Perspectives, Healing Stories, Life, Music, Philosophy, Suffering, Wisdom, Writing, Yoga.Tags: Annie Proulx, Anushka Fernandopulle, Ray Bradbury, samskaras, samskāras, vasanas, Vedanta, vedanā, Vedānta, yoga, yoga philosophy, Yoga Sutra, Yoga Sutras 2.33-2.34
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[My apologies to Anushka Fernandopulle, the teacher whose name I couldn’t remember last week, but whose dharma talk about getting on the right or wrong emotion/thought train has stuck with me for 6 years! You can find her article here and one of her talks here.]
“There must be something in books, things we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house, there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.”
– quoted from Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
“Almost every book I’ve read has left its mark.”
– Annie Proulx
Every writer’s work is directly or indirectly the result of everything they’ve experienced, done, seen, thought, and heard. Just like each point in our lives is the direct and indirect experience of everything we’ve experienced, done, seen, thought, and heard. Writing is, after all, just a reflection of life. Sometimes, though, it’s hard to distinguish the seams or pull apart the threads that make up the tapestry. But then you read work by writers like Ray Bradbury and Annie Proulx and it’s as if every word and every page is an instruction manual in how things are put together and how things come apart. It’s as if they are saying, “Here, here, pull here.”
Both born today, Bradbury (in 1920) and Proulx (in 1935) were and are writers whose works leave impressions, while simultaneously pointing out the impressions that are being left by the lives we lead. Their works, like Bradbury’s Farenheit 451 and “The Sound of Thunder” and Proulx’s The Shipping News and “Brokeback Mountain” illustrate the cause and effect continuum that in yoga philosophy is referred to as karma (act, word, and deed – as well as the result or effect of effort) and samskāra (the mental and energetic impression left by the act, word, and deed). In life, while we are living it, we don’t always see where things begin and end. Reading brings our awareness to the edges, the extremes of the continuum – as does a meditation practice.
“Quoyle: A coil of rope.
‘A Flemish flake is a spiral of coil of one layer only. It is made on deck, so that it may be walked on if necessary.’ THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS”
– quoted from The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
“‘Stay on the Path. Don’t go off it. I repeat. Don’t go off. For any reason! If you fall off, there’s a penalty.’”
– from “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury
If you could connect all the dots, follow all the threads, and re-trace every path of your life and the lives that intersect your life, you would have the story of how you got where you are, why you think what you think, and why you feel what you feel. There is a layer of that statement that might feel obvious and trite – or maybe even oversimplified. Go a little deeper, however, and you start to appreciate the layers and layers of vibrations that coil and stack to create this moment.
According to Eastern philosophies like Vedānta and Buddhism, we experience 108 types of sensations, emotions, or feelings. If you click here to see the math, you will notice that our attitudes towards what we perceive can be positive, negative, or neutral. Experience teaches us that when we have negative attitudes we are on a direct path towards suffering. (NOTE: As Patanjali points out in the sūtras, positive attitudes can also, eventually, lead to suffering, but that’s the scenic route.) The direct path to suffering manifests in 27 different ways (and, according to some commentary, there are 81 sub-categories). Those 27 manifestations break down as follows:
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3 ways afflicting thoughts and acts of violence are put into action (by ourselves, through others, or by tacit (silent) consent)
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3 mental conditions that inspire dysfunctional or violent acts (greed, anger, confusion)
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3 degrees of intensity (mild, moderate, or intense)
This week’s yoga sūtra is Patanjali’s way of giving us sign posts that indicate, as Anushka Fernandopulle might say, that we have gotten on the wrong train. By breaking down the way in which our dysfunctional or afflicted thoughts lead to dysfunctional or violent words and acts, Patanjali reinforces the importance of the yamas and niyamas, the ethical components of the practice, as a way to train the mind. Getting on the right train of thought begins by noticing our thoughts and how they become our words and deeds. Notice, also, that from Patanjali’s perspective one is not off the hook because the violent act is perpetrated by another person – neither are we off the hook if our only “crime” is not saying something when we see something.
Yoga Sūtra 2.33: vitarkabādhane pratipakşabhāvanam
— “When troublesome thoughts prevent the practice (of yamās and niyamās), cultivate the opposite thoughts.”
