The Mathematical Beauty of Movers & Shakers, relatively speaking (mostly the music) March 14, 2023

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in 19-Day Fast, Baha'i, Changing Perspectives, Lent, Mathematics, Music, One Hoop, Religion, Yoga.
Tags: Albert Einstein, Arthur O’Shaughnessy, Pi Day, Scott Hemphill, Season for Nonviolence, Season of Non-violence
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Many blessings to all, and especially to those observing Lent, Great Lent, and the Baháʼí 19-Day Fast during this “Season for Non-violence” and all other seasons!

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510

**– π (pi) to 50 digits*, computed by Scott Hemphill**

Please join me today (Tuesday, March 14^th) at 12:00 PM or 7:15 PM for a yoga practice on Zoom. You can use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. 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.

Tuesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “03.14159 For The Movers & Shakers”]

*NOTE: Some devices may cut off some digits.

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.)

### O ###

Liminal & Rare Days (the “missing” Tuesday post) March 1, 2023

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in 19-Day Fast, Baha'i, Books, Changing Perspectives, Depression, Faith, Healing Stories, Health, Hope, Lent, Life, Love, Mathematics, Men, Music, Mysticism, One Hoop, Pain, Passover, Peace, Ramadan, Religion, Science, Suffering, Tragedy, Wisdom, Women, Yoga, Yom Kippur.
Tags: #shareyourcolours, Baha'i, Baháʼí, Bruce H. Kramer, Calendars, Cathy Wurzer, Dalia Fein, Edward Reingold, Gregorian calendar, Jessica Fein, Joan Borysenko, Julian calendar, kriya yoga, Nachum Dershowitz, niyamas, Rare Disease Day
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Many blessings to all, and especially to those observing Lent, Great Lent, Ayyám-i-Há, and/or Rare Disease Day during this “Season for Non-violence” and all other seasons!

If the colors are too much, click here for a monochromatic copy of this post.

This is the “missing” post for Tuesday, February 28^th. Some religious information was posted in 2021 and will be included in the Wednesday post. 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.

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.)

“Through the years I’ve written and taught extensively about ‘liminal time,’ that pregnant pause between what is no longer and what is not yet. Although liminal time is a known stage in all rites of passage, most people have never heard of it. Whether we’re talking about a pandemic, a war, a refugee crisis, or even a man or womanhood ritual, a graduation, or a new job far away from family and friends, the stages (though not the intensity) of a rite of passage are the same.”

– quoted from “Running the Gauntlet of the Unknown” by Joan Borysenko, PhD (posted at joanborysenko.com, April 1, 2020)

Technically speaking, every day is a “liminal day” – a transitional or threshold day, a doorway in between moments; like the pauses in between the inhale and the exhale. However, Dr. Joan Borysenko talks about “liminal time” in a very specific context, one that fits into the paradigm of The Hero’s Journey. It is a time of ritual; the threshold between the known and the unknown; and – maybe most importantly – it is a moment time-stamped by grief, sandwiched between separation and return. All of this is why I consider the days of this week, and many of the days in the coming weeks, to be “liminal days.”

But this is not just a Myra-thing. These days are specifically designated by various traditions as in-between times. Not “regular” or “ordinary” days, but days when there is a heightened awareness of what’s to come and the need to be ready for what’s to come. On the Baháʼí Faith calendar, February 26^th – March 1^st are literally in-between days: they are intercalary days between the penultimate month of the year and the final month (which is the month of the 19-Day Fast).

For Those Who Are Not Familiar: The Baháʼí Faith is a monotheistic faith that believes in the oneness of God and religion, as well as the oneness and nobility of humanity. The community believes that, historically, there has been a “progressive revelation of religious truth” which has been shared with the world through the voices of the prophets or Divine Messengers, known as “Manifestations of God” (which include “Braham, Krishna, Zoroaster, Moses, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Muhammad, and, in more recent times, the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh”). People within the faith are taught to honor the value of different religious and philosophical traditions as well as the value of education, especially in science (which is viewed by some faiths as being contrary to religion). The Baháʼí calendar consists of 19 months, each with 19 days, and each month (and day) is named after an attribute of God. To maintain the integrity of the calendar, there are 4 – 5 intercalary days just before the final month.

While the customs and beliefs are different within these different traditions, people all over the world are actually preparing for some of the holiest times of their year: Christians observe Lent and Great Lent to get ready for Easter; the Baháʼí community observes the 19-Day Fast as they prepare for a new year – and these Springtime rituals contain very similar elements to each other and to Passover and Yom Kippur (in the Jewish tradition) and to the holy month of Ramaḍān (in the Muslim tradition). All of these rituals contain elements of the Yoga Philosophy’s niyamās (internal “observations”). They also fall under the rubric that Patanjali called kriyā yoga (“union in action”), which is a combination of the final three: tapas (“heat, discipline, austerity” and the practices that cultivate them), svādhyāya (“self-study”), and īśvarapraņidhāna (“trustful surrender to higher reality”). They involve fasting, prayers, reflection, self-study undertaken within a sacred context, and letting something go.

That last part is where the grief kicks in – because, whether you give something up for the Lenten season or you change your daily routine to accommodate a holy observation, the mind-body will experience some level of loss with some manifestation of grief. It will not be the same intensity of loss we experience when we lose a job or when we lose a loved one. Neither will it be the same level of grief.

However, no matter the intensity of the loss and/or grief, we have to figure out a way to move forward, into a new season of life – and while each person has an individual experience, they have it in community.

“That’s the thing about a rare disease. You fight for a diagnosis for years ― on average, according to Global Genes, it takes seeing 7.3 physicians and trying for 4.8 years before getting an accurate rare disease diagnosis ― and then, even once you know, you must continue being a detective as you try to piece together the clues as to how the illness might progress. You become an expert in a disease you wish you’d never heard of.

As a parent, you also quickly morph into a nurse, therapist, chief operating officer, educational advocate, cheerleader and warrior. You feel alone, because by definition, your child’s diagnosis is exceptional. And yet, 1 in 10 Americans and 300 million people globally are living with a rare disease.

You find community not just in other people who share the specific diagnosis your family is facing, but in those struggling with any rare diagnosis. It doesn’t matter what the exact symptoms or disease trajectory are. What matters is the shared understanding that your dreams as a parent have forever shifted.”

**– quoted from the (February 28, 2022*) Huffington Post article entitled “My Daughter’s Rare Disease Was A Mystery For Years. Here’s How We Finally Got A Diagnosis.” by Jessica Fein**

In addition to being (what I would consider) a “liminal day,” February 28^th can also be a “rare” day. Typically, when we think of a “rare” day on the Gregorian and Julian calendars, we think of February 29^th, Leap Day, which is rare because it only happens every four years.** Leap day is the perfect day for Rare Disease Day, which is observed on February 28^th during non-leap years like 2023. Observations on this alternate date, coincide with the anniversary of the United States House of Representatives passing the Orphan Drug Act of 1983 on February 28, 1982. The act went into effect on January 4, 1983, and it facilitated the development of “orphan drugs” (i.e., drugs for rare diseases and disorders). Japan and the European Union enacted similar acts in 1993 and 2000, respectively. Prior to the act being passed in the U. S., less than 40 drugs had been approved as treatments for rare diseases and disorders (in the whole history of the United States). In the three decades after the act went into affect, almost ten times as many drugs had been approved.

Why the difference? Why did it take an act of Congress?

Unfortunately for those who face life-threatening and life-changing diseases, research is primarily driven by pharmaceutical companies, which are mostly driven by profits – and there’s just not a lot of profit in rare diseases.

“That referral led us to the geneticist, who ended up delivering the information that changed our lives.

‘Dalia tested positive for a genetic mutation that’s associated with myoclonic epilepsy with ragged red fibers, or MERRF syndrome ― an extremely rare form of mitochondrial disease,’ the doctor said.”

**– quoted from the (February 28, 2022*) Huffington Post article entitled “My Daughter’s Rare Disease Was A Mystery For Years. Here’s How We Finally Got A Diagnosis.” by Jessica Fein**

Approximately 300 million people are living with a rare disease. That doesn’t sound very rare when you add in their family, friends, and caregivers. But, here’s the thing: those 300 million people are not living with the same disease. They are not even living with the same two or three diseases. In the medical community, a “rare disease” is typically defined as a disease that affects fewer than 1 in 2,000 people. That means it can affect one or two people, or several hundred around the world. In the United States, Huntington’s disease; myoclonus; Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) – also known as motor neuron disease (MND); Tourette syndrome; muscular dystrophy; Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS); Prader-Willi syndrome; and Usher syndrome are all considered rare diseases or rare disorders. Sickle cell anemia is also considered a rare disease; even though it affects approximately 100,000 people in the United States. Autosomal systemic lupus erythematosus, which is characterized by the presence of (the more common) systemic lupus erythematosus symptoms in two or more members of a single family, is also considered a rare disease.

Approximately 72 – 80% of rare diseases are known to be genetic. About 70% begin in childhood. Tragically, thirty percent of children diagnosis with a rare disease will not reach age 5. While some people have diseases that are degenerative, some people “outgrow” their disease. Another challenge, for people suffering from rare diseases and disorders, is that sometimes people can be suffering with “invisible” ailments – meaning that others perceive them as healthy. All of these differences in symptoms and situations makes it really hard to receive diagnosis and treatment – especially since healthcare practitioners (particularly here in the West) are taught to “look for horses, not zebras.” Unfortunately, rare diseases are really colorful zebras. They require patients and their family and friends to take on all the roles normally distributed between professionals.

Recently, another couple of layers have been added to the already complicated story of rare diseases. For a variety of really disturbing reasons – that I want to believe come from a lack of awareness and knowledge – people have started co-opting orphan drugs and using them for non-life threatening issues. In some cases, they are being used for purely cosmetic purposes without any regard for the people whose lives actually depend on the medication. (NOTE: This is also happening with treatments for “common diseases,” with equally devastating effects; however, those common diseases get more publicity, because they make up a larger share of the market.) On the flip side, COVID seems to have created a situation where some rare diseases are becoming more common – which means, as twisted as sounds, that some people feeling more hopefully, because more research and development is being done with regard to their ailment.

Again, it all comes down to awareness, education, perspective, compassion, and empathy. Which is the whole point of Rare Disease Day.

Established in 2008, by the European Organization for Rare Diseases, Rare Disease Day is a day dedicated to “raising awareness and generating change for the 300 million people worldwide living with a rare disease, their families and [caregivers].” The 2023 theme is “Share Your Colours” – which is an invitation to share your story. Whether you have a rare disease or whether you love and/or care for someone with a rare disease, sharing your story can be a way to raise awareness, stop the ignorance, and end stigma.

If you are not dealing with a rare disease, be open to hearing other people’s stories. As rare as they are, I have known someone dealing with almost all of the rare diseases and disorders that I used as examples (above). Or, I should say, I’ve known that I knew them, because they shared their stories. Listening, as Bruce Kramer pointed out, opens us “… a little bit more.”

“To be open is to embrace your own great big messy humanity, to cry in sadness but not despair, to recognize presence in the emptiness of the bitter moment of truth, to be afraid but not fearful. Dis ease presents the choice of being open or closed, and opening to her lessons, her gifts, her challenges, is not easy. But dis ease clarifies vision, bringing sight to the blindness of what you thought you knew about living, light to the darkness of cynicism that life’s grief piled upon itself can foster. I know ALS is a horror, yet when fully embraced, it has taught me, it has revealed to me pure unsullied, uncontaminated, unbelievable love.

In my heart of hearts, I know that love never dies.”

– quoted from “25. Faith, Part IV: What’s Love Got To Do with It?” in We Know How This Ends: Living while Dying by Bruce H. Kramer with Cathy Wurzer

Tuesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “06142020 World Blood Donor Day”]

NOTE: Not all rare diseases are blood-based, but the playlist contains a blood-borne subliminal message.

*NOTE: A follow-up article by Jessica Fein was also published by Huffington Post today, February 28, 2023.

**NOTE: According to the Julian calendar, Leap Year is every four years. On the Gregorian calendar, which is used by most people who will come across this post, it’s not that simple.

“A year is a leap year if it is divisible by 4 and is not a century year (multiple of 100) or if it is divisible by 400. For example, 1900 is not a leap year; 2000 is.”

