Understanding [Your] Karma & Putting Cash in Your Karmic Bank Account (the “missing” Saturday post) January 13, 2024

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Tags: Anstalten Österåker, “Pam” Hendricks, Österåker Prison, Österåkersanstalten, Beverly Mahr, Carl Perkins, Dr. Reginald “Reggie” Ray, Ecclesiastes, Folsom State Prison, Glen Sherley, Gordon Jenkins, Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, kamma, Karma, Karma Yoga, kriya, kriyā, kriyā yoga, Little Brother Montgomery, Martin Luther King Jr, Merle Haggard, prison, Reginald Rey, saṃskāra, San Quentin State Prison, Sir Isaac Newton, Soledad State Prison, Swami Jnaneshvara, Swami Jnaneshvara Bharati, The Tennessee Three (music), The Tennessee Two (music), vāsanā, Yoga Sutra 2.1, Yoga Sutra 2.12
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May you breathe deeply, with the awareness that you have what you need to be stable, steady, comfortable, at ease… and maybe even joyful.

This “missing” post for Saturday, January 13^th. Some explanations (related to definitions) have previously been posted. You can request an audio recording of a related 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.

“To Westerners, the doctrine of karma can be somewhat off-putting, seeming to be a mechanical law that exacts full payment from us for our moral infractions. Yet Buddhism actually takes the opposite view. Only when we see fully the ramifications of karma [can] we understand who we are and why we are here, connect with the warmth and blessing of the world, and experience genuine compassion for other people. Beyond this, to understand that there is no ‘I’-but only the operation of impersonal karmic forces-is to attain the freedom of complete liberation.”

— quoted from the Lion’s Roar article “Understanding Karma” by Reginald Rey

This present moment is the culmination of all the previous moments and the beginning of all the moments that come after it. Mindfulness-based practices — like the philosophies of Yoga and Buddhism — are an opportunity to observe cause-and-effect in action. Throughout a practice, we note how one thing can lead to another. Even in this moment, you can notice…

How an inhale leads to an exhale and an exhale leads to an inhale;
How moving with the breath allows us to notice how one pose leads to another;
How what we do in one part of our body affects another part of the body (and vice versa). For example, notice how stability in the lower body allows you to extend your upper body and how extending your upper body allows you to stretch out the lower body.

If you’ve practice with me a bit, you have probably heard the aforementioned example a lot. (And, hopefully, you’ve tested it out for yourself.) You have probably also heard me state, “What happens in the body, happens in the mind; what happens in the mind, happens in the body; and both affect the breath… So we harness the power of the breath to affect the body and the mind.” At various points throughout the year, I reference saṃskāra (“mental impressions”) and vāsanā (“dwelling places” of our habits) and encourage people to notice that what happened to our hearts (and ourselves) in the past informed this present moment and what happens in this present moment — i.e., what we do in this present moment — informs our future moments. All of this applies to our thoughts, our words, and our deeds.

What people may not immediately realize is that all of these things are related (or can be related) to karma and kriyā, two Sanskrit words that can be translated into English as “work” or “effort.”

“Buddhism highlights two types of karma. The first is the karma of result. This addresses the age-old question of why our life is this way and not some other; it shows us that every aspect of our lives is the result of actions we have performed in the past. This includes our body and its physical condition, our parentage and other elements of our history, current friends and relatives, our overall life situation, our general state of mind, and even the thoughts we think and the emotions we feel.”

“The second type is the karma of cause. This addresses the question of how or even whether we influence the future. It says that every action we perform in the present is going to produce results of some kind further down the road. Our minds and the actions that proceed from them are that powerful.”