Yoga Sūtra 2.34: vitarkā himsādayah kŗtakāritānumoditā lobharkrodhamohapūrvakā mŗdumadhyādhimātrā duhkājñānānantaophalā iti pratispakşabhāvanam
– “These troublesome thoughts are put into action by ourselves (directly), by others (indirectly caused by ourselves), or by our approval of others (and their actions). All of these are preceded by, or performed through, anger, greed, or confusion and can be mild, moderate, or intense in nature. Cultivating opposite thoughts is a reminder that these troublesome thoughts lead to unending suffering.”
Annie Proulx named one of her main characters after a coil of rope and used quotes from The Ashley Book of Knots to indicate what inspired her to write a novel. Ray Bradbury explained that he was “putting one foot in front of the other” when he described the inspiration for one of his short stories. If you don’t know where to begin, there’s more confusion; but, follow the thread and suddenly things make more sense.
Please join me for a 90-minute virtual yoga practice on Zoom today (Saturday, August 22nd) at 12:00 PM. You can 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.
Today’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. (This is the “07112020 An Introduction” playlist.)
You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email me at myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.
Format (& correction to RB birth year) updated 08/22/2023
### FIRST STEP: NOTICE. ###
We Dedicate… We Consecrate (for August 9th) August 10, 2020
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Changing Perspectives, Healing Stories, Hope, Meditation, One Hoop, Pain, Peace, Philosophy, Suffering, Tragedy, Wisdom, Yoga.Tags: compassion, consecration, Death, dedication, devotion, Hiroshima, Holocaust, intention, Life, Nagasaki, offering, peace, Pearl Harbour, World War II
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I have heard there are at least 8 Japanese words that translate into the English word “dedication.” Some of those words also translate into English as devotion, offering, gift, and consecration. At the beginning of the practice, there are two dedications. The second one is most definitely an offering, a gift, and a consecration – especially on the anniversary of a tragic event. Even though I cancelled class today (Sunday) and Monday, I wanted to share this dedication/consecration from Saturday’s practice:
Take a moment to bring your awareness to your goal, your desire; your reason for being on the mat today. Be mindful here, because what you choose may be something that you’re using to identify yourself or something that someone else will use to identify you. So be very clear about how this goal or desire serves you: how it brings you peace, balance, maybe even joy.
And then bring your awareness to someone other than yourself. You know, we move through this practice deliberately and intentionally, maybe even prayerfully and energetically. And this weekend is a challenge for a lot of people. We’re kind of bookended by death here. There was, on Thursday [August 6th], and tomorrow [Sunday, August 9th], the anniversary of the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki; which were the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, but also led to the United States getting involved in World War II, which helped to end the Holocaust.
And even if we don’t go back that far in history, there’s a lot of people that we’ve lost this year. And so, take a moment to bring your awareness to those that are grieving and also those who are struggling – whether they are struggling with a physical illness or a mental illness, whether they are struggling against hate, injustice of any kind – take a moment to offer up your efforts as a loving and compassionate dedication so that we are the people who contribute to healing, who contribute to peace.
### Om Shanti Shanti Shanthi Om ###
Wonderfully, Fearlessly, Hopefully Impossible August 5, 2020
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in "Impossible" People, Books, Changing Perspectives, Faith, Gratitude, Healing Stories, Hope, Life, Loss, Mathematics, Men, Music, One Hoop, Pain, Philosophy, Religion, Suffering, Wisdom, Women, Yoga.Tags: Barack Obama, Duchess of Sussex, Hope, inspiration, John Venn, Life, Louis Armstrong, Meghan Markle, Percy Bysshe Shelley, truth, X Ambassadors
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[This is the post for Tuesday, August 4, 2020.]
“Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine?—”
– quoted from the poem “Love’s Philosophy” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Everything overlaps. We all share common threads. So, even without the Muhammad Ali quote (from 8/2), you could create a Venn diagram based on the first three “impossible” posts and figure out who I might highlight next as an “impossible person.” A Venn diagram is, of course, a set or logic model that shows the overlapping relations between finite collections. They are used in set theory, probability, logic, statistics, computer science, and other math modalities. These diagrams were developed by John Venn, who was born today (August 4th) in 1834. While he came from a long line of church evangelicals, including his namesake and grandfather, it was not impossible for him to choose a field of study outside of the church. That being said, two years after he obtained his mathematics degree from Gonville and Caius College (the fourth oldest and the wealthiest college at University of Cambridge), Venn became an Angelican priest and actually served in the church. It was after his first church appointment, while working as an intercollegiate lecturer at Cambridge, that Venn developed the diagrams.