– quoted from “2 – The Gregorian Calendar, 2.1: Structure” in Calendrical Calculations by Nachum Dershowitz, Edward Reingold

### SHARE YOUR COLOURS ###

No Zoom practices today, but, FTWMI: Searching…. January 18, 2023

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in 9-Day Challenge, Art, Books, Healing Stories, Life, Love, Mathematics, Meditation, Movies, Music, One Hoop, Philosophy, Poetry, Vairagya, Wisdom, Writing, Yoga.
Tags: A. A. Milne, Christopher Robin Milne, E. H. Shephard, H. G. Wells, John Donovan, Maurice Sendak, Robert Cormier, Zena Sutherland
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Due to technical issues, I am cancelling today’s classes. If you are on the Wednesday list, I will send you previously recorded practices.

For Those Who Missed It: The following was originally posted in 2022. You can request an audio recording of the practice via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email me at 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.)

“As soon as Rabbit was out of sight, Pooh remembered that he had forgotten to ask who Small was, and whether he was the sort of friend-and-relation who settled on one’s nose, or the sort who got trodden on by mistake, and as it was Too Late Now, he thought he would begin the Hunt by looking for Piglet, and asking him what they were looking for before he looked for it.”

*

– quoted from “Chapter Three, In Which – A Search is Organdized, and Piglet Nearly Meets the Heffalump Again” in The House at Pooh Corner by Alan Alexander Milne, with decorations by Ernest Howard Shephard

Similar to The House at Pooh Corner (published in 1928), this post begins with an end note; but, let’s not call it that. Let’s call it a Side Note. See, when I’ve used quotes in class in the past, I don’t always cite chapter and verse. That’s not the point of the practice. However, now that I’m blogging more, recording classes, and posting a video or two, I feel that due diligence is required. Ergo, I make an effort to search for precise sources. It takes some time and effort, but the internet makes things easier than when I was doing such research in school and it’s super nice when I actually have hard copies (and/or paperback or electronic copies) of the source material. However, things can get complicated when something takes on a life of it’s own – outside of its original incarnation. This is even more true when that something is beloved… and the Walt Disney Company is involved.

Because sometimes people are quoting Disney productions, but citing the author.

“’It means just going along, listening to all the things that you can’t hear and not bothering.’”

*

– Christopher Robin defining “Doing Nothing” to Winnie the Pooh in “Chapter Ten, In Which – Christopher Robin and Pooh Come to an Enchanted Place, and We Leave Them There” of The House at Pooh Corner by Alan Alexander Milne, with decorations by Ernest Howard Shephard

Many books begin with a prologue or an introduction, however, as I already mentioned The House at Pooh is different from most books. It begins with a “Contradiction,” which the author explained was the opposite of an “Introduction.” Some of us might think of it as an epilogue, which it was… and also wasn’t, because it was coming at the beginning of the book rather than at the end. But, it was the end of the series – that was never intended to be a series. Of course, the author, A. A. Milne, understood the differences and the nuances of the words; that’s why he picked the one’s he picked.

Born Alan Alexander Milne on January 18, 1882, the famous children’s book author was the youngest of three boys that grew up in a household dedicated to learning. His father, John Vine Milne, ran Henley House School, a private school for boys that famously boasted teachers like H. G. Wells (who taught science there for one year). A. A. Milne reportedly taught himself to read at age two; attended Westminster School in London and Trinity College in Cambridge. It was at the latter that he edited and wrote (with his brother Kenneth) for The Granta, the student magazine now known simply as Granta. It was also at Trinity that he decided to pursue writing as a career even though he was graduating with a degree in mathematics. He started working for the humor magazine Punch not long after he graduated.

Then World War I broke out and – even though Mr. Milne didn’t believe in war – he served as an officer for at least five years, first as a signaling operator and then (after recuperating from an illness that sent him home) as a writer of military propaganda. He finished his service as a lieutenant and started writing articles and books denouncing war. He also started writing plays and poetry, some which appeared in Punch magazine. He had married Dorothy “Daphne” de Sélincourt just before the war and, within a year of his discharge, they had their son, Christopher Robin.

Mr. Milne was in the habit of making up little verses for his son, including one called “Teddy Bear,” which appeared in Punch when Christopher Robin was three years old. About five years after their son was born, the Milnes bought and moved to their country home in East Sussex. The woods around their East Sussex home – as well as Christopher Robin, his toys, and the games they played – became the inspiration for more poems and, ultimately, the stories about Winnie the Pooh, Christopher Robin, and all their friends. Those stories, however, were little more than divertissements to A. A. Milne and he was a little astounded (and latter appalled) that those little entertainments were earning more accolades than for his plays, articles, and adult novels. Later, he was also concerned by how all the attention affected his still young son – who, it must be said, kind of hated the attention.

“Every child has his Pooh, but one would think it odd if every man still kept his Pooh to remind him of his childhood. But my Pooh is different, you say: he is the Pooh. No, this only makes him different to you. My toys were and are to me no more than yours were and are to you, not different to me. I do not love them more because they are known to children in Australia or Japan. Fame has nothing to do with love.”

*

– quoted from “12. The Toys” in The Enchanted Places by Christopher Milne

There are a lot of reasons why people still love the characters created by A. A. Milne, but why are Christopher Robin, Pooh, Piglet, Owl, Eyeore, Rabbit, Kanga, Roo, Tigger, the Heffalump, and (even) Small more beloved than any of his other characters? We can, of course, point to the loveliness of an ideal childhood and those lovely “decorations” by E. H. Shephard. Of course, there is also the fact that the books are all about friendship. Then, too, there is the fact that we all know people like all of the characters. In fact, if we take a moment to turn inward, we may even recognize ourselves as one of the characters. Finally, there is just so much wisdom in the books. Yes, we can say it is wisdom for children; however, the best advice we receive as children, serves us as adults.

The children’s poems and stories by A. A. Milne remind us to slow down, savor our “honey” and our friends, and to soak up the moment. There are stories that remind us to play a little (Pooh Sticks); keep in touch (even when we are physically far apart); that sometimes we need a little help from our friends (in order to get out of tight situations); and that there is something to be said for being in the present moment. In fact, I think of the poem “Halfway Down” as a meditation on the liminal, or “threshold” moment that is this present moment.

“Halfway Down” is the thirty-fifth poem in When We Were Very Young, first published in 1924. It appears just a few pages before the aforementioned “Teddy Bear” and has been turned into a song sung be people as different as Robin the Frog (Kermit’s nephew) and Amy Lee. The children’s book reviewer Zena Sutherland called the poem a “juvenile meditation” – which was a ringing endorsement from an expert on children’s literature who would go on to teach “Children’s Literature” and “Literature for Young Adults” at the University of Chicago Graduate Library School; serve on the committees that award the Newbery and Cadecutt Awards, as well as the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction; and highlight the emotional benefits of books by Maurice Sendak, John Donovan, and Robert Cormier. She was the expert, but in my humble opinion, it is a great meditation for anyone, regardless of age.

“I’m not at the bottom,
I’m not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where
I always
Stop.
*
Halfway up the stairs
Isn’t up
And isn’t down.
It isn’t in the nursery,
It isn’t in the town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head:”

*

– quoted (from halfway down) the poem “Halfway Down” by Alan Alexander Milne, with decorations by Ernest Howard Shephard

In some ways, The House at Pooh Corner was like that stair “halfway down the stairs.” It marked a transition. As A. A. Milne explained at the beginning, Christopher Robin and his friends needed no introductions – the readers already knew and loved them. What he also explained was that The House at Pooh Corner was a goodbye – he just didn’t tell his young readers why. And, in the end, maybe the why didn’t matter. Because…

“…they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.”

*

– quoted from “Chapter Ten, In Which – Christopher Robin and Pooh Come to an Enchanted Place, and We Leave Them There” of The House at Pooh Corner by Alan Alexander Milne, with decorations by Ernest Howard Shephard

A related playlist related is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “08212021 An Afternoon of Just Knowing”]

Feel free to check out this 2016 post to discover someone who likes to explore enchanted places.

“Christopher Robin came down from the Forest to the bridge, feeling all sunny and careless, and just as if twice nineteen didn’t matter a bit, as it didn’t on such a happy afternoon, and he thought if he stood on the bottom rail of the bridge, and leant over, and watched the river slipping slowly away beneath him, then he would suddenly know everything there was to be known, and he would be able to tell Pooh, who wasn’t quite sure of it. But when he got to the bridge and saw all the animals there, then he knew that it wasn’t that kind of afternoon, but the other kind, when you wanted to do something.”

*

– quoted from “Chapter Six, In Which – Pooh Invents a New Game and Eeyore Joins In” of The House at Pooh Corner by Alan Alexander Milne, with decorations by Ernest Howard Shephard

Searching for Small and little things? (Part of the Nine Days series)

### “Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day. ~ A. A. M. ###

FTWMI: The Practice of Observing Where You Are (and keeping notes) August 10, 2022

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Books, Changing Perspectives, Fitness, Healing Stories, Health, Mathematics, Meditation, Men, Science, Vipassana, Wisdom, Women, Yoga.
Tags: Alice Everett, Annie Maunder, Annie Russell, Edith Mary Rix, Edmond Halley, Ferdinand Magellan, Greenwich Mean, Harriet Maud Furniss, insight, Isabella Jane Clemes, James Smithson, John Flamsteed, King Charles II, meridians, Prime Meridian, Royal Observatory Greenwish, Sir Isaac Newton, Smithsonian Institute, yoga practice
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The following was originally posted August 10, 2020 (and re-posted with revisions in 2021). Class details and links have been updated for today’s practice.

“Every man is a valuable member of society, who by his observations, researches, and experiments, procures knowledge for men.”

– James Smithson (quoted from his notebook)

Insight, which can be viewed as “seeing something in a special way,” can be cultivated through observation. If you think about it in this way, then any knowledge and insight you can for yourself can also be useful to others. This is true when we observe anything in the world – including ourselves.

So, pick something. It could be your breath, it could be a certain way you’re feeling, it could be a sensation in or on your body, it could be a thought (or a series of thoughts) playing around your head, but pick one thing and then observe it. Observe it as you do “that 90-second thing.” Observe it as you walk on your way or move through your practice. Notice how things shift and change.

Of course, just the fact that you are bringing awareness to the something changes it and changes the way you move in relation to it. What if, however, you bring your awareness to your center? What if you observe how you move in relation to your center and then after a pose or a sequence of poses, you pause and observe the “something” that you picked at the beginning? This becomes a practice about cause and effect, and also a practice about orientation. The only question is: Where’s your center?

When you consider moving from you center, you have several from which you can choose. You can pick your physical center (top to bottom) which is your solar plexus, or your left to right physical center which is your spinal column. Alternately you could pick one of your energetic centers: heart chakra or the center axis defined in various traditions (which essentially corresponds to the area of your spine). Here we are consciously choosing a navigation point, but consider that even when we don’t consciously choose a center for observation or movement, these centers still serve as guiding points, constant lines of reference. When you pick one as your focus it becomes prime – and, just like a cornerstone, it gives you direction.

“When I have got some more observations of it I shall bee [sic] able to tell you how long it will last and where it will pass[. At] present I dare not pretend to that knowledge.”

– quoted from a letter to “to Crompton [for Newton]” dated “December 15^th (1680)” by John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal

The cornerstone for the Royal Observatory, Greenwich was laid today (August 10^th) in 1675. It is the home of Greenwich Mean Time (0:00:00) and the Prime Meridian Line which is the primary constant dividing East and West. King Charles II established the observatory as well as the position of the Astronomer Royal who the king declared was “to apply himself with the most exact care and diligence to the rectifying of the tables of the motions of the heavens, and the places of the fixed stars, so as to find out the so much desired longitude of places for the perfecting of the art of navigation.”

The observatory has been used throughout its history as a basis for the measurement of timekeeping and mapping. At one time, the Prime Meridian was marked by a metal strip (of various materials), but has been marked with a green laser shining north across London since December 16, 1999. The first Astronomer Royal was John Flamsteed, whose observations and calculations where communicated to scientists like Sir Isaac Newton. Newton actually used comet observations and calculations of Flamsteed and Edmond Halley (who succeeded Flamsteed as Royal Astronomer) in order to prove certain theories in Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica.

Although we may think of the Prime Meridian as 0⁰ 00’00, it is actually slightly East of center (0⁰ 00’00.417), which requires an adjustment on other lines of navigation in order to provide accurate geographical coordination. Discrepancies aside, even the original line would have been incredibly helpful to Ferdinand Magellan, who set sail today (August 10^th) in 1519, with the intention of circumnavigating the globe. Magellan named the Pacific Ocean “peaceful sea” – even though it wasn’t peaceful or a sea – and the Strait of Magellan is named for him, as he used it to sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. After three years, a mutiny, a ship wreck, a ship defection, and a change of course for one ship, one of Magellan’s original ships completed the journey around the world. That ship, the Victoria, contained 18 of the original 270 seamen. Magellan, however, was not included in that number who completed the journey. He was killed in the Philippines (by a poisoned arrow) after involving himself in an indigenous land dispute.