— quoted from the Lion’s Roar article “Understanding Karma” by Reginald Rey

Dr. Reginald “Reggie” Ray is the co-founder and Spiritual Director of the Dharma Ocean Foundation and University Professor (retired) at Naropa University. While he described karma (or kamma, in Pali) as having two different definitions in Buddhism — and while many Western practitioners of Yoga may be most familiar with some idea of “karma” — sacred texts about the Yoga Philosophy use two different words for the two different types of action/work. Karma is the effect or consequence, while kriyā is the cause. Kriyā is an ongoing process and also the steps within the process; it is active. You could also think of karma as fate and kriyā as destiny; where the former is unchangeable and the latter as the journey to your destination.

Some traditions take the latter concept a step further and specifically use kriyā in relation to internal action or work and speak of karma when referring to external work. In some ways, this dovetails with Yoga Sūtra 2.1, which defines kriyā yoga (“union in action”) as a combination of the final three niyamas (internal “observations”): discipline/austerity, self-study, and trustful surrender to a higher power (other than one’s self). In this context, kriyā yoga is a purification ritual and, as I mention throughout the year, there are several religious and philosophical observations that would fit within this rubric (including Lent, Yom Kippur and Passover, the Baháʼí 19-Day Fast, and the holy month of Ramaḍān).

Additionally, in the Kundalini Yoga tradition, “kriyā” is the term applied to sequences with specific energetic intentions.

This is where it gets (even more) convoluted, because karma can also be the intention. Classically, when we talk about karma, we talk about planting seeds and things coming into fruition. So, one way to think of it is that we plant seeds that already have within them the image of the final product and kriyā is what we do to nurture and harvest what’s been planted — and/or what we do when we need to uproot the poisonous weeds.

“Although both kriya and karma can be translated as ‘action,’ there is a vast difference between them. Both are derived from the verb root kri…, which means ‘to do.’ Kriya refers to an action in process as well as to the dynamic force propelling the action. Karma refers to completed action. Unless a fresh wave of action is exerted on karma, it remains unchanged. Karma is an unchanging field of completed action waiting to be harvested by the performer of the action, while kriya is ever-moving, ever-changing energy. Kriya yoga is yoga in action, not yoga of action, and should not be confused with karma yoga.”

“The literal meaning kriya is ‘verb.’ Every verb is representative of a distinct process or function and no process of function reaches fruition without a doer.”

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

After the Saturday practice, someone asked me if “karma” is going to be our philosophical focus for 2024. At first, I was going to answer no. Then I thought, not exactly. Yet, when I really sit with the question, the actual answer is, sort of and partially. This year, during the Saturday practices, we are going to focus on how our past moments lead us to these present moments (karma) and how the things we do in this present moment can lead to certain future moments (kriyā) — and we’re going to use the chakra system as a paradigm for understanding where we are, how we got here, and where we’re going (or, all the places we could go).

Just to clarify, this practice is a moving meditation with some self-study, contemplation, and reflection. While I am not going to put a lot of focus on the concept of past lives and reincarnation — although those ideas do make up part of the foundation of karma/kamma in the Buddhist and Yoga philosophies — there will be times when we reflect on generational trauma — and, of course, there will be stories… and music.

“[Verse 1]
I hear the train a-comin’, it’s rolling ’round the bend
And I ain’t seen the sunshine since I don’t know when
I’m stuck in Folsom prison, and time keeps draggin’ on
But that train keeps a-rollin’ on down to San Antone”

— quoted from the song “Folsom Prison Blues” by Johnny Cash

On January 13, 1968, Johnny Cash, June Carter (who wouldn’t become a Cash until March 1, 1968), Carl Perkins, The Tennessee Three, and the Statler Brothers performed and recorded two (2) concerts at Folsom State Prison in Folsom, California. Although, the subsequent live album made these performances the most well known, they were not the first time Johnny Cash performed at Folsom Prison, nor the last time he performed at a prison… in California, in the United States, or in the world. In fact, he performed at least 30 prison concerts in the United States — including one at Correctional Training Facility (also known as Soledad State Prison) in 1980. He also recorded live albums in places like San Quentin State Prison (now known as San Quentin Rehabilitation Center) at Österåker Prison (known as Anstalten Österåker and Österåkersanstalten), north of Stockholm, Sweden.