If you create sets based on the biographies of Maria Mitchell and Rabbi Regina Jonas, you might think that to make my “impossible list” someone would have to be a woman who was the first woman to do something in a profession normally associated with men. You might even think that that someone had to be virtually unknown to the masses. But, then you have to add James Baldwin into the mix. Now, with the third set, you can broaden the definition to include any human who does something outside of society’s expectations – especially, if their achievements make it possible for others to follow in their footsteps and/or do something previously viewed as impossible.
I have heard that it is impossible to make a Venn diagram out of four circles – and I’ll admit that I probably wouldn’t do a very good job of explaining (mathematically) why it is considered impossible – but you can use ellipses. So, when you add in the fact that John Venn was a suffragist who also encouraged woman to run for office, you might think he makes my list. But, he doesn’t. Neither does Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was born today in 1792. Instead, today’s “impossible people” are a musician, a president, and a duchess.
“Some of you young folks been sayin’ to me, ‘Eh, Pops, what do you mean, what a wonderful world? How ’bout all them wars all over the place? You call them wonderful? And how ’bout hunger and pollution? That ain’t so wonderful, either.’ But how ’bout listenin’ to old Pops for a minute? Seems to me it ain’t the world that’s so bad but what we’re doing to it, and all I’m saying is: see what a wonderful world it would be if only we’d give it a chance. Love, baby – love. That’s the secret. Yeeeaaahhh. If lots more of us loved each other, we’d solve lots more problems.”
– Louis Armstrong (introducing “What a Wonderful World” in a 1970 recording)
The wonderful Louis Armstrong was born today (August 4th) in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1901. Known as “Satchmo,” “Satch,” “Pops,” “Dipper,” and “Louie,” he came by his most famous nickname because people said the way he puffed out his cheeks when he played the trumpet made him look like he had a mouth full of coins. Some biographers even say that, as a child, he played for pennies and would actually use his mouth as his satchel. For five decades he carved a place for himself in the world as a trumpeter, a composer, a singer, and an actor. His career also spanned different genres of jazz and in 2017 he was inducted into the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. Some might say that it should have been impossible for him to play the way he played given the way he breathed into his mouth. Others might think that, as a talented African-American entertainer, there was nothing impossible about his success. Yet, when you look at the history of music in America, you find that there was a time (cough, cough) when African-American music often crossed over into the popular culture – but, it did so without the African-American musicians. Louis Armstrong established himself without publicizing (or politicizing) his race and, therefore, his music entered a room before his skin color.
Louis Armstrong wore a Star of David pendant for most of his life, in honor of the Jewish family that “adopted” him as a child and bought him his first trumpet. He wrote in his memoir about seeing his “adopted family” experiencing discrimination and said that the way they lived taught him how to live with determination. Yet, his determination to live and be judged by his art rather than his skin color, led him to receive a lot of criticism from other prominent Black entertainers and activist. Part of the criticism stemmed from the fact that he played for segregated audiences and wouldn’t use his social power and echelon to press for civil rights. However, he did criticize President Dwight D. Eisenhower for his lack of response to the Little Rock desegregation crisis – even going so far as to cancel a State Department sponsored tour to the Soviet Union and state that he would not represent a government that mistreated his people.
“While I could say Pennsylvania and Ohio, and continue this proverbial two-step, I instead give them what they’re after: ‘My dad is Caucasian and my mom is African American. I’m half black and half white.’ To describe something as being black and white means it is clearly defined. Yet when your ethnicity is black and white, the dichotomy is not that clear. In fact, it creates a grey area. Being biracial paints a blurred line that is equal parts staggering and illuminating. When I was asked by ELLE to share my story, I’ll be honest, I was scared. It’s easy to talk about which make-up I prefer, my favourite scene I’ve filmed, the rigmarole of ‘a day in the life’ and how much green juice I consume before a requisite Pilates class. And while I have dipped my toes into this on thetig.com, sharing small vignettes of my experiences as a biracial woman, today I am choosing to be braver, to go a bit deeper, and to share a much larger picture of that with you.”