“The profession of astronomy is limited for men, and must necessarily, under the most favourable circumstances, be still more so for women. At the present time there are less than half a dozen women in England who are following astronomy as a profession, and it is improbable that there will ever be employment for more than twenty, either at Greenwich or elsewhere.”

– Isabella Jane Clemes, one of four “Lady Computers” who started working at the Royal Observatory on April 14, 1890*

As you are navigating through your practice, you have the opportunity to explore your body and mind, as well as keep a catalog of all you encounter. In this way, your body and mind are like the Smithsonian Institution, which houses an observatory, 4 research centers, a publishing house, a national library, 16 museums, and the National Zoo. It is the largest museum, education, and research complex and it was established legislation the United States Congress passed today (August 10^th) in 1846.

James Smithson was a British scientist who spent his life traveling and gathering information. He never married and indicated that if his nephew and heir died childless then Smithson’s estate should be used to establish an institution for “the increase and diffusion of knowledge.”

At the Smithsonian, you can find thousands of items related to nautical and astronomical observation, time keeping, and Magellan – including a number of navigation devices named for Magellan. Consider, for a moment, what you will find when you explore your own mind-body. Consider, also, how what you find increases your knowledge about yourself (and maybe the world).

“… it is in knowledge that man has found his greatness and his happiness, the high superiority which he holds over the other animals who inherit the earth with him, and, consequently, no ignorance is probably without loss to him, no error without evil, and that it is therefore preferable to urge unwarranted doubts, which can only occasion additional light to become elicited, then to risk by silence letting a question settle to fest, while any unsupported assumptions are involved in it.”

– James Smithson (quoted from his notebook)

Please join me today (Wednesday, August 10^th) at 4:30 PM or 7:15 PM for a 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 or by emailing myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.

Wednesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “04192020 Noticing Things”]

NOTE: This is a 2-for-1 playlist. You can start with Track #1 or Track #14.

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.)

*NOTE: Isabella Jane Clemes, Alice Everett, Edith Mary Rix, and Harriet Maud Furniss all started working as “Lady Computers” at the Royal Observatory on April 14, 1890. They were joined by Annie Scott Dill Maunder (née Russell) and others in 1891. According to a study published in 2010, 667 women attended the International Astronomical Union (IAU)’s General Assembly in Rio de Janeiro in August 2009 – indicating that worldwide there were well over fifty-five times as many women in astronomy than Clemes ever imagined.

Errata 2022: The original post(s) contained a confusing description of the Prime Meridian Line.

### WHERE IN THE WORLD ARE YOU? ###

A Quick “Wonderfully, Fearlessly, Hopefully Impossible” Note (with links) August 4, 2022

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in "Impossible" People, Books, Buddhism, Mathematics, One Hoop, Philosophy, Wisdom.
Tags: Buddha, John Venn
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“We have endeavoured above to employ only symmetrical figures, such as should not only be an aid to reasoning, through the sense of sight, but should also be to some extent elegant in themselves. But for purely theoretic purposes the rules of formation would be very simple. We should merely have to begin by drawing any closed figure, and then proceed to draw others in succession subject to the one condition that each is to intersect once, and once only, all the existing subdivisions produced by those which had gone before. There is no need here to exhibit such figures, as they would probably be distasteful to any but the mathematician, and he would see his way to drawing them readily enough for himself.”

– quoted from “Chapter II. Symbols of Classes and Operations.” in Symbolic Logic by John Venn Sc.D. ; F.R.S.

“This is what I heard,” that when the Buddha talked to the his disciples about the sutra “known as “‘The Diamond that Cuts through Illusion,’” he spoke figuratively and “did not have in mind any definite or arbitrary conception” or thought. Even when speaking of particles of dust, he said, “I am merely using these words as a figure of speech.” (DS 13) To me, using a figure a speech – a symbol, if you will – may prevent people from thinking that something is restricted to a particular person and/or situation and, therefore, does not apply to them and/or their situation. After all, a symbol can simultaneously mean anything and many things to one or more people.

Conversely, there comes a time when someone like John Venn, born today in 1834, “must obviously have some means of making it clear to myself and to others which things are x and which are not, which are y and which are not.” This is a point he makes repeatedly in Chapter 2 of Symbolic Logic, which breaks down the means and purpose of Venn diagrams. Since I’m a fan of such diagrams, here’s an excerpt from my 2020 post about some “impossible people” born on August 4th*:

“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.”

Click here to read the whole post!

*NOTE: Some links in the excerpt are from 2022. Click here to start at the beginning of this theme.

### BE WONDERFULLY, FEARLESSLY, HOPEFULLY IMPOSSIBLE ###

Svādyāya II: Omar’s Strait Road, Comes (and Goes) Through the Same Door (a 2-for-1 “renewed” post) May 18, 2022

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Books, Changing Perspectives, Faith, Healing Stories, Hope, Life, Mathematics, Meditation, Music, Mysticism, One Hoop, Pain, Peace, Philosophy, Poetry, Religion, Suffering, Wisdom, Writing, Yoga.
Tags: Abdullah Dougan, Ahmad Saidi, Ali Dashti, Edward FitzGerald, George Strait, L. P. Elwell-Sutton, Omar Khayyám, Richard Le Gallienne, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, svadyaya, svādhyāya, Swami Govinda Tirtha, The Rubáiyát, Yusuf Islam
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Celebrate the times when endurance, humility, and gratitude go hand-in-hand!

The following is an amalgamation of date-related posts from 2020 and 2021. Class details and some additional year-related information has been updated.

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.]

“I listen to the wind, to the wind of my soul
Where I’ll end up, well, I think only God really knows”

– quoted from the song “The Wind” by Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens)

Imagine that you are one of the most influential polymaths of the Middle Ages. You are a phenomenal mathematician, astronomer, and scientist who wrote treatises on algebra and astronomy and you were able to calculate a year so accurately (so precisely) that, over 800 years after your death, a calendar based on your calculations is still used by millions, even billions of people. Just imagine that level of accomplishment; soak up the feeling of being that accomplished.

Now, imagine that over 800 years after your passing, most people in the West – possibly in the world – don’t remember you for your accomplishments in math or science. Instead, imagine that what most people remember is that you were a poet – a poet known for a vast collection of poems you may or may not have written (some of which appear in the public sphere 43 years after your death). What if you wrote some or all of the poems attributed to you, but you wrote them as a diversion; a way to relieve stress and relax your mind between calculations, a little brain candy before going to sleep?

While you’re imagining all that, you may as well imagine that you were deeply religious, deeply committed to your faith and your Creator – so much so that your scientific work and philosophical essays (on existence, knowledge, natural phenomena, and free will and determination) all start off praising Allah and the Prophet Mohammed and end with blessings to the same. Yet, some people claim you were a nihilist, an agnostic, and/or purely a humanist. How would you feel if some people viewed you as the most divine (and Divinely inspired) poet in your faith and culture – yet, during your lifetime you were viewed as a heretic, your poems as blasphemy?

Practice a little svādyāya (“self-study”) and go a little deeper into how you might feel if all of that were true of you – as it is true of Omar Khayyám.

“Every line of the Rubáiyát has more meaning than almost anything you could read in Sufi literature.”

“The inner spiritual message is for all mankind, no matter what form it is contained in. The message is greater than any sect’s way of understanding it and goes out to all, just as the Sun shines on everyone, sinner and saint.

Fitzgerald’s first translation of the Rubáiyát was inspired for the benefit of all mankind. Allah works in mysterious ways. Whenever he wants something to come through in a pure way, it will happen in spite of everything.”

– from Who is the Potter? A Commentary on The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám by Abdullah Dougan (based on translations by Edward FitzGerald)

Given what we know about Omar Khayyám, who was born May 18, 1048, he might be equal parts amused and disgusted everyone doesn’t think cubic equations or Euclidean geometry and the parallel axiom when they hear his name. But, he also might not care. (After all, if all he is dead; so what would matter to him what we think?)

He might not mind that when people hear his name today, especially in the West, most people think of quatrains: complete poems written in four lines. Again, he might not care that some people consider his words (or words attributed to him) as their personal mantras. Then again, he didn’t care very much for people who claimed to have the answer to everything and, therefore (if he were alive), he might be annoyed that some people wave his words (or words attributed to him) completely out of context – or, even in support of things in which he didn’t believe.

“And do you think that unto such as you
A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew
God gave a secret, and denied it me?
Well, well—what matters it? Believe that, too!”

– quoted from The Rubáiyát by Omar Khayyám, translated by Richard Le Gallienne

Khayyám’s popularity in the West is primarily due to a collection of translations by Edward FitzGerald. FitzGerald, an aspiring English poet and writer, was a contemporary of William Makepeace Thackeray and Lord Alfred Tennyson, but but his literary aspirations never met with the acclaim of his friends. His friend and professor, Edward Byles Cowell (a noted translator of Persian poetry and the first professor of Sanskrit at Cambridge University) sent FitzGerald the quatrains in the form of two manuscripts: the Bodleian (containing 158 quatrains) and the “Calcutta” manuscript. While the initial pamphlet of the Rubáiyát, didn’t receive much fanfare, it would eventually become so popular that FitzGerald approved four editions of the “collection of poems written in four lines” and a fifth would be publish after his death.

Edward FitzGerald was a Christian skeptic and his skepticism comes through the translations loud and clear, as if he found a kindred spirit in the Persian poet. On the flip side, some see Omar Khayyám as a Sufi mystic – even though, he was reviled by prominent Sufi leaders during his lifetime. Lines like “Who is the Potter, pray, and who is the Pot?” further the confusion as they can be seen as a very definitely acknowledgement of a Divine Creator or as a philosophical question posed by a writer who believes God is a construct of man. Those religious and spiritual contradictions, the sheer volume of poems, and the lack of provenance are some of the problems critics have with all of the quatrains being attributed to Omar Khayyám – and why there’s such a wide range between estimates.

“Be happy for this moment.
This moment is your life.”

*

– Omar Khayyám

While a 2009 article in the book review section of The Telegraph indicates that the Rubáiyát has been published in at least 650 editions, with illustrations by 150 artists, and translated into 70 languages – and set to music by no less than 100 composers – there’s a distinct possibility that some of the poems were not actually written by this particular Persian mystic. 1,200 – 2,000 quatrains are often attributed to Khayyám, but some didn’t appear in the public sphere until 43 years after the poet’s death. Furthermore, prominent scholars have estimated that the actual number of verified lines is 121 – 178, or as little as 14 – 36.

In addition to some poems, and his work in math and astrology, Omar Khayyám wrote several philosophical essays about existence, knowledge, and natural phenomena. One such essay, on free will and determination, is entitled “The necessity of contradiction in the world, determinism and subsistence” – which puts a whole other spin on the poems if, in fact, he wrote them as a kind of brain candy.

“This cycle wherein thus we come and go
Has neither beginning, nor an end I trow,
And whence we came and where we next repair,
None tells it straight. You tell me yes or no.

*******

We come and go, but bring in no return,
When thread of life may break we can’t discern;
How many saintly hearts have melted here
And turned for us to ashes who would learn?

*******

The Skies rotate; I cannot guess the cause;
And all I feel is grief, which in me gnaws;
Surveying all my life, I find myself
The same unknowing dunce that once I was!

*******

Had I but choice, I had not come at call,
Had I a voice why would I go at all?
I would have lived in peace and never cared
To enter, stay, or quit this filthy stall”

– selections from The Rubáiyát, quoted from The Nectar of Grace: Omar Khayyam’s Life and Works by Swami Govinda Tirtha

Given the quatrains quoted above and the fact that I initially mis-dated both playlists (and only caught the mistake once on my own), you might be surprised that today’s Tuesday’s title is not a type-o. It really is intentionally “Omar’s Strait Road,” because (Euclidean geometry aside) Omar Khayyám shares a birthday with the “King of Country”: George Strait.

Born May 18, 1952 (in Poteet, Texas), George Strait is considered one of the most influential and popular recording artists of all time. He has 13 multi-platinum, 33 platinum, and 38 gold albums and has sold over 100 million records worldwide (making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time). He was elected into Country Music Hall of Fame (in 2006, while still actively recording and performing) and named Artist of the Decade (for the 2000’s) by the Academy of Country Music (ACM). Additionally, he was named Entertainer of the Year by Country Music Awards (CMA) in 1989, 1990 and 2013 (making him the oldest entertainer so designated and the only person to win in three different decades) and by the ACM in 1990 and 2014 – making him the most nominated and most awarded artist for both Entertainer of the Year awards. (I’m not even going to try to tally his total awards count or how often he’s been on the Billboard charts, because that just gets ridiculous.)