We could just listen (or listen and move) to the music. But, let’s put a little “cash” in our karmic bank account and look at how the performances, as well as much of the music — not to mention the stories behind the music and how the concerts came about — are great illustrations of cause-and-effect and of karma and kriyā.

“[Verse 2]
When I was just a baby, my mama told me, ‘Son
Always be a good boy, don’t ever play with guns’”

— quoted from the song “Folsom Prison Blues” by Johnny Cash

While serving in the United States Air Force in Germany (~ 1951/1952), Johnny Cash saw the film Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison (released in U. S. May 18, 1951) and he was inspired to write a song. Keep in mind that, even though he had more than his fair share of troubles and spent some time in county (or city) jail, he never served time as a prisoner. (Unlike Merle Haggard, who would be incarcerated and in the audience during at least one prison concert.) Mr. Cash did, however, have an imagination. So, as he sat not far from Landsberg Prison (in Bavaria), inspired by the film about Folsom and the instrumental song “Crescent City Blues” by Little Brother Montgomery (1930) as well as the lyrics by Gordon Jenkins (released by Beverly Mahr in 1953), he thought about the worst thing someone could do to wind up in prison. Keep in mind that his “worst thing” was based on his previous experiences.

Then he wrote a song that (he said) he never expected to get as big as it got: “Folsom Prison Blues.” Johnny Cash went on to write songs about prison life, in general, and about San Quentin (1969) — the latter of which he also sang as “Österåker.” In between cobbling together one of his most famous hits and some of those other prison songs, Mr. Cash decided he wanted to go to prison… not to serve time, but to serve the inmates. By playing a series of concerts, he and the other musicians were giving back, doing a little karma yoga.

The songs they sang simultaneously lifted the spirits of the inmates and spoke to/of the experiences of the inmates. In some cases, the songs, the concerts, and the live albums changed the way people perceived Johnny Cash and the inmates. They also changed the way some of the inmates saw themselves. For instance, during the first July 13^th concert, the inmates at Folsom barely reacted to the music, because history had taught them that making too much noise would result in a loss of privileges. But, the musicians and their producers needed/wanted the crowd reactions for the live albums. So, perceptions and expectations changed. Consider how you would feel if you spent your days (and nights) suppressing your natural reactions because you feared punishment. Consider how you feel knowing the cheers, laughs, and applause on the live recording were re-mixed after the concerts.

The life of Glen Sherley is another example of the effect of the concerts. It is also an example of how past actions inform present actions and influence future actions. Mr. Sherley was an inmate at Folsom, who had written a song. Someone played Johnny Cash a tape of the song, thinking the morale of the inmates might be boosted if the “Man in Black” referenced the song and the songwriter. Johnny Cash and the other musicians took the idea a step further: they learned and sang the song. Glen Sherley had no idea the popular musicians were going to sing his song. Neither could he know how much his life was going to change because of that simple act; but, change it did. Even while still in prison, Glen Sherley became a popular songwriter who eventually released his own album and (for a brief period) performed under the House of Cash label.

However, despite being given a “second act” and a different way of life, Glen Sherley couldn’t handle it. He had a long history of violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and other illegal tendencies. Johnny Cash dismissed him from the House of Cash out of an abundance of caution (because people feared he would follow through on some of his threats) and, in 1978, within 7 years of his release from Folsom, those fears came to fruition when Glen Sherley shot a man while he (Mr. Sherley) was high. A couple of days later, after telling his daughter couldn’t go back to jail, the fledging musician died from a suicide. He was 42 years old.

Johnny Cash understood that, given a chance, some people could break the cycle of violence and poverty. He also understood his affect on people like Glen Sherley and on people who would judge someone like Glen Sherley. Understanding cause-and-effect is part of the reason he sometimes said he shouldn’t have singled Glen Sherley out. It is also the reason Mr. Cash met Mr. Sherley when he was released, gave him a job; and (ultimately) paid for his funeral.