– quoted from “Meghan Markle: I’m More Than An ‘Other’” by Meghan Markle (published in Elle Magazine, July 2015)
1957 may have been when the FBI started a file on Louis Armstrong. So, you can definitely add that – FBI files – to the Venn diagram of impossible people; because the FBI definitely has files on President Barack Obama (born today in 1961, in Honolulu, Hawai’i) and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (née Markle) (born today in 1981, in Los Angeles, California). President Obama served two terms as the 44th President of the United States and was the first African-American president (as well as the first openly biracial president). The Duchess of Sussex is not only a “commoner,” she is a biracial American woman who not only married into the British Royal family, she also did the doubly impossible by stepping away from the royal life. Both President Obama and the Duchess of Sussex worked as philanthropists before and after “holding” their very public offices. They have been known to feed the hungry and inspire people to hope.
“Hope is not blind optimism. It’s not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It’s not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it. Hope is the belief that destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by the men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.”
– quoted from (then Senator) Barack Obama’s address after the Iowa Caucus speech (January 3, 2008)
Errata (2025): The original post duplicate lines in the poem “Love’s Philosophy”.
### F Dm G C G ###
Impossible x3 August 3, 2020
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in "Impossible" People, Changing Perspectives, Faith, Healing Stories, Hope, Life, Loss, Men, Movies, Mysticism, Pain, Philosophy, Religion, Suffering, Tragedy, Wisdom, Women, Writing, Yoga.Tags: Dr. Etka Liebowitz, Dr. Viktor Frankl, Havdalah, Holocaust, In the Footsteps of Regina Jonas, Rabbi Gesa Ederberg, Rabbi Max Dienemann, Rabbi Regina Jonas, yoga
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“Here there is a role reversal of what was related in bSotah – instead of the woman [Queen Salome Alexandra] being “nameless” now she is named and cunningly tries to get around the rabbinic prohibition, while the male character, her son, is unnamed and plays no role in the matter in dispute.”
– commentary on bShabbat (16b – 14b) in doctoral thesis entitled “Queen Alexandra: The Anamoly of a Sovereign Jewish Queen in the Second Temple Period” by Etka Liebowitz, PhD
There was a time when being a female (non-nun) member of the clergy would have been considered impossible. But, imagine for a moment, someone who was not only the first woman to be ordained in their religion, but to receive the highest orders during a time when it was hard to even be a male member of your religion. Allow me to introduce you to (or re-acquaint you with) Rabbi Regina Jonas ([‘re-ghee-na yo-nas]). Born today in 1902, Rabbi Jonas was not only the first woman to be ordained as a rabbi; she was ordained in Berlin in 1935. In other words, she became the first woman to be named as a Jewish teacher during the height of Nazi Germany.
Throughout history, you can find plenty of women who fulfilled rabbinical duties. They did not, however, hold the title. These women, like Beruryah (Rebbetzin Meir), Yalta, the Hasmonean queen Salome Alexandra (also known as Alexandra of Jerusalem), and the daughters and granddaughters of the great Talmud scholar Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzachaki), are found in the Talmud and would have been studied by Rabbi Jonas and other women who studied at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin, the Jūdisch-Theologisches Seminar in Breslau, and other theology schools that admitted women. Unlike her female peers, however, Rabbi Jonas didn’t just want the academic teacher’s degree; she wanted the title and the responsibilities. And this desire was something that she felt and expressed from a very young age.
“If I am to confess what drove me, as a woman, to become a rabbi, two things come to mind. My belief in God’s calling and my love of my fellow man. God has bestowed on each one of us special skills and vocations without stopping to ask about our gender. This means each one of us, whether man or woman, has a duty to create and work in accordance with those God-given skills.”
– quoted from the doctoral thesis entitled “May a woman hold rabbinic office?” by Rabbi Regina Jonas
Rabbi Regina Jonas had a passion for Jewish history, the Bible, and the Hebrew language; a passion that was remembered even by her high school friends and supported by Orthodox rabbis like Isidor Bleichrode, Delix Singerman, and Max Weyl (who officiated at the synagogue the Jonas family attended). When she decided to pursue her degree and also the title, Rabbi Jonas wrote and submitted a final theses, which was a requirement for ordination. Her final theses topic, which was based on Biblical, Talmudic, and rabbinical sources, was near and dear to her heart: “May a woman hold rabbinic office?”