“King George” is known for his blockbuster tours and has performed at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo 30 times, over almost 40 years. However, his first performance was a bit of a fluke – he went on as a replacement for Eddie Rabbit, who was sick with the flu. Ironically, Strait – who retired from touring with his 2013 – 2014 record-breaking “The Cowboy Rides Away Tour” – came out of retirement to perform on the final night (03/20/22) of the Rodeo when it returned after being shut down by COVID.

2022 Update: George Strait’s concert at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo was reportedly the largest crowd of the season (79,452 people) and featured “29 songs played over the course of two-plus hours, 20 of those covered at his last rodeo show.” Ashley McBryde opened and Robert Earl Keen and Lyle Lovett made guest appearances during a show that, naturally, included “The Weight of the Badge” and a video tribute to first responders.

A United States Army veteran, with a degree in agriculture, George Strait’s philanthropic endeavors include co-founding the Jenifer Lynn Strait Foundation (which is named for his daughter and supports children’s charities in the San Antonia area); serving as spokesman for the VF Corporation’s Wrangler National Patriot program (which raises awareness and funds for America’s wounded and fallen military veterans and their families); and co-founding and hosting the Vaqueros Del Mar (Cowboys of the Sea) Invitational Golf Tournament and Concert with his business partner Tom Cusick (in order to raise money for David Feherty’s Troops First Foundation, benefiting wounded servicemen, servicewomen and their families). Additionally, he continuously supports agriculture and land and wildlife management programs and scholarships at his alma mater (Texas State University) and variety of disaster relief efforts.

Also worth noting, the King and his Queen (Norma) will celebrate their 50^th wedding anniversary this past December.

“There’s a difference in
Living and living well
You can’t have it all
All by yourself
Something’s always missing
‘Til you share it with someone else
There’s a difference in living and living well”

– quoted from the song “Living and Living Well” by George Strait

So, Omar Khayyám and George Strait share a birthday and a tendency to succeed in their endeavors. And they are also thought of as poets. The thing is, if you really pay attention to the lines of the poems and the songs, it seems like they also share a bit of the same philosophy. It’s a philosophy found in Khayyám’s essays (as well as the poems attributed to him) and centers around the idea that (for some reason) one day we are here and one day we will not be here and that, prior to dying, everyone suffers, but we decide what we do with all that time in between. Given these “givens,” we can (in the words of these two poets):

Have “a nice little life,” “let [ourselves] go” spending the time we are given “living well” and, at the end of the day say, “My life’s been grand” or
Just feel “grief, which in me gnaws;” have a heart “as hard as that old Caliche dirt,” and “just wanna give up.”

There is, of course, a third option: Join the “maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew” that dogmatically believes they are the only one with all the answers. (“Check yes or now.”)

“The world will long be, but of you and me
No sign, no trace for anyone to see;
The world lacked not a thing before we came,
Nor will it miss us when we cease to be.”

– quoted from (quatrain 132) Ruba’iyat of Omar Khayyam, translated by Ahmad Saidi (with preface by Seyyed Hossein Nasr)

Please join me today (Wednesday, May 18^th) at 4:30 PM or 7:15 PM for a 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 or by emailing myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.

Wednesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “05182021 Omar’s Strait Road”]

“Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same door where in I went.

With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow;
And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d–
“I came like Water, and like Wind I go.”

– XXVII and XXIX from The Rubáiyát by Omar Khayyám

“Even if a man had lived for a hundred years and had changed his religion, philosophy, and beliefs twice a day, he could scarcely have given expression to such a range of ideas.”

– commentary by Sadegh Hedayat in In Search of Omar Khayyám by Ali Dashti (translated by L. P. Elwell-Sutton)

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.)

Errata: This was originally posted with the wrong anniversary timing for the Straits and an incorrect spelling of Robert Earl Keen’s middle name. My apologies to email subscribers.

### 2²###

When You Need A Good Hard Rain (the “missing” Sunday post) February 7, 2022

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in "Impossible" People, Abhyasa, Bhakti, Books, Buddhism, Changing Perspectives, Confessions, Daoism, Dharma, Faith, Gratitude, Healing Stories, Health, Hope, Karma, Life, Loss, Mathematics, Meditation, Music, Mysticism, New Year, One Hoop, Pain, Peace, Philosophy, Religion, Science, Suffering, Tragedy, Vairagya, Wisdom, Writing, Yoga.
Tags: Charles Shinkai Birx, Clear-Water Grand Master, Dr. Viktor Frankl, Ecclesiastes, Ellen Jikai Birx, Franz Xaver Kappus, Ghost of Poverty, grief, Lunar New Year, Margaret Etta Hendricks, Qingshui, Ranier Maria Rilke, Spring Festival, Swami J, Swami Jnaneshvara, Wayne Teasdale, Year of the Tiger
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“Happy (Lunar) New Year!” to those celebrating the Spring Festival.

This is the “missing” post for Sunday, February 6^th. You can request an audio recording of the practice via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email me at 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.)

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”

*

– quoted from “Part Two: Logotherapy in a Nutshell” in Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl (b. 03/26/1905)

I don’t know about you, but this morning I woke up and I was looking for something. It took me a moment to realize that what I was looking for was someone to give me answers; someone who could make sense of things that just don’t make sense; someone who could offer me a little comfort – reassuring me that every thing is going to be OK – and a little encouragement. I was looking for a little hope.

Do you ever find yourself doing that? Scroll through your browser or your email or pulling books off of your shelf and then putting them back? Do you ever find yourself looking for the music that will fit your mood, but then deciding silence is better… only to discover the silence is a little annoying? I don’t know about you, but every once in a while I do. And, I definitely did this morning.

As soon as I realized what I was doing, I also recognized that what I was looking for was (already) inside of me. I think it’s natural – human, even – to seek answers and solace. We all do it and, more often than not, we look at something we may consider to be an external source. However, all the major religions and philosophies instruct us to turn inward. As we are part of the natural world, even turning to science can involve turning inward.

“Here, where I am surrounded by an enormous landscape, which the winds move across as they come from the seas, here I feel that there is no one anywhere who can answer for you those questions and feelings which, in their depths, have a life of their own; for even the most articulate people are unable to help, since what words point to is so very delicate, is almost unsayable. But even so, I think that you will not have to remain without a solution if you trust in Things that are like the ones my eyes are now resting upon. If you trust in Nature, in what is simple in Nature, in the small Things that hardly anyone sees and that can so suddenly become huge, immeasurable; if you have this love for what is humble and try very simply, as someone who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more reconciling, not in your conscious mind perhaps, which stays behind, astonished, but in your innermost awareness, awakeness, and knowledge.”

*

– quoted from Letter #4 (dated July 16, 1903) addressed to 19-year old officer cadet Franz Xaver Kappus, published in Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

Before we go any further, let me acknowledge the elephant (or cow) in the room: God (or gods). God, is the elephant or cow in the room, because people of certain religions – even some atheists or agnostics – may view the (big-D) Divine as something external. Without getting into a big theological debate or explanation, I’m going to humbly disagree with that perspective. I’m going to disagree, in part, because all of the major religions acknowledge that humans are created with some element of the Divine. We’re also capable of expressing those divine attributes. Additionally, I think the instructions that we find in sacred texts like the Hebrew Bible (or Christian Old Testament), as well as the Japji Sahib, support the idea that turning inward is the path outward.

And, while we’re on the subject, I will also admit that while we may differ in our conceptualization of God (whatever that means to you at this moment) I believe that every one believes in something (or someone). You can say that you don’t – but that’s a belief. You can say that you believe in Nature, community, the laws of science, or the laws of karma and I will happily point out that all of these systems have overlapping principles. In a nutshell, one of the big overlaps is the idea that what we put out into the world is what we get back.

“Cast your bread upon the water and it shall return to you.”

*

– My great-grandmother Pam, quoting Ecclesiastes 11:1

“The law of Karma is a universal process, whereby causes lead to effects. This is something that all of us are already familiar with, whether or not we use the word Karma to describe it. Newton’s third law of motion, that every action leads to a reaction, is an application of the law of Karma.”

*

– Swami Jnaneshvara Bharati

Today was the sixth day of the Lunar New Year. For many people who have been celebrating, things have gone back to the ordinary. There are, however, some people celebrating the Spring Festival who attribute special significance to this sixth day. Instead of re-opening their businesses (and welcoming the God of Wealth) on the fifth day, some shop owners will wait until the sixth day. Some folks will celebrate the birthday of all horses, based on the creation story whereby different animals were created on each day. Finally, some associate the sixth day with kicking out the Ghost of Poverty and/or welcoming the Clear-Water Grand Master.*

The Ghost of Poverty is remembered as the son of a wealthy man – possibly Zhuan Xu, one of the Three Emperor and Five Sovereigns. This son was short in stature, poor in health, and eschewed any signs of wealth. Legend has it that he ate plain food and that even when he was offered nice clothing, he would refuse the gift unless it was distressed. In other words, he was shrouded in poverty throughout his life and assigned the name “Ghost of Poverty” after his death. Since people want the exact opposite of what he had (or didn’t have), they take steps to rid themselves of things that remind them of his scarcity. Bottom line, they get rid of the rubbish.

People accumulate a lot of trash during the the initial celebrations to bring in the new year, welcome in the God of Wealth, and then welcome back the Kitchen God. However, throwing out the trash or doing a lot of cleaning before the fifth day (which is also associated with “breaking taboos”), is considered unlucky – or, just misguided, as you might throw out your good fortune. So, on the sixth day, people clean up, take out the trash, and get rid of accumulated waste. The house cleaning may be very simple and straightforward. Or, it may involve some rituals to highlight the symbolism of getting rid of what no longer serves the family (or the business) while making room for more prosperity, health, and well-being.

One such ritual involves candles lighting up the path away from the house or business (so the Ghost of Poverty can see himself out). Another ritual is cleaning the toilet – which ties back to an ancient tradition of cleaning out latrines and manure pits every three to five days. Cleaning the toilet is usually needed after big celebrations with family and friends. Additionally, a clean toilet simultaneously ushers out the Ghost of Poverty and curries favor with the Clear-Water Grand Master.

“Actually Qingshui was not a beginner. He was a monk who had already awakened to his essential nature. He engaged Coashan in a dialogue in order to see if he could refine or expand his insight. When Qingshui said he was solitary and poor, he was referring to the experience of emptiness – the experience of essential nature or ‘no thing.'”

*

– quoted from “3. Skillful Means for Nurturing Relationships: Gratitude and Generosity” in Waking Up Together: Intimate Partnership on the Spiritual Path by Ellen and Charles Birx

Born Chen Zhaoyin, Qing-Shui Zushi was a Chán Buddhist monk who lived during the Sung dynasty (960-1279 C.E.). Chán Buddhism is a Chinese form of Mahāyāna Buddhism that is rooted in meditation (or a “meditative state”) and is one of the predecessors of modern day Zen Buddhism. In addition to being called the Clear-Water Grand Master, he is also known as “Dropping Nose Ancestor” and “Black Faced Ancestor.” According to the legends, the monk** lived near Clear-Water Rock Mountain and traveled the countryside praying for rain during draughts. He also taught people to build bridges and plant trees in order to insure clean water in the villages and towns. Additionally, he was reportedly well-versed in herbal medicine and associated with the idea that ensuring the good health of one benefits those around them. When he passed, many miracles were attributed to him and to consecrated water.

Qingshui is particularly revered in Taiwan and in the Hokkien diaspora. In fact, there are temples dedicated to him in Taiwan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Singapore. Many people will gather at the temple to pray for what they need in the coming year. At at least one of the temples in Taiwan, the celebrations involve a lot of pageantry, traditional Chinese opera, and even a contest for the largest pig.

Given the fact that the Grand Master of Clear-Water was a vegetarian, it’s kind of odd to me that this contest involves a pig. Then again, I’m on the outside looking in. Also, maybe it’s not so odd when you consider that Qingshui was all about what sustained the people and this contest sustains the people. Furthermore, the contest is a perfect example of how cultures overlap.

“When Caoshan called Qingshui’s name , he drew Qingshui’s attention to emptiness, or essential nature, manifesting in the relative world. It manifests in the unique person of Qingshui and in his every action. Each meal he eats, each glass of water he drinks, and each breath he takes is a cup of the finest wine. He wakes us up and helps us see that when we experience the underlying unity of all creation, our eyes are opened and we are able to appreciate the uniqueness of each moment, person, and thing. The light of essential nature shines forth in myriad ways. When we appreciate our many blessings our life is rich and abundant and we are filled with gratitude.”