“… Well, you wonder why I always dress in black
Why you never see bright colors on my back
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone
Well, there’s a reason for the things that I have on

… I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down
Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town
I wear it for the prisoner who is long paid for his crime
But is there because he’s a victim of the times”

— quoted from the song “The Man in Black” by Johnny Cash

As they do with Martin Luther King, Jr (especially this weekend), people often quote and/or coopt Johnny Cash’s legacy. Throughout his life, he told people not to put words in his mouth — a message his children continue spreading to this day — and to, instead, pay attention to what he said and what he did. If we do that, if we really listen to what he said and what he did, we find that Johnny Cash advocated for the poor and the disenfranchised. He wrote protest songs about people in prison and how they were treated (before and after they were released); the Vietnam War (and war in general); and the oppression of Native Americans. Then he backed those lyrics up with action/deeds.

I can’t help but wonder what he would say about other musicians being investigated and incarcerated because of their lyrics and/or the political climate here in the U. S. and around the world. Neither can I blame someone with different views from mine doing the same thing. I think such thoughts are natural, human, inclinations. However, I am very careful to come back to his words, his action, his karma, and (in a way) his kriyā.

His kriyā, because the music is still alive and still actively acting on the world.

“Each week we lose a hundred fine young men

… And I wear it for the thousands who have died
Believin’ that the Lord was on their side
I wear it for another hundred-thousand who have died
Believin’ that we all were on their side

… Well, there’s things that never will be right, I know
And things need changin’ everywhere you go
But ’til we start to make a move to make a few things right
You’ll never see me wear a suit of white

… Ah, I’d love to wear a rainbow every day
And tell the world that everything’s okay
But I’ll try to carry off a little darkness on my back
’Til things are brighter, I’m the man in black”

— quoted from the song “The Man in Black” by Johnny Cash

Given all of the above, take a moment to consider your first lesson in “karma.”

Was it called that or was “cause-and-effect” first taught to you with a different way with different words (and in a different language)? Maybe it was taught to you in the scientific way. Remember this is just a different spin on the laws of nature and Sir Isaac Newton’s Laws of Motion. According to Yoga Sūtra 2.12: kleśamūlah karmāśayo dŗşţādŗşţjanmavedanīyah / “The reservoir of our actions is rooted in affliction/pain that is experienced in seen and unseen lives.” So, take a moment to consider that how you view all of this is based on your previous experiences and lessons (about the subject at hand and, also, about the historical and cultural context of these concepts). Now, take a moment to consider how you use this information (about yourself) when you are really grounded in it. Meaning:

What do you believe (or not believe)?
How much of what you believe (or don’t believe) is based on lessons you were taught (or not taught) and how much is based on what you’ve experienced/learned in the meanwhile?
How do your thoughts, words, and deeds reflect your beliefs?

Just like I wonder about his thoughts on current events, I wonder about Johnny Cash’s first lesson in karma. He is often quoted as saying, “ … I’m the biggest sinner of them all…” and, in the very next breath, talking about his faith in Jesus. So it is possible that his first lesson in “karma” was similar to mine, someone quoting or paraphrasing “the Teacher” (King Solomon) in Ecclesiastes 11. Even though he may not have called it karma yoga, Johnny Cash spent a lot of time doing things that came back to him.

What are you doing and how is coming back to you?