While halakhic literature did not specifically with ordination, she combined halakhic theory related to women’s issues with a modern attitude about women’s roles. She did not, however, use a Reform movement argument. Instead, Rabbi Jonas wanted to establish gender equality within the (and as a) continuity of tradition – and, in doing so, established herself as independent of both the reform movement and Orthodoxy. She also included in her argument very specific gender qualities and expectations centered around Zeni’ut (“Modesty”), which she viewed as being essential to someone’s role as a rabbi. Interestingly, some of her thesis is very much consistent with the ideas Hannah Crocker expressed in 1818.
Rabbi Jonas concluded that yes, a woman could be a rabbi according to halachic sources. She went even further by saying that female rabbis were a “cultural necessity, in part because of so-called female qualities like compassion, interpersonal skills, and psychological intuition. Her final thesis, which was supervised by Eduard Baneth, renowned professor of Talmud at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin, was submitted in June 1930. Unfortunately, Rabbi Baneth died soon after her submission and his successor was not willing to ordain women. Ironically, a leader in the Reform movement, Rabbi Leo Baeck, also rejected her submission.
“Almost nothing halakhically but prejudice and lack of familiarity stand against women holding rabbinic office.”
– quoted from the doctoral thesis entitled “May a woman hold rabbinic office?” by Rabbi Regina Jonas
Despite the fact that her professors were not willing to ordain her, she received a “good” grade for her thesis and graduated as a religious teacher. She then began teaching religion at several girls’ schools in Berlin. At this same time, however, anti-Semitism created an increased need for Jewish teachers and religious education. Rabbi Max Dienemann, executive director of Liberaler Rabbinerveband (Conference of Liberal Rabbis) agreed to ordain Rabbi Jonas on behalf of the conference and, within two years, she began to serve the official community as “pastoral-rabbinic counselor.” She particularly ministered to those in the Jewish Hospital, those who were considering emigrating, and people economically affected by “Kristallnacht.” As more and more rabbis were imprisoned by the Nazis or fled the persecution, she began to lecture to various groups, preach in liberal synagogues and lead some Havdalah (“weekday”) services in the Neue Synagogue, the flagship of German Jewry. At one point, during the winter of 1940 – 1941, the Germany Jewry organization established by the Nazis actually sent her to cities that no longer had rabbis. Even when she was forced to work in a factory, she continued her ministry.
On November 2, 1942, Rabbi Jonas was compelled to fill out a declaration form where she listed her property, including all of her books. Two days later, all of her property was confiscated by the Nazis. The next day, she and her mother were arrested. They were deported November 6th, to Theresienstadt concentration camp, where she continued to preach and counsel. The psychoanalyst Viktor Frankl asked her to help him with crisis intervention, including meeting and assessing new arrivals and helping to prevent suicide attempts. On October 12, 1944, at the age of 42, Rabbi Jonas and her mother were deported to Auschwitz, where they were killed.
“Since I saw that her heart is with God and Israel, and that she dedicates her soul to her goal, and that she fears God, and that she passed the examination in matters of religious law, I herewith certify that she is qualified to answer questions of religious law and entitled to hold the rabbinic office. And may God protect her and guide her on all her ways.”
– quoted from the Diploma of Ordination for Rabbi Regina Jonas (approved by Rabbi Max Dienemann)
None of the male religious leaders who survived the Holocaust spoke of Rabbi Regina Jonas. However, a copy of her thesis, her teaching certificate, her rabbinical diploma, personal documents, and two photos have been preserved at the Centrum Judaicum in Berlin. Included in those personal documents were letters of gratitude from refugees she had counseled (and whose families she continued to counsel in Germany). There is also a list of 24 sermons and lectures she delivered, along with notes for at least one full sermon. In the Footsteps of Regina Jonas is a documentary about her life and legacy, which features rabbis like Gesa Ederberg, who celebrated the 75th anniversary of Rabbi Jonas’s ordination with a Havdalah service – the very type of weekday service Rabbi Jonas led in Berlin.
“God has placed abilities and callings in our hearts without regard to gender. If you look at things this way, one takes woman and man for what they are: human beings.”
– quoted from a 1938 news article by Rabbi Regina Jonas
I am cancelling classes on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, but will post as I am able. Thank you to everyone who is keeping my family in your hearts and minds.