*

– quoted from “3. Skillful Means for Nurturing Relationships: Gratitude and Generosity” in Waking Up Together: Intimate Partnership on the Spiritual Path by Ellen and Charles Birx

Many rains ago, there were people in a valley who were routinely attacked by wild boars. They also had ongoing conflict with the people in the mountains surrounding them. So, every year, they would sacrifice a pig to the God of the Mountain and pray for safety and protection during the new year. Based on this tradition, the sixth day of the Lunar New Year became the Day of the Pig. People gather at the temple to see the pigs entered in the contest and the heaviest (real) pig earns the title “God of Pig.” The pork from the winner can earn the owner over a million Taiwanese dollars (which converts to over $36,000 USD – and is more than the average household income in Taiwan).

While I’m not sure when it became customary to decorate the slaughtered pigs and present their backs as if they were a framed painting, it is a modern tradition for the pigs to be incredibly oversized. Their abnormally large size is one reason animal rights activists have objected to the contest. It is also one of the reasons why some families have switched to big packets of rice constructed into the shape of a pig. Some believe it is also why the number of entries has diminished over the last 15-20 years.

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

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– quoted from “Part One: Experiences in a Concentration Camp” in Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl (b. 03/26/1905)

At the end of the day, what do a man who chose to be poor and a monk who focused on sustainability (and who could also be described as one who chose to be poor) have in common with a giant pig, a horse, and our physical practice of yoga?

More, actually, than I can cover in this post.

On the simplest level, both men looked inside of themselves to determine what was the best way to live their lives – and then they lived accordingly. Their personal decisions had profound effects on their communities (for generations) and their stories offer us a moment of svādhyāya (“self-study”), a moment to reflect on how our decisions impact ourselves and those around us. We can consider what no longer serves us and what, metaphorically speaking, constitutes getting rid of the rubbish so that we can make room for more health, more wealth, and more prosperity. In the process, we can also consider when we are overblown or too full of ourselves; when we have more than we need; and when we are doing something all for show.

Yes, we can also do all of that in a seated meditation practice. Similarly, we can let things go as we exhale in a deep-seated meditation practice. However, our moving meditation creates an opportunity to move the muscles and, in doing so, move lymph throughout the body. Remember, the lymphatic fluid washes away dead cells and carries nutrients to the healthy cells. Moving the body helps to detoxify the mind-body. Even though we didn’t do any “horse poses,” we did what constitutes as prep for one of the more challenging “Horse Poses.” We also practiced in a way that “reined in” the wild horses of the mind and (potentially) created the mental and emotional clarity to see our way forward. Finally, the physical practice is a way to engage tapas (“heat,” discipline, and “austerity” and the practices that cultivate heat, discipline, and austerity).

Some believe that engaging tapas burns away karma (past thoughts, words, and deed). In fact, one of my teachers once said that we can burn away karma even when we don’t believe in such things. Think about it like this: If every thought, word, and deed is a seed being planted; then every seed has the possibility of coming to fruition. We may plant flowers, fruit trees, shade trees, lush greens, vegetables and/or weeds. Sometimes it takes a while for things to come to fruition. And, sometimes we don’t know what we’ve planted until it pushes through the soil or we uncover it. There are things that can be both nutritious and delicious, as well as things that are deadly and toxic.

Either way, there comes a time when we nourish and harvest what we’ve planted and there are times when we dig it up and throw it away. The practice is simply a method of gardening. It’s also that good hard rain that keeps the soil hydrated and washes away what we no longer need.

“Physicist Stephen Hawking has remarked that mysticism is for those who can’t do math. In response to Hawking’s remark, my friend George Cairns retorted, ‘Mystics are people who don’t need to do math. They have direct experience!'”

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– quoted from “Part I. Finding What Unites Us: Introduction. The Mystic Heart: Our Common Heritage – The Parliament of the World’s Religions” in The Mystic Heart: Discovering a Universal Spirituality in the World’s Religions by Wayne Teasdale (b. 01/16/1945)

Sunday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “Lunar New Year Day 6 2022”]

*ERRATA: During the practice I misidentified both the Ghost of Poverty and the Clear-Water Grand Master as “God of….” While some people do worship the latter, many simply honor them as examples of how we can live our lives.

**NOTE: Qīng shuǐ means “fresh water, drinking water, [or] clear water.” The Clear-Water Grand Master should not be confused with Jiang Shichao, who was born poor and made his wealth by building a dam along the Qingshui River. Some said he “mastered” the water and turned it into silver, metaphorically speaking.

“You are so young, so much before all beginning, and I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

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– quoted from Letter #4 (dated July 16, 1903) addressed to 19-year old officer cadet Franz Xaver Kappus, published in Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

*

### Keep Breathing, Being Hope ###

Creating: Music for This Date II (the “missing” Wednesday post) January 27, 2022

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in "Impossible" People, Art, Books, Faith, Food, Healing Stories, Hope, Life, Mathematics, Music, One Hoop, Pain, Philosophy, Suffering, Wisdom, Yoga.
Tags: Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, Dr. Gerald Edelman, Dr. Oliver Sacks, January 26th, Marcel Proust, neuralplasticity, neuroscience, Patanjali, siddhis, Yoga Sutra 3.48-3.49, yoga sutras
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This is the post for Wednesday, January 26^th. You can request audio recording of Wednesday’s practices via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email me at 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.)

“‘Every act of perception,’ Edelman writes, ‘is to some degree an act of creation, and every act of memory is to some degree an act of imagination.’”

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– Dr. Oliver Sacks, quoting Dr. Gerald Edelman (co-winner of the 1927 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine)

Yesterday, I said that we all are creative. I didn’t say it as a platitude. I said it because it’s true. We can go back century after century and find people telling us this same fact, sometimes even in similar ways. Patanjali talked about the power that comes from focusing on the space/ether between an object, our sense organs, and our mind-intellect. Marcel Proust described the way our sensory perception can be like an index of our memories. Drs. Gerald Edelman and Oliver Sacks studied the way the mind creates the story. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk has explained how the body tells the story. Just by being alive, we create.

Creativity is an aspect of the divine that is inside all of us – and yet, there was a time when I didn’t think of myself as creative. Or, more specifically, I didn’t think of myself as an artist. This was during a time when I worked with a lot of really talented artists and, even though what I did required a similar kind of finesse as their work did, I saw my work as being more technical than artistic – which completely negated the technical aspects of their craft and was (frankly) reductive. Truth be told, I carried that mindset forward so that even when I started teaching and others saw me as a storyteller, I didn’t quite see it.

Now, of course, I am very intentional about the way I tell stories – on the mat (and the blog). Now, I use all the technical (and artistic) tools I used in theatre, all the literary and symbolic tools I learned in school, and all the philosophical and energetic wisdom I’ve gleaned from life and from my practices. Now, I tell the story with the poses, bits of information, and the music… ah, yes, the music. There’s always a message (or two) in the music – even when there’s no lyrics.

“There is certainly a universal and unconscious propensity to impose a rhythm even when one hears a series of identical sounds at constant intervals… We tend to hear the sound of a digital clock, for example, as “tick-tock, tick-tock” – even though it is actually “tick tick, tick tick.”

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– from Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Dr. Oliver Sacks

Sometimes I pick music because of the tempi or the tones of the music. Other times I pick music for the message in the lyrics. And while I almost never pick music I don’t like, the playlists are definitely a reflection of what I love. That said, I recognize that we all have different relationships with music. Some people never notice the music. Some people vibe to it. Others find it distracting. My goal is that if/when someone notices the music, it is a consistent part of the overall experience. It is a reminder to focus, concentrate, contemplate, and meditate on the theme of the day.

I also remember that everyone is going to feel the music. They may just feel the vibration and the vibe. They may be really tuned into the tempi or the tones or the lyrics. However, some will also feel it because of what it brings up for them. Western science has shown that hearing music we haven’t heard in a long time “awakens” the body. Similarly, it can awaken memories, reminding us of days gone by.

Of course, most of the time I’m really transparent about all of this. The fact that the music is part of the story is also part of the narrative in the practice.

But, what happens if I leave out one (or two) pertinent facts? What happens if I leave out names and dates and maybe just allude to a few trivial facts?

Then the story becomes a bit of a puzzle (or a riddle). And the mind loves puzzles (and riddles). It loves to fill in the gaps. It loves to get creative. It loves seeing if/when you will figure out that I was never really telling you the story. It was always you.

“In reality, every reader, as he reads, is the reader of himself. The work of the writer is only a sort of optic instrument which he offers the reader so that he may discern in the book what he probably would not have seen in himself. The recognition of himself in the book by the reader is the proof of the its truth and vice-versa, at least in a certain measure, the difference between the two texts being often less attributable to the author than to the reader.”

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– quoted from Time Regained, Volume 7 of Remembrance of Things Past (or In Search of Lost Time) by Marcel Proust

Wednesday’s playlist was inspired by people and things related to this specific date in history. Tracks #2 – 15, plus Track #17 are (mostly) related to someone who was born on January 26^th. There are two tracks in the before/after practice music that are actually related to an artist (Alicia Keys, b. 1981) whose birthday was the 25^th, but that’s a whole other story. The earliest birthday year is 1925; the latest is 2009 – but the tracks are not in birthday order. Finally, I will admit that there are some historical (and current events) that influenced why I picked these songs rather than all the other similarly relevant songs.

The clues I gave out in class are below (mostly in the order they were given). If you highlight the space to the right of the “A,” you will find the pertinent name(s) and years.

Clue #1: Sometimes our bodies don’t feel the way we’re use to them feeling. They seem a little off and we can’t play the way we’re use to playing. We have to adapt, modify, or step back. A: Jacqueline Mary du Pré OBE was born in 1945, in Oxford, United Kingdom.

Clue #2: In the first pose, when they body really hasn’t had a chance to warm up, just offer yourself a little love, sweet love – or, as Bryan Kest says, “… some sweet touches.” Just a little tenderness, a little kindness, a little compassion. If you get in the habit of offering yourself a little love (sweet love), tenderness, kindness, and compassion, then you have the skills to offer the same to others. A: Anita Baker was born in 1958, in Toledo, Ohio, United States.

Clues #3 – #4.5: When you give yourself, just a little bit, you also have what you need to give to others. You can tap into that sixth siddhi or “power” unique to being human, the power of generosity. If you were blessed with good looks, gorgeous blue eyes, and a lot of talent, it seems like giving back is something you might do. Maybe you give back to kids – really sick kids. Or, maybe you realize that other people – people who like to eat well – would appreciate giving back too… while they eat. (In Downward Facing Dog, you can alternate bending your knees like you’re riding a bicycle… as raindrops keep falling on your head.) A: Paul Newman was born in 1925, in Shaker Heights, Ohio, United States.

Clues #4.5 & #5: Some people are known what they do and for their sense humor. Some people even credit their wit and sense of humor for their successful marriage. (Some of those people were always up for a seventh inning stretch.) A: Bob “Mr. Baseball” Uecker was born in 1934, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States.

Clue #6: Remember, one things I was thinking of today (thinking of, fondly) was an actual thing – a living, breathing, thing. Even if it’s broad to say it was born, it might be more accurate to say that it’s American cousin was “born” today. A: After a couple of weeks of previews, The Phantom of the Opera officially premiered on Broadway in 1988, at the Majestic Theatre.

Clue #7: There’s a point in every practice where someone, not every one, starts trying to calculate what comes next. But, it’s important to remember that the practice is fluid, we’re flowing – and sometimes fluid calculations are complicated. A: Dr. Susan Friedlander (née Poate) was born in 1946.

Clue #8: There are several people on this birthday-inspired playlist that only be described as disrupters and erupters. They erupt on the scene and disrupt the status quo. They make a name for themselves because of what they do and how they do it – which has the power to blow you away. Sometimes they even name the things they do. A: Eddie Van Halen was born in 1955, in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Clue #9: Some of those erupters and disrupters are told that they can’t be who they are or do they things they want to do (or love the people they love), but they just keep on being, doing, living, and loving. Maybe they even shrug their shoulders and tell the naysayers, “I was born this way.” (They might also say that while they dance, in their seat, and smile.) A: Ellen DeGeneres was born in 1958, in Metairie, Louisiana, United States.

Clues #10 – #11.5: Everyone on the list was born into different circumstances. Some were born into different cultures (and even different countries) and those circumstances, over which they had no control, became part of their story. Sometimes their circumstances were also why people told them no or couldn’t imagine them being, doing, living, and loving the way that they did. But, by disrupting the status quo – by living their Truth – their very existence allows other people to imagine themselves living their best lives. A: Kirk Franklin was born in 1970, in Dallas, Texas, United States.