“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

Saturday playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [“01132021 Karma Cash I”]

Looking for more? You can scroll through all my posts tagged with karma or check out one of the posts highlighted below:

We Begin With a Curious Teacher, or 2 (the “missing” Saturday post) September 16, 2023

The Last Appointment (a “long lost” Saturday post) June 5, 2023

Leadership & Kriya Yoga (the “missing” Monday post) February 21, 2023

Effort and Effect (a “missing” post from a week ago) February 28, 2022

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

It’s Bach’s Day Too! March 21, 2020

### GIVE ###

Grace, Zora, & Galileo’s Moons (a “long lost” Saturday post for Sunday) January 7, 2024

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Tags: Alice Walker, Beau Lotto, Charlotte D. Hunt, Charlotte Osgood Mason, Dale Carnegie, David Block, Dr. Alan Locke, Dr. Franz Boas, Dr. Margaret Mead, Dr. Ruth Benedict, Galileo Galilei, grace, Harlem Renaissance, HBCUs, Howard University, Johannes Kepler, Jupiter, Jupiter's moons, Kenneth C. Freeman, Kenneth Freeman, Kidneys, Mary Helen Washington, Nicolaus Copernicus, physics, Ruby McCollum, Simon Marius, Stillman Drake, Tycho Brahe, Urinary Bladder, Zeta Phi Beta, Zora Neale Hurston
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From the “Season of Grace files.

This is the “long lost” post for Saturday, January 7, 2023. It is the first in a series of “missing” Saturday posts (that I will be posting on Sundays in 2024) and contains some previously posted material. Think of it as a year in review. Links and SUNDAY class details have been updated. You can request an audio recording of the 2023 or 2024 practice via a comment below or by emailing myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.

“Now. as a professor of applied maths, I have fun with thinking about different ways of looking at things. There are known-knowns; there are things we know that we know. They are known-knowns. For example if you leave a cake on the stove too long, my wife tells me, it gets burned and so on. You know what I mean. There are known-knowns, ok? There are things we know that we know.

But then there are known-unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. Alright? Then, there are unknown-unknowns. There are things that we don’t know that we don’t know.

And then, fourthly, there are unknown-knowns — these are things that we don’t know that we know.”

— quoted from the lecture “From Tyndale to Galileo: Grace and Space” by David Block, professor emeritus in the School of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Yoga practice (on or off the mat) is an opportunity to grow and to learn about one’s self and the world around us. It’s a safe time and place to turn inward and observe how our mind-bodies respond and react to ourselves and the world around us. It’s a great time and place to explore, experiment, learn, and play. For this reason, I sometimes liken the practice (on the mat) to time in a laboratory or classroom, or even on a playground. And I think it’s appropriate to show up with a sense of curiosity, wonder, possibilities, and faith — prepared to see what happens.

Curiosity, wonder, possibilities, faith, and preparation are concepts that I repeatedly highlighted throughout the year. However, there’s often a little extra emphasis at the beginning of the year, because these are concepts shared by explorers, (physical) scientists, philosophers, and the (religious and/or spiritually) faithful. When we show up on the mat, we have the opportunity to be all of the above and also to embody all of those attributes. We have the opportunity, as Dr. Beau Lotto has said (in defining science), to “play with purpose.”

We can look at that “purpose” as finding out more about ourselves. For several years, now, I have had the great privilege of leading a 90-minute practice on Saturdays with that very explicit intention: exploring, experimenting, learning, and playing with the purpose of svādhyāya (“self-study”). We spent ~~the last~~ four years moving through Patanjali’s Yoga Sūtras. Prior to that we stepped through the different kinds of yoga as outlined in the Bhagavad Gita; explored the different kinds of yoga as they are associated with the primary chakras (energy “wheels”); and did some “deep listening.” ~~This year~~ In 2023, in thinking about our Saturday focus, I considered some of my favorite texts — like the Ashtavakra Gita or the Bhagavad Gita — and I considered telling the backstories of some of our favorite poses (because y’all know I love a good story). Without realizing it, I started stepping through the four categories of knowns and unknowns that Professor David Block mentions in a lecture about space and grace.