### SHALOM שָׁלוֹם ###
A Brother’s Love August 2, 2020
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in "Impossible" People, Art, Books, Changing Perspectives, Confessions, Healing Stories, James Baldwin, Life, Loss, Love, Maya Angelou, Men, Pain, Poetry, Suffering, Super Heroes, Writing, Yoga.Tags: Aimee Lehto, America, being present, Boyd Croyner, Civil Rights, inspiration, James Baldwin, Justin Timberlake, Maria Mitchell, Maya Angelou, Muhammad Ali, PRIDE, truth, yoga
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“Impossible is just a word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
– quoted from a 2004 Adidas ad campaign written by Aimee Lehto (with final tag line credited to Boyd Croyner), often attributed to Muhammad Ali
Yesterday I referred to Maria Mitchell as an impossible woman. Back in 2016, thanks to Justin Timberlake quoting Muhammad Ali to a bunch of teens, I started thinking about what it meant to be an impossible person and spent the first week in August highlighting impossible people. Born today in Harlem, New York, in 1924, the author James Baldwin is – by his own words – my second impossible person.
“Given the conditions in this country to be a black writer was impossible. When I was young, people thought you were not so much wicked as sick, they gave up on you. My father didn’t think it was possible—he thought I’d get killed, get murdered. He said I was contesting the white man’s definitions, which was quite right.”
– James Baldwin, quoted from the interview “James Baldwin, The Art of Fiction No. 78” by Jordan Elgrably (printed in The Paris Review, Issue 91, Spring 1984)
Mr. Baldwin’s life (and career) were, in so many ways, shaped by a combination of opinions. There were the opinions of his stepfather David Baldwin (who he referred to as his father) about life in general plus his stepfather’s opinion of how the world would view him, how the world actually viewed him, and his own ideas about what was possible – or, what was necessary. He spent the ages of 14 – 17 following his father’s footsteps into the ministry and then, when his father died, he took a giant leap. He said, “Those were three years [preaching] which probably turned me to writing.”
Leaping into writing was not Mr. Baldwin’s only leap. He leapt across the pond to Paris, France, twice, even as his writing challenged Western society’s conceptions about race, class, gender, and sexuality. His essays, novels, and plays include Giovanni’s Room, Notes of a Native Son, The Fire Next Time, If Beale Street Could Talk (which was recently made into a movie) and the unfinished manuscript Remember This House (which was adapted to create the 2016 Academy Award-nominated documentary I Am Not Your Negro). Mr. Baldwin first went to Paris with $40 and not a lick of French. He was 24 years old, coming to grips with his sexuality, and escaping what he viewed – what he had witnessed – was a death sentence at the hands of American society.
“Not so metaphorically. Looking for a place to live. Looking for a job. You begin to doubt your judgment, you begin to doubt everything. You become imprecise. And that’s when you’re beginning to go under. You’ve been beaten, and it’s been deliberate. The whole society has decided to make you nothing. And they don’t even know they’re doing it.”
– James Baldwin, quoted from the interview “James Baldwin, The Art of Fiction No. 78” by Jordan Elgrably (printed in The Paris Review, Issue 91, Spring 1984)
From Paris, he was able to not only gain perspective about his experiences of being Black in America (and of being Black and Gay in America), but also to offer those experience back to the United States – in the form of a literary mirror. In words that very much echo Miss Maria Mitchell’s words, he said wanted to see himself, and be seen as, more than “merely a Negro; or, merely a Negro writer.”
In his late 30’s/early 40’s, Mr. Baldwin briefly returned to the United States and physically participated in the Civil Rights Movement and Gay Liberation Movement that he had (from Paris) helped to literally inspire. He became friends with Langston Hughes, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Lorraine Hansberry, Nikki Giovanni, and Nina Simone (who he and Mr. Hughes convinced to become active in the Civil Rights Movement). He worked with Drs. Kenneth and Mamie Clark, as well as Lena Horne and Miss Hansberry, to discuss the importance of civil rights legislation with President John F. Kennedy.
His friendships, however, were not only with Black artists and activists. He worked with his childhood friend Richard Avedon, marched with Marlon Brando and Charlton Heston, collaborated with Margaret Mead and Sol Stein, and also knew Rip Torn, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Dorothea Tanning. In fact, to read a biography or autobiography of James Baldwin is to read a Who’s Who of activism and artistry in the 20th century. But, you don’t have to settle for a reading a measly biography. If you can get your hands on the 1,884 pages of documents compiled by the FBI, you would be in for quite a treat.