Clues #11 & #11.5: There’s one thing about all the people on this list, that’s also true about everyone in the world: They were born to be loved. We are all born to be loved. The twisted, upside down, and backwards thing is that sometimes we have to be reminded of that. Sometimes we need someone to remind the naysayers of that. Yes, there are people on this list who were abandoned (at birth), forsaken, mistreated, and misguided. There’s a least one person who was treated like a slave; at least one person who was disgraced; and at least one person who was abused. But, all of them were born to be loved. A: Lucinda Williams was born in 1953, in Lake Charles, Louisiana, United States.

Clues #12 (– #19): So far as I know, most people who inspired this list were born on their own. But some were born with seven other people. A: Noah Angel Solomon, Maliyah Angel Solomon, Isaiah Angel Solomon, Nariyah Angel Solomon, Jonah Angel Solomon, Makai Angel Solomon, Josiah Angel Solomon, and Jeremiah Angel Solomon were born in 2009, in Bellflower, California, United States.

Clues #11.5 & #20: Despite their circumstances, despite sometimes feeling less than free – despite not always being (legally) free – at least one person has dedicated their life to liberation and education. A: Dr. Angela Davis was born in 1944, in Birmingham, Alabama, United States.

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Wednesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify.

(NOTE: I remixed the YouTube playlist after the 4:30 practice, because I had erroneously used the extended version of a song. The YouTube playlist also includes extra videos, which are not available on Spotify.)

Errata: As I was closing my browser tabs, I realized that I overlooked a birthday (and I’m kicking myself for it)! I’ve updated the playlist so that the before/after music includes a track for Maria von Trapp, born January 26,1905, in Vienna, Austria.

Yoga Sūtra 3.48: grahaṇasvarūpāsmitānvayārthavattvasaṃyamādindriyajayaḥ

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– “Through samyama on the sense organs’ process of perception, essential nature, identification with I-am-ness, constitution and purposiveness, mastery over them is acquired.”

Yoga Sūtra 3.49: ato manojavitvaṃ vikaraṇabhāvaḥ pradhānajayaśca

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– “Thence comes about quickness as of the mind, the state lacking sense organs and mastery over pradhana.”

### Embrace Your Creativity ###

Doing: Lessons in unexpected, ridiculously inconvenient, unplayable things (& “impossible” people) [the “missing” Sunday post] January 24, 2022

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in "Impossible" People, Abhyasa, Art, Books, California, Changing Perspectives, Depression, Faith, Gratitude, Healing Stories, Health, Hope, Karma, Life, Love, Mantra, Mathematics, Movies, Music, Pain, Peace, Philosophy, Science, Suffering, Tragedy, Vairagya, Wisdom, Writing, Yoga.
Tags: 1990), Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA, avidya, avidyā, Bösendorfer, Carl Jung, Cologne Germany, David Shenk, Dr. Gerald Lynn Early, ECM Records, Ed Roberts, Haratio Walpole, Harry Reasoner, Improv, jazz, Keith Jarrett, Lee Roberts, Manfred Eicher, Miles Davis, neuralplasticity, Pavlov's dog, psychology, samskāras, serendipity, Seth Meyers, svadyaya, synchronicity, Tim Hartford, vasanas, Vera Brandes, vāsanās, Zona Roberts
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This is the “missing” post for Sunday, January 23^rd(and contains 2-for-1 information related to January 24^th). You can request an audio recording of the practice via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email me at 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.)

“The causality principle asserts that the connection between cause and effect is a necessary one. The synchronicity principle asserts that the terms of a meaningful coincidence are connected by simultaneity and meaning…. Although meaning is an anthropomorphic interpretation it nevertheless forms the indispensable criterion of synchronicity. What that factor which appears to us as “meaning” may be in itself we have no possibility of knowing. As an hypothesis, however, it is not quite so impossible as may appear at first sight. We must remember that the rationalistic attitude of the West is not the only possible one and is not all-embracing, but is in many ways a prejudice and a bias that ought perhaps to be corrected.”

– quoted from “3. Forerunners of the Idea of Synchronicity” in Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle by C. G. Jung

“This discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity, a very expressive word, which, as I have nothing better to tell you, I shall endeavor to explain to you: you will understand it better by the derivation than the definition. I once read a silly fairy tale, called “The Three Princes of Serendip”: as their Highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of: for instance, one of the them discovered that a mule blind of the right eye had travelled the same road lately, because the grass was eaten only on the left side, where it was worse than on the right….”

– quoted from a letter addressed to Sir Horace Mann, dated January 28, 1754, by Horace Walpole (The Right Honorable The (4^th) Earl of Orford, Horatio Walpole)

Causality, the principles of cause and effect, are a big aspect of the Yoga philosophy – and I am, without a doubt, a big fan. That said, I am also a big fan of synchronicity and serendipity. As much as I pay attention to cause-and-effect, I often delight in things that just seem to “randomly” fall into place and things (or people) that show up when I “need” them, but wasn’t looking for them. Granted, there are times when I consider chaos theory and see if I can trace back to some little thing that started the domino effect; however, I’m also just open to being pleasantly surprised by “accidental goodness.”

Do you know what I mean? Has that happened to you? And how open are you to those kinds of things?

My guess, and it’s not much of a stretch, is that your open-ness, or lack thereof, is based on past experiences. I mean, on a certain level, everything is based on past experiences. We do something new and a new neural pathway is created, a new thin veil of saṃskāra (“mental impression”) is lowered over us. We do that same thing again and we start to hardwire that new neural pathway, the veil becomes more opaque. Over time, our behaviors and reactions become so hardwired, that our saṃskāras becoming vāsanās (“dwellings”) and we believe that our habits are innate or instinctive – when, in fact, they are conditioned.

This is true when things seem to randomly and luckily fall into place. This is also true when are not so fortunate or blessed; when things don’t seem to easily fall into place or when we don’t “randomly” get what we didn’t know we needed. And our physical-mental-emotional response to the so-called “happy accidents” is just as conditioned as our physical-mental-emotional response to things not going our way. We are as much like Pavlov’s dogs as we are like the one-eyed mule observed by the Princes of Serendip. To do something other than salivate at the appearance of certain objects and/or to eat on the other side of the road is “impossible.” But, little changes in the conditioning changes the outcome.

Also, remember that ad about “impossible….”

“Impossible is just a big 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 not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary.

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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

Sunday’s practice revolved around two stories related to January 23rd and January 24th. They are lessons on doing (rather than not doing) and opportunities for a little svādhyāya (“self-study’). One of the stories was about an “impossible” person who had to deal with unexpected tragedy and “ridiculously inconvenient” situations and expectations. The other was the story of a person, some might consider impossible, who had to deal with an unexpected, ridiculously inconvenient, unplayable piano. As I’ll explain a little (a little later), I encountered both stories serendipitously, but there was also a little bit of synchronicity related to the second story.

Again, I’ll get to the backstory a bit later. For now, consider that the habitual conditioning I mentioned above also applies to our expectations of ourselves and of others. So, when we tell ourselves and/or someone else that something is impossible, it is partially because we have not been conditioned to believe that the thing in question is possible. We haven’t seen any evidence that something can be done and, quite the contrary, maybe we have seen someone else “fail” in their endeavors in the same area. Maybe we ourselves haven’t succeeded… yet; and, therefore have decided to give up.

But, what happens if we don’t give up? What happens if we give our all and then let go of our expectations? What happens if we plan to trust the possibilities and focus on doing what we are able to do, in the present moment?

A version of the January 23rd story was originally posted in 2021. Click here for that philosophical post in it’s entirety.

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“From a practical standpoint then, svadyaya is the process of employing the power of discernment and maintaining a constant awareness of who we are, what we are trying to become, and how the objective world can help us accomplish our goal.”

– commentary on Yoga Sūtra 2.1 from The Practice of the Yoga Sūtra: Sadhana Pada by Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, PhD

The Yoga Sutras offers a detailed explanation of the dysfunctional/afflicted thought patterns that create suffering. Patanjali described those thought patterns as ignorance, the false sense of self, attachment (rooted in pleasure), aversion (which is attachment rooted in pain), and a fear of loss/death. He established ignorance (avidyā) as the root of the other four and stated that this groundwork is established no matter if the ignorance is dormant, attenuated, disjointed, or active. He then broke down the different ways avidyā manifests in the world – which basically goes back to the ways in which we misunderstand the nature of things – and how the other four afflicted thought patterns rise up.

There are examples of how avidyā and the other four dysfunctional/afflicted thought patterns manifest all around us. There are, therefore, also examples of how the sources of our ignorance can be the path towards freedom, fulfillment, and more clarity. One example of this is how some people view those that are not considered “able bodied.” Think about the activist Edward V. Roberts, for example.

“I fell in love, like many people do. We do that as well. And it became ridiculously inconvenient to have my attendant pushing me around in my wheelchair with my girlfriend. It was an extra person that I didn’t need to be more intimate. I learned how to drive a power wheelchair in one day. I was so motivated to learn something that it changed in many ways my perception of my disability and of myself. She jumped on my lap and we rode off into the sunset or to the closest motel.”

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– Ed Roberts (b. 01/23/1939) in a 60 Minutes interview with Harry Reasoner

Known as the “Father of the Independent Living” movement, Mr. Roberts was born January 23,1939. By all accounts, he spent his formative years as a “regular” boy. Then, at the age of fourteen, he contracted polio – this was in 1953, two years before the vaccine ended the polio epidemic. The virus left the active, “sports-loving” teenager paralyzed from the neck down, with mobility only in two fingers and a few toes. It also (temporarily) crushed his spirit. He initially spent most of his days and all of his nights in an 800-pound iron lung. When he wasn’t in the iron lung, he used “frog breathing” – a technique that uses the facial and neck muscles to pump air into the lungs.

Now, if you are someone who has not interacted with someone with a disability, you might think – as Ed Roberts initially thought of himself – that he was a “helpless cripple.” You might, like him and one of his early doctors, back in 1953, think that there was no point to his life. You might think that he couldn’t do yoga; couldn’t get married (and divorced); couldn’t have a child; and definitely couldn’t do anything to change the world. But, if you think any of that – just as he initially thought that – you would be wrong.

“There are very few people even with the most severe disabilities who can’t take control of their own life. The problem is that the people around us don’t expect us to.”

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– Ed Roberts in a 60 Minutes interview with Harry Reasoner

Just to be clear, to my knowledge Ed Roberts didn’t practice yoga. However, he did practice Shotokan karate. Also, it is interesting to note that (a) the glottis or empty space at the back of the throat that is engaged to practice Ujjayi prāņāyāma, is the same area he would engage to breathe without the iron lung and (b) once he changed his understanding of himself – let go of his “false sense of self” – he was able to change the world.

Even though he could attend school by telephone, Zona Roberts, Ed Roberts’s mother, insisted that he attend school in-person one day a week for a few hours. She also encouraged him to think of himself as a “star” and to advocate for his own needs. So, when he was in danger of not graduating from high school, because he hadn’t completed driver’s education or physical education, he pushed back on those who would limit him.

After graduating from high school, he attended the College of San Mateo and the University of California Berkeley – even though one of the UC Berkeley deans wanted to reject him because someone else had had an unsuccessful bid at college and the dean viewed all people with disabilities as a monolith. At Berkeley, Mr. Roberts pushed to have on-campus housing that would accommodate his needs and, once that was established, pushed the university to admit and provide the dormitory experience to other people with “severe disabilities.” The Cowell Residence Program became a model for universities around the world.

Mr. Roberts and some of the other students in the Cowell Residence Program referred to themselves as the “Rolling Quads.” They were very active in changing people’s perceptions and understandings and, therefore, they were able to change policy and infrastructure. “Curb cuts,” the ramped opening between a sidewalk and street, are one of the changes that resulted from their activism. After Ed Roberts graduated with a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Political Science, he went on to teach at an “alternative college;” to serve as Director of the state organization that had once labeled him too disabled to work; and eventually co-founded the World Institute on Disability (at Berkeley). His activism – including protesting at the San Francisco offices of the Carter Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare and testifying before Congress – led to the creation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA, 1990).

“And I literally went from like 120 pounds to 50 pounds. I also discovered how powerful the mind is, when you make up your mind.”

*

– Ed Roberts in a 60 Minutes interview with Harry Reasoner

If I remember correctly, I first dug into Ed Roberts’s story because someone on the internet mentioned him and his birthday. Maybe this was in 2017, when there was a Google Doodle to honor him. Or, maybe I made a note to myself when I saw the Google Doodle and then incorporated it into a class the following year. Either way, I had time to dig in.