Full disclosure, I didn’t know about Professor Block or his lecture when I started this process. I didn’t know that anyone — let alone anyone as esteemed as Professor Block and Kenneth Freeman, an Australian astronomer and astrophysicist – had given lectures and written books about Galileo Galilei and grace. Instead, I was thinking about what I know about the 8-Limbed Yoga Philosophy (and other Indian philosophies); what I thought I knew about what “the Saturday irregulars” know about these philosophies; what I know I don’t know; and what I’m not sure “the Saturday irregulars” know — and that’s when I stumbled upon grace. Specifically, I realized that had never really delved into the four kinds of grace that show up in Yoga and Samkhya (according to the Himalayan traditions).

Ishvara kripa (grace of God / Divine grace)
Shastra kripa (grace of scriptures / sacred texts)*
Guru kripa (grace of the Guru)
Atma kripa (grace of oneself)

— the four kinds of Kripa in the Himalayan philosophical traditions

*NOTE: While some teachers/scholars (especially outside of the Himalayan traditions) translate Shastra as “sacred text” or “scripture,” a classical definition describes shastra as the laws of Nature passed down through an oral tradition. Ergo, some of these instructions became sacred texts; however, they would not be “scripture” as that is written down. Note, also, how those two go hand in hand (as indicated below).

During the 2023 New Year’s Day practices and the Saturday practices, I explained the different types of grace as follows: Imagine that you are on a journey. At some point along the way, you must cross a vast body of water. The only way to safely cross the water is in a boat. The fact that the boat you need is exactly where you need it and when you need it is an example of “Divine grace” (as is the fact that you are there when the boat is there). However, if you just sit in the boat, you are never going to get to the other shore. You could read a book and/or someone could tell you that you have to lift the anchor and untie the boat from the dock; but, even then, you might not go where you want/need to go. Sometimes you also need instruction in how to maneuver the boat and/or you might need some assistance, someone who can ferry you across. These types of guidance are examples of “grace of [sacred text]” and “grace of Guru.” Finally, some effort is required from you. Whether it is simply getting in the boat, reading the sacred texts, eliciting the assistance of the Guru-energy, and/or steering the boar, you must do something to get to the other shore — and all of that can be considered “grace of Self.”

In the Yoga Sūtras, Patanjali made it very clear that by going deeper into ourselves, we go deeper in to the world. We are, after all, microcosms of the world… which is a microcosm of the solar system… which is a microcosm of the galaxy… which is a microcosm of the universe. Which is kind of a long way to say that by observing our self, we can learn about the cosmos.

“You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him to find it within himself.”

— Galileo Galilei, as quoted in How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Just because we can, theoretically, learn about the cosmos by going deeper into ourselves, does not mean that we are the center of the universe. Some ancient philosophers perpetuated a geocentric model of the Universe, whereby everything revolved around Earth. In 1543, one of the last things Nicolaus Copernicus did was present a mathematical “theory” — based on observation — indicating that the Sun was actually the center of everything. This heliocentric model created a paradigm shift for almost everyone in the Western world, with the exception of the Catholic Church… and it’s scientists. In fact, as the Scientific Revolution ushered in more advanced technology and better observations, scientists like Tycho Brahe used their more accurate data to develop a geoheliocentric model, whereby the Sun still revolved around the Earth, but everything else revolved around the Sun.

Other scientists, in other countries, had developed similar models based on their own observations, but the Tychonic model was more than a collection of data points. In some ways, it was a desperate attempt to stay in the Church’s favor and to hold on to the old status quo. However, when Tycho unexpectedly died in October of 1601 (from an issue related to his urinary bladder and kidneys, see the 2022 practice), his assistant Johannes Kepler took over his work. Kepler and Tycho had a decent working relationship, but Kepler was convinced Tycho was coming to the wrong conclusions and proceeded accordingly as the imperial mathematician. Galileo Galilei, also a believer in Copernicus’s ideas, would further expand the ideas of Kepler. He did so, through more observations and the realization of what he was seeing.