Yes, you read that correctly. For a little over a decade, the FBI collected nearly two thousand pages worth of documents on a man that many Americans may not realize helped convince President Kennedy to send federal troops to defend the civil rights activists marching from Selma to Montgomery. True, it’s not the well-over 17,000 pages they compiled on Martin Luther King (not including the wire-tap documents). Here, however, is some perspective: the FBI only collected 276 pages on authors like Richard Wright (Native Son) and 110 pages on authors like Truman Capote (In Cold Blood) and Henry Miller (Tropic of Cancer). Additionally, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover showed a particular interest in Mr. Baldwin and actually worked with agents to figure out ways they could ban Mr. Baldwin’s 1962 novel Another Country – despite the fact that the report of the Justice Department’s General Crimes Section “concluded that the book contains literary merit and may be of value to students of psychology and social behavior.”
“The occurrence of an event is not the same thing as knowing what it is that one has lived through. Most people had not lived — nor could it, for that matter, be said that they had died– through any of their terrible events. They had simply been stunned by the hammer. They passed their lives thereafter in a kind of limbo of denied and unexamined pain. The great question that faced him this morning was whether or not had had ever, really, been present at his life.”
– quoted from Another Country by James Baldwin
“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”
– quoted from The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
When so many of his friends, who were also the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, were killed, Mr. Baldwin made his second leap back to Paris. Again, it was a leap made out of fear and the basic desire to survive. His grief, anger, horror, and disappointment are all on full display in later works like If Beale Street Could Talk, Just Above My Head, and the 1985 non-fiction book Evidence of Things Not Seen (about the Atlanta child murders). Yet, until his dying day he wrote about love and hope – even using a portion of the Epistle to the Hebrews, from the Christian New Testament, as the title of his book about the Atlanta child murders.
Another place where you can see Mr. Baldwin’s devotion to love, life, and humanity is in the words of his friends; people, who actually knew him, were inspired by him, and some of whom called him Jim or Jimmy. When he died in 1987, Maya Angelou wrote a tribute for The New York Times, entitled “James Baldwin: His Voice Remembered; Life In His Language.” In addition to describing how Mr. Baldwin introduced her to his family as his mother’s newest daughter, she explained that he “opened the [unusual] door” and encouraged her to tell her story.
“Well, the season was always Christmas with you there and, like one aspect of that scenario, you did not neglect to bring at least three gifts. You gave me a language to dwell in, a gift so perfect it seems my own invention….
The second gift was your courage, which you let us share: the courage of one who would go as a stranger in the village and transform the distances between people into intimacy with the whole world; courage to understand that experience in ways that made it a personal revelation for each of us…. Yours was the courage to live life in and from its belly as well as beyond its edges, to see and say what was, to recognize and identify evil, but never fear or stand in awe of it….
The third gift was hard to fathom and even harder to accept. It was your tenderness – a tenderness so delicate that I thought it could not last, but last it did and envelop me it did. In the midst of anger it tapped me lightly like the child in Tish’s womb…. Yours was a tenderness, of vulnerability, that asked everything, expected everything and, like the world’s own Merlin, provided us with the ways and means to deliver. I suppose that was why I was always a bit better behaved around you, smarter, more capable, wanting to be worth the love you lavished, and wanting to be steady enough to bear while it broke your heart, wanting to be generous enough to join your smile with one of my own, and reckless enough to jump on in that laugh you laughed. Because our joy and our laughter were not only all right, they were necessary.”
– quoted from “James Baldwin: His Voice Remembered; Life In His Language” by Maya Angelou (printed in The New York Times Book Review December 20, 1987)
I have cancelled class today and tomorrow night, but encourage you to practice. Practice with those aforementioned gifts and especially the second and third gifts – with courage and tenderness that has you lifting the corners of your mouth up to your ears and laughing out loud.
In the past, I have used a variation of my “Langston Hughes” playlist, which features Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker, and a whole lot of Bach. You are welcome to use my “Selma to Montgomery” playlist, which is available on YouTube and Spotify. However, if you have time, I would encourage you to grab some Nina Simone, Lena Horne, Harry Belafonte (“Merci Bon Dieu” comes to mind, of course), Sammy Davis, Jr., and Joan Baez – and then mix in some of the aforementioned jazz.
“I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
“Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word love here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being or a state of grace – not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth….Love is a growing up.”
– James Baldwin
2022 Errata: This post has been updated to correctly credit the Adidas ad associated with Muhammad Ali and to clarify that all references to James Baldwin’s “father” and “stepfather” refer to David Baldwin. Additionally, some syntax has been revised and music links have been update.
A Joyful Practice 