Perhaps, since some of my themes are date-related and I do keep an eye out for such things, one might not consider my heightened awareness of Ed Roberts as being overly synchronistic or serendipitous. This is especially true considering that my annual participation in the Kiss My Asana yogathon is one of the many things that predisposes (or conditions) me to pay attention to stories about accessibility. If anything, I could kind of kick myself for not digging into his story sooner.

But, we only know what we know and we don’t know what we don’t know. The odds are pretty high, though, that I would have eventually come across his story. What are the odds, however, that I would encounter the story of Keith Jarrett, Vera Brandes, and the unplayable piano mere days before the anniversary of The Köln Concert, which was performed and recorded on January 24, 1975?

Ok, I know what you’re thinking.

If, like me, someone was creating date-related content, any time someone landed on their media, they’re very likely to come across a timely bit of information. But, what if the content is not date-related? Additionally, what are the odds if the person (in this case me) is late to the proverbial party and just starts randomly picking content? Without even going into the details of my adventures in podcast-listening (or how many I’ve very recently started picking through), let’s just consider the odds of me picking one out of, say, 40 non-date-related episodes and landing on the one that just happens to coincide with an upcoming date.

I have no idea what the odds are, and maybe I haven’t provided enough information, but feel free to comment below if you are a mathematician.

My point is that all of this also happened around the same time that we are all dealing and sometimes battling with change. It happened during a time when the whole world is facing the conflict that can occur when our past and ingrained behaviors, habits, and responses bumps up against the desire for new behaviors, habits, and responses. What are the odds of coming across the historical version of what the comedian Seth Meyers calls, “The Kind of Story We Need Right Now”? What are the odds of coming across the story of a man who did what he considered impossible because of his past experiences, his preconceived notions, and other untenable circumstances?

Keep in mind, this is not only the story of a man who did something he considered “impossible,” it’s also the story of a man who did something that, on a certain level, he didn’t want to do.

You can, as I did, listen to the Cautionary Tales with Tim Hartford episode entitled, “Bowie, Jazz and the Unplayable Piano” where ever you get your podcasts. Had I listened to it just a few days sooner, it might have changed the January 8th playlist.

“You always want to make it as good as it can be, but… But when you have problems that you can’t do anything about, one after another, you start forgetting what you’re actually doing, until it’s time. And that’s one of the secrets….”

*

– Keith Jarrett in a 2007 interview about his (01/24/1975) Köln Concert

In the 1970’s, 15-year old Vera Brandes started organizing jazz concerts and tours. At around 17, the German teenager started organizing the New Jazz in Cologne concert series. The fifth concert was scheduled for 11:30 PM on January 24, 1975, and it was going to be the first jazz concert at the 1,400-seat Cologne Opera House. The concert would feature a twenty-nine year old jazz pianist named Keith Jarrett, performing improvised solo piano pieces. Yes, that’s right, he was going to make it up as we went along – and the sold out concert would be recorded. (According to last.fm, the tickets were 4 DM [Deutsche Mark] or $5.)

Here’s a few other salient details about the American pianist: He has perfect pitch and garnered some international attention (as a classical pianist) when he was in high school in Pennsylvania. He started playing gigs in Boston while attending Berklee College of Music and moved to New York City after about a year. In the Big Apple, he started making a name for himself, playing with jazz greats like Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Jack DeJohnette, and the Charles Lloyd Quartet. By the mid-to-late 1960’s, he was playing and recording with his own trios and that’s around the time that Miles Davis invited him to join his jams (alternating and/or playing with Chick Corea).

Keith Jarrett and his own band of musicians – Charlie Haden, Paul Motian, (eventually) Dewey Redman, and a handful of other similarly accomplished musicians (including Sam Brown) – recorded over a dozen albums for Atlantic Records from 1971 to 1976. In that same time period, one iteration of the quartet recorded an album for Columbia Records; but then the label dropped him – theoretically so they could promote Herbie Hancock. Right around the same time the Columbia-door closed, another two others doors opened: Keith Jarrett and his quartet got a contract with Impulse! Records and he was contacted by Manfred Eicher, a German record producer and co-founder of ECM Records.

ECM stands for “Edition of Contemporary Music” and the label is known for high quality jazz and classic music – and musicians who give the side-eye to labels. It was a great creative dwelling place for musicians like Keith Jarrett and Steve Reich, whose music I have also used in some practices. The professional relationship between Keith Jarrett and Manfred Eicher led to the “European quartet” collaborations, solo piano albums, and, eventually, to that legendary concert in Cologne, Germany.

Here’s another important thing to know about Keith Jarrett: He has a reputation for being very, very particular about concert conditions. He doesn’t like audience distractions, especially when he is improvising, so – at the height of his career – audience members were given cough drops during winter concerts and he would sometimes play in the dark to prevent people from taking pictures. He is known for vocalizing while he plays jazz (but not, notably, when he plays classical music) and reportedly led people in group coughs.

Like other musicians, he is also very particular about the instruments he plays – and this is where we meet “the unplayable piano.”

“KJ: When I was a teenager, my youngest brother had a lot of issues, and didn’t go to school. He couldn’t go outside, so he couldn’t have friends, so he was basically a prisoner in my mother’s house. There was an upright piano there. And occasionally, my brother, knowing zero — meaning really zero — about piano, would work out anger or frustration, which he must have had gobs of, by going to the keyboard and just playing some shit. He didn’t know what notes he was hitting or what would come out. But I realized there were moments that were so good and they came from his ignorance. I’m not sure he even knew they were good moments. But I found myself thinking: how would a pianist ever — how do you approach that if you know the instrument?

DS: How do you find the accidental goodness?”

*

– Keith Jarrett in response to David Shenk’s question about having a willingness or eagerness to fail, in “Keith Jarrett, Part II: The Q&A” by David Shenk (published in The Atlantic, October 13, 2009)

Keith Jarrett is known for eschewing electronic instruments and equipment. Obviously, he appreciates the “need” for recording equipment and he has recorded music while playing electronic instruments. But, it’s not his jam – and it’s definitely not the kind of thing he would request for a solo piano concert in an opera house in 1975. No, someone like Keith Jarrett, at that point in his career, for that concert, would request the piano equivalent of a Rolls-Royce. And that’s exactly what he did; he requested a Bösendorfer Model 290 Imperial, also known as the Imperial Bösendorfer or just as the 290.

The 290 is Bösendorfer’s flagship piano. It is an exquisitely beautiful concert grand piano with an equally memorable sound. In fact, it was specifically designed to be grander than any other piano on the market in 1909. And I mean that in every sense of the word grand. It has 97-keys and a full 8-range octave. For 90 years, it was the only concert grand piano of it’s kind. In 1975, it was easily recognizable by any professional pianist… but probably not by random stagehands (who hadn’t had any reason to deal with such a piano) and possibly not by a teenage concert organizer (who also hadn’t had any reason to deal with such a piano).

Keith Jarrett, however, immediately knew that something was off when he arrived at the Cologne Opera House to find a Bösendorfer baby grand on the stage. To make matters worse, he was tired after traveling and not sleeping for two days, his back hurt, and he was suffering from food poisoning. To add insult to injury, the piano was badly out-of-tune and basically broken. Some of the keys and the foot pedals, one of the distinguishing features on the 290, didn’t work properly. It was simply a rehearsal piano or something someone had put in a backstage corner to warm up their hands before the curtain went up. It was too late to find and move a new piano. Even if they could find what had been requested – or something close, like the Bösendorfer (which would have been 5 keys shorter) – it was raining and Vera Brandes was warned that moving such an instrument in that type of weather would make it impossible to tune in time for the concert.

“Don’t play what’s there. Play what’s not there.”

*

– Miles Davis

Improvisation – in comedy and in music – is known for things like not breaking the flow (so, not saying “no”); and the concept of “yes, and…;” staying present; and being open to change. But, Keith Jarrett had made up his mind. He said no to that baby grand piano. He declared it categorically “unplayable” and said the concert needed to be canceled. And there’s no indication, anywhere, that he was being a diva. He was just being realistic given his history and his frame of reference. The fact that he was sick and tired just made everything worse.

But the indomitable Vera Brandes had a different history and a different field of possibility. She convinced him that she could find someone to tune (and repair) the piano onstage, which she did. She sent Keith Jarrett and Manfred Eicher to a restaurant to grab a quick bite to eat. In some interviews, Keith Jarrett has said that they didn’t eat much because (a) he wasn’t feeling well, (b) there was a mix-up at the restaurant and their meal was delayed, and (c) they had to get back to the theatre. At some point along the way, they decided to keep the recording engineers – because they were going to get paid no matter what – and record what the musician expected to be a horrible and embarrassing disaster of the first order.

But it wasn’t. It wasn’t not even close.

Instead, the three improvised movements, plus the encore of “Memories of Tomorrow,” became the best selling solo album in jazz history and one of the best-selling piano albums. In the Spring 2019 issue of Daedalus, Dr. Gerald Lyn Early, who has consulted on several Ken Burns documentaries (including Baseball and Jazz), pointed out that Keith Jarrett’s solo concerts changed the sound and people’s understanding of jazz (not to mention, who played it); “…made solo piano playing commercially viable by showing that there was a considerable audience for it[;]” and “…proved that the public was willing to take such records seriously…”

From the very first notes, which sound like the warning tones the audience heard in the lobby before the show, Keith Jarrett carried the audience on a sonorous piano journey unlike anything they had ever heard. The album has been praised by musicians, critics, and publishers alike. It was included in Robert Dimery’s book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Eventually, much to the composers dismay, parts of the composition became movie soundtracks. Many wanted Keith Jarrett to transcribe and publish a score of the concert, which he finally, begrudgingly, agreed to do in 1990. The transcribed score, however, came with a very intentional caveat.

“For instance, on pages 50 and 51 of Part IIa there is no way to obtain, on paper, the real rhythmic sense of this section. There is much more going on on the recording, but this “going on” does not always translate into notes on paper. Many notes are inferred by the rhythmic sense; others depend on the harmonics or attack of the previous note(or notes). So, writing down all the notes would give more of a false view of the sense of this section than selecting some notes. And yet, even this selection cannot reveal the real sense of this section as an improvisation, where listening is what determines the music’s strength.

*

So – we are at, let us say, a picture of an improvisation (sort of like a print of a painting). You cannot see the depth in it, only the surface.

*

As a result of all of this, I am recommending that any pianist who intends to play THE KÖLN CONCERT use the recording as the final-word reference.

*

Good luck!”

*

– quoted from the “Preface” to THE KÖLN CONCERT: Original Transcription, Piano by Keith Jarrett

Sunday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify.

[NOTE: If it is accessible to you, please consider using the Spotify playlist as it contains the original music referenced in the practice. Even better, if you already have the album!

The original recording is not available on YouTube (in the US) without a “Premium” membership and, after listening to several different “interpretations” – which do not / cannot include the vocalizations – I decided the Fausto Bongelli sounded the closest to the original. Sadly, one movement is missing and so I used a recording by Tomasz Trzcinkinski, who was the first person to record the music using the transcription. There are also now transcriptions for other instruments – which I didn’t sample, even though I think some of them would be lovely. There are also “covers” using electronic instruments, which I’m considering a hard pass (even if it seems contradictory to the theme), out of respect for the composer. ]

*

“My bottom walk-away experience that I believe I carry with me every day is that my father never settled for anything and always fought for everything. And he always, always followed his gut, followed his passion, went with it no matter who was against him, and oftentimes there was more people against him than it was for him.

So I’ve always followed my gut and followed my passion. And in so many different speeches, he would always encourage that person to look within themselves, find their passion, follow it. You can’t… You can’t go wrong with your gut. You can’t go wrong with your passion. Don’t ever settle. He never settled. I’ll never settle. I carry that with me every day, and if there’s anything he loved to pass on, it’s just go for it.”

– quoted from “A Day in the Life of Ed Roberts: Lee Roberts Talks About His Father, Ed Roberts” by Lee Roberts

*

### My Takeaway: Today is tomorrow’s yesterday. If there’s something in your life – in your field of experience – or something in your past that makes certain things seem impossible, in this present moment, then knowing that – understanding why it seems impossible to you, then pick something. Pick some really small thing that you can start doing – or that you can actually do right now – that changes your history moving forward. So that your field of possibility expands. So that tomorrow – maybe not 24 hours from now, maybe not even 48 hours from now, but at some point, what was impossible becomes possible…. Consider that we are doing things today that were considered impossible “yesterday.” ###

Searching…. (the “missing” Tuesday post w/a little extra) January 19, 2022

This is the “missing” post for Tuesday, January 18^th. You can request an audio recording of the practice via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email me at 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.)