“But now, Most Serene Prince, we are able to augur truer and more felicitous things for Your Highness, for scarcely have the immortal graces of your soul begun to shine forth on earth than bright stars offer themselves in the heavens which, like tongues, will speak of and celebrate your most excellent virtues for all time. Behold therefore, four stars reserved for your illustrious name, and not of the common sort and multitude of the less notable fixed stars, but of the illustrious order of wandering stars, which, indeed, make their journeys and orbits with a marvelous speed around the star of Jupiter, the most noble of them all, with mutually different motions, like children of the same family, while meanwhile all together, in mutual harmony, complete their great revolutions every twelve years about the center of the world, that is, about the Sun itself. Indeed, it appears that the Maker of the Stars himself, by clear arguments, admonished me to call these new planets by the illustrious name of Your Highness before all others. For as these stars, like the offspring worthy of Jupiter, never depart from his side except for the smallest distance, so who does not know the clemency, the gentleness of spirit, the agreeableness of manners, the splendor of the royal blood, the majesty in actions, and the breadth of authority and rule over others, all of which qualities find a domicile and exaltation for themselves in Your Highness? Who, I say, does not know that all these emanate from the most benign star of Jupiter, after God the source of all good?”

— quoted from Sidereus Nuncius by Galileo Galilei

Despite (or because of) the fact that he was in the middle of a long lineage of notable astronomers, mathematicians, physicists, and engineers, Galileo Galilei is the one remembered as the Father of observational astronomy, modern physics, the scientific method, and modern science. The Indigo Girls even called him “the King of Insight,” which makes sense when you consider that “insight” is “seeing things in a special way.” Thanks to advancements in telescope technology, Galileo was able to see things others had not seen. Similar to the Magi, he looked up instead of down (as others did) and sometime between December of 1609 and the beginning of January of 1610, he noticed three bright, shiny objects near Jupiter. At first he thought he was seeing stars (or new planets), invisible to the naked eye, but clear when using a telescope that magnified up to 20x. Over time, however, he chronicled the movement of these “stars” and realized there were four, not three, and that they weren’t giving off their own light, they were reflecting light. They weren’t stars/suns; they were moons orbiting Jupiter.

Galileo first mentioned the celestial orbs in a letter dated January 7, 1610. He tracked and documented the movement of the spheres from January 8^th until March 2^nd. After seeking the counsel of an advisor to Cosimo II de’ Medici (the Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1609-1621), Galileo named the objects the “Medicean Stars” and published his findings on March 13, 1610.

A German astronomer, Simon Marius, made similar observations in December of 1609 and started documenting his observations on December 29^th (according to the Julian calendar). Even though he was exonerated, because his documentation started on January 8^th (according to the Gregorian calendar), Simon Marius’s reputation was tainted by accusations of plagiarism and an ongoing dispute with Galileo. If you have ever been confused by the names of Jupiter’s moons — Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto (names suggested to Marius by Johannes Kepler) vs I, II, III, IV (as Galileo noted them in his notebooks and discussion) — you can blame it on the calendars… or the scientists’ egos.

Also, as it turns out, there were more than four — but all of that is another story, for a different day. For now, let us get back to Galileo and grace.

“What people don’t realize is it wasn’t really astronomy that was on the table at the trial in 1633 — Well, it happened to be astronomy, but the point was that the Inquisition wanted total control and total power. Total control and total power — and it didn’t matter what was on the table. I mean, he was declared to be a heretic and so he’s just very fortunate he had the correct networks to save his head because many, of course, died…at the hands of the Inquisition.”

— quoted from the lecture “From Tyndale to Galileo: Grace and Space” by David Block, professor emeritus in the School of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

There are lots of different ways to explore the concept of grace in Galileo Galilei’s story. We could look at all the things that had to happen for him (and Simon Marius) to be at the right time and place — with the right equipment and knowledge — to see, observe, and identify the moons. However, we can’t overlook the fact that, at the time, all of Galileo’s work was dangerous. Knowing the dangers, of going up against the Church, Galileo actively sought out the power of grace; and, by “grace,” I mean the power of those royal family members who would have been addressed as “Your Grace.”