“As soon as Rabbit was out of sight, Pooh remembered that he had forgotten to ask who Small was, and whether he was the sort of friend-and-relation who settled on one’s nose, or the sort who got trodden on by mistake, and as it was Too Late Now, he thought he would begin the Hunt by looking for Piglet, and asking him what they were looking for before he looked for it.”

*

– quoted from “Chapter Three, In Which – A Search is Organdized, and Piglet Nearly Meets the Heffalump Again” in The House at Pooh Corner by Alan Alexander Milne, with decorations by Ernest Howard Shephard

Because sometimes people are quoting Disney productions, but citing the author.

“’It means just going along, listening to all the things that you can’t hear and not bothering.’”

*

– Christopher Robin defining “Doing Nothing” to Winnie the Pooh in “Chapter Ten, In Which – Christopher Robin and Pooh Come to an Enchanted Place, and We Leave Them There” of The House at Pooh Corner by Alan Alexander Milne, with decorations by Ernest Howard Shephard

“Every child has his Pooh, but one would think it odd if every man still kept his Pooh to remind him of his childhood. But my Pooh is different, you say: he is the Pooh. No, this only makes him different to you. My toys were and are to me no more than yours were and are to you, not different to me. I do not love them more because they are known to children in Australia or Japan. Fame has nothing to do with love.”

*

– quoted from “12. The Toys” in The Enchanted Places by Christopher Milne

“I’m not at the bottom,
I’m not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where
I always
Stop.
*
Halfway up the stairs
Isn’t up
And isn’t down.
It isn’t in the nursery,
It isn’t in the town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head:”

*

– quoted (from halfway down) the poem “Halfway Down” by Alan Alexander Milne, with decorations by Ernest Howard Shephard

“…they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.”

*

– quoted from “Chapter Ten, In Which – Christopher Robin and Pooh Come to an Enchanted Place, and We Leave Them There” of The House at Pooh Corner by Alan Alexander Milne, with decorations by Ernest Howard Shephard

Tuesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “08212021 An Afternoon of Just Knowing”]

Feel free to check out this 2016 post to discover someone who likes to explore enchanted places.

“Christopher Robin came down from the Forest to the bridge, feeling all sunny and careless, and just as if twice nineteen didn’t matter a bit, as it didn’t on such a happy afternoon, and he thought if he stood on the bottom rail of the bridge, and leant over, and watched the river slipping slowly away beneath him, then he would suddenly know everything there was to be known, and he would be able to tell Pooh, who wasn’t quite sure of it. But when he got to the bridge and saw all the animals there, then he knew that it wasn’t that kind of afternoon, but the other kind, when you wanted to do something.”

*

– quoted from “Chapter Six, In Which – Pooh Invents a New Game and Eeyore Joins In” of The House at Pooh Corner by Alan Alexander Milne, with decorations by Ernest Howard Shephard

Searching for Small and little things? (Part of the Nine Days series)

### “Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day. ~ A. A. M. ###

« older posts

A Joyful Practice

The Mathematical Beauty of Movers & Shakers, relatively speaking (mostly the music) March 14, 2023

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510

– π (pi) to 50 digits*, computed by Scott Hemphill

### O ###

Liminal & Rare Days (the “missing” Tuesday post) March 1, 2023

If the colors are too much, click here for a monochromatic copy of this post.

– quoted from “Running the Gauntlet of the Unknown” by Joan Borysenko, PhD (posted at joanborysenko.com, April 1, 2020)

– quoted from the (February 28, 2022*) Huffington Post article entitled “My Daughter’s Rare Disease Was A Mystery For Years. Here’s How We Finally Got A Diagnosis.” by Jessica Fein

“That referral led us to the geneticist, who ended up delivering the information that changed our lives.

‘Dalia tested positive for a genetic mutation that’s associated with myoclonic epilepsy with ragged red fibers, or MERRF syndrome ― an extremely rare form of mitochondrial disease,’ the doctor said.”

– quoted from the (February 28, 2022*) Huffington Post article entitled “My Daughter’s Rare Disease Was A Mystery For Years. Here’s How We Finally Got A Diagnosis.” by Jessica Fein

In my heart of hearts, I know that love never dies.”

– quoted from “25. Faith, Part IV: What’s Love Got To Do with It?” in We Know How This Ends: Living while Dying by Bruce H. Kramer with Cathy Wurzer

**NOTE: According to the Julian calendar, Leap Year is every four years. On the Gregorian calendar, which is used by most people who will come across this post, it’s not that simple.

“A year is a leap year if it is divisible by 4 and is not a century year (multiple of 100) or if it is divisible by 400. For example, 1900 is not a leap year; 2000 is.”

– quoted from “2 – The Gregorian Calendar, 2.1: Structure” in Calendrical Calculations by Nachum Dershowitz, Edward Reingold

### SHARE YOUR COLOURS ###

No Zoom practices today, but, FTWMI: Searching…. January 18, 2023

*

– quoted from “Chapter Three, In Which – A Search is Organdized, and Piglet Nearly Meets the Heffalump Again” in The House at Pooh Corner by Alan Alexander Milne, with decorations by Ernest Howard Shephard

“’It means just going along, listening to all the things that you can’t hear and not bothering.’”

*

– Christopher Robin defining “Doing Nothing” to Winnie the Pooh in “Chapter Ten, In Which – Christopher Robin and Pooh Come to an Enchanted Place, and We Leave Them There” of The House at Pooh Corner by Alan Alexander Milne, with decorations by Ernest Howard Shephard

*

– quoted from “12. The Toys” in The Enchanted Places by Christopher Milne

“I’m not at the bottom, I’m not at the top; So this is the stair Where I always Stop. * Halfway up the stairs Isn’t up And isn’t down. It isn’t in the nursery, It isn’t in the town. And all sorts of funny thoughts Run round my head:”

*

– quoted (from halfway down) the poem “Halfway Down” by Alan Alexander Milne, with decorations by Ernest Howard Shephard

“…they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.”

*

– quoted from “Chapter Ten, In Which – Christopher Robin and Pooh Come to an Enchanted Place, and We Leave Them There” of The House at Pooh Corner by Alan Alexander Milne, with decorations by Ernest Howard Shephard

*

– quoted from “Chapter Six, In Which – Pooh Invents a New Game and Eeyore Joins In” of The House at Pooh Corner by Alan Alexander Milne, with decorations by Ernest Howard Shephard

### “Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day. ~ A. A. M. ###

FTWMI: The Practice of Observing Where You Are (and keeping notes) August 10, 2022

“Every man is a valuable member of society, who by his observations, researches, and experiments, procures knowledge for men.”

– James Smithson (quoted from his notebook)

“When I have got some more observations of it I shall bee [sic] able to tell you how long it will last and where it will pass[. At] present I dare not pretend to that knowledge.”

– quoted from a letter to “to Crompton [for Newton]” dated “December 15th (1680)” by John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal

– Isabella Jane Clemes, one of four “Lady Computers” who started working at the Royal Observatory on April 14, 1890*

– James Smithson (quoted from his notebook)

### WHERE IN THE WORLD ARE YOU? ###

A Quick “Wonderfully, Fearlessly, Hopefully Impossible” Note (with links) August 4, 2022

Click here to read the whole post!

### BE WONDERFULLY, FEARLESSLY, HOPEFULLY IMPOSSIBLE ###

Svādyāya II: Omar’s Strait Road, Comes (and Goes) Through the Same Door (a 2-for-1 “renewed” post) May 18, 2022

“I listen to the wind, to the wind of my soulWhere I’ll end up, well, I think only God really knows”

– quoted from the song “The Wind” by Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens)

“Every line of the Rubáiyát has more meaning than almost anything you could read in Sufi literature.”

“The inner spiritual message is for all mankind, no matter what form it is contained in. The message is greater than any sect’s way of understanding it and goes out to all, just as the Sun shines on everyone, sinner and saint.

Fitzgerald’s first translation of the Rubáiyát was inspired for the benefit of all mankind. Allah works in mysterious ways. Whenever he wants something to come through in a pure way, it will happen in spite of everything.”

– from Who is the Potter? A Commentary on The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám by Abdullah Dougan (based on translations by Edward FitzGerald)

“And do you think that unto such as youA maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crewGod gave a secret, and denied it me?Well, well—what matters it? Believe that, too!”

– quoted from The Rubáiyát by Omar Khayyám, translated by Richard Le Gallienne

“Be happy for this moment.This moment is your life.”

*

– Omar Khayyám

“This cycle wherein thus we come and goHas neither beginning, nor an end I trow,And whence we came and where we next repair,None tells it straight. You tell me yes or no.

***

We come and go, but bring in no return,When thread of life may break we can’t discern;How many saintly hearts have melted hereAnd turned for us to ashes who would learn?

***

The Skies rotate; I cannot guess the cause;And all I feel is grief, which in me gnaws;Surveying all my life, I find myselfThe same unknowing dunce that once I was!

***

Had I but choice, I had not come at call,Had I a voice why would I go at all?I would have lived in peace and never caredTo enter, stay, or quit this filthy stall”

– selections from The Rubáiyát, quoted from The Nectar of Grace: Omar Khayyam’s Life and Works by Swami Govinda Tirtha

“There’s a difference inLiving and living wellYou can’t have it allAll by yourselfSomething’s always missing‘Til you share it with someone elseThere’s a difference in living and living well”

– quoted from the song “Living and Living Well” by George Strait

“The world will long be, but of you and meNo sign, no trace for anyone to see;The world lacked not a thing before we came,Nor will it miss us when we cease to be.”

– quoted from (quatrain 132) Ruba’iyat of Omar Khayyam, translated by Ahmad Saidi (with preface by Seyyed Hossein Nasr)

“Myself when young did eagerly frequentDoctor and Saint, and heard great argumentAbout it and about: but evermoreCame out by the same door where in I went.

With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow;And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d–“I came like Water, and like Wind I go.”

– XXVII and XXIX from The Rubáiyát by Omar Khayyám

“Even if a man had lived for a hundred years and had changed his religion, philosophy, and beliefs twice a day, he could scarcely have given expression to such a range of ideas.”

– commentary by Sadegh Hedayat in In Search of Omar Khayyám by Ali Dashti (translated by L. P. Elwell-Sutton)

### 22 ###

When You Need A Good Hard Rain (the “missing” Sunday post) February 7, 2022

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”

*

– quoted from “Part Two: Logotherapy in a Nutshell” in Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl (b. 03/26/1905)

**– π (pi) to 50 digits*, computed by Scott Hemphill**

**– quoted from the (February 28, 2022*) Huffington Post article entitled “My Daughter’s Rare Disease Was A Mystery For Years. Here’s How We Finally Got A Diagnosis.” by Jessica Fein**

**– quoted from the (February 28, 2022*) Huffington Post article entitled “My Daughter’s Rare Disease Was A Mystery For Years. Here’s How We Finally Got A Diagnosis.” by Jessica Fein**

“I’m not at the bottom,
I’m not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where
I always
Stop.
*
Halfway up the stairs
Isn’t up
And isn’t down.
It isn’t in the nursery,
It isn’t in the town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head:”

– quoted from a letter to “to Crompton [for Newton]” dated “December 15^th (1680)” by John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal

“I listen to the wind, to the wind of my soul
Where I’ll end up, well, I think only God really knows”

“And do you think that unto such as you
A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew
God gave a secret, and denied it me?
Well, well—what matters it? Believe that, too!”

“Be happy for this moment.
This moment is your life.”

“This cycle wherein thus we come and go
Has neither beginning, nor an end I trow,
And whence we came and where we next repair,
None tells it straight. You tell me yes or no.

*******

We come and go, but bring in no return,
When thread of life may break we can’t discern;
How many saintly hearts have melted here
And turned for us to ashes who would learn?

*******

The Skies rotate; I cannot guess the cause;
And all I feel is grief, which in me gnaws;
Surveying all my life, I find myself
The same unknowing dunce that once I was!

*******

Had I but choice, I had not come at call,
Had I a voice why would I go at all?
I would have lived in peace and never cared
To enter, stay, or quit this filthy stall”

“There’s a difference in
Living and living well
You can’t have it all
All by yourself
Something’s always missing
‘Til you share it with someone else
There’s a difference in living and living well”

“The world will long be, but of you and me
No sign, no trace for anyone to see;
The world lacked not a thing before we came,
Nor will it miss us when we cease to be.”

“Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same door where in I went.

With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow;
And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d–
“I came like Water, and like Wind I go.”

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