In order to secure the Medici’s as patrons, Galileo had a copy of his work, and the telescope he used to see the heavens, delivered to the Grand Duke a few days later. In 1632, he would dedicate his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems to Cosimo’s oldest son, Ferdinando II de’ Medici (the Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1621-1670). This “dialogue” exploring the scientific merits of the Copernican view of things (heliocentric) versus the Ptolemaic view of things (geocentric) eventually landed Galileo Galilei in hot water with the Catholic Church.

As noted by David Bloke and Kenneth Freeman, however, Galileo Galilei’s penalty for heresy could have been much worse than it was. Furthermore, being convicted of heresy, placed under house arrest, and banned from working and/or publishing didn’t stop Galileo, his work, or his ideas. The astrophysicists also point out that Galileo was, himself, a man of faith. He believed, as Professor Bloke said, “…[that] God reveals himself to humanity in two books: the book of nature (I have elucidated already) and the book of Scripture. Now, here comes the punchline, Galileo suggested that both books express eternal truths. That’s very interesting, because the face of science is forever changing. Galileo suggested that both books express eternal truths and are compatible, not incompatible, but compatible of course [because] they have the same author….He’s saying, I’ve got two books in front of me, the book in front of my telescope, the scriptures, but there’s no disagreement because they have the same author.“

“There was no doubt in Galileo’s mind of the authenticity and importance of the discoveries he announced, and since he wished to have them reach astronomers and philosophers all over Europe as quickly as possible he addressed his book to them and wrote it in Latin. He called it the Sidereus Nuncius, which was generally taken to mean ‘the messenger of the stars,’ not only by Galileo’s contemporaries but by the translators in succeeding generations. Several booklets appeared in reply with titles referring to this ‘messenger,’ and there were allusions to this idea in many poems and literary works. Galileo did not correct these authors, but he may not have meant the title to be so interpreted. Several years later a Jesuit critic assailed him for having presented himself as the ambassador of heaven; in the margin of his copy of this attach Galileo noted that the word nuncius means ‘message’ as well as ‘messenger,’ and asserted that he had intended only the humbler meaning. On the basis of this and other evidence, modern scholars have suggested that the word in question has always been mistranslated in this title.”

— quoted from “Introduction: First Part” in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Stillman Drake

It may seem like a “stretch” to connect Galileo Galilei (and the moons of Jupiter) with one of the most influential voices of the Harlem Renaissance; however, in many ways, Zora Neale Hurston was first and foremost an observational researcher. Born January 7, 1891, her science was people and her “message” was for the people. She was an anthropologist, as well as an author of fiction, plays, short stories, and essays. Like Galileo, she changed the way people saw the world. In her case, she changed the way African-Americans and Caribbeans were portrayed in literature. Also like Galileo, she based her work on real time observations.

As for grace, well… all four are everywhere in Zora Neale Hurston’s story and in her stories. There was Divine grace in the fact that she was able to live the life she lived and do the things she did. There was grace of [texts] and grace of Guru-energy in her education. Finally, there was grace in her own agency — especially, when she took advantage of all the other graces she was given.

“Nothing that God ever made is the same thing to more than one person. That is natural.”

— quoted from Dust Tracks On A Road: An Autobiography by Zora Neale Hurston

Prior to the Harlem Renaissance, Black people in America were mostly portrayed as stereotypes and caricatures, often without any redeeming independent qualities or motivations. Ms. Hurston’s own lived experiences didn’t fit into those commonly circulated boxes. She was born in Notasulga, Alabama and moved to Eatonville, Florida — one of the first all-Black incorporated towns in the United States — when she was three. Her father was a man of certain means, who became the town’s mayor and the Baptist minister of the town’s largest church. When her mother died (when Zora Neale Hurston was thirteen), and her father married soon after, the future writer was shipped off to boarding schools and relatives in in Jacksonville, Florida.

The stark difference between her two environments and the class differences between her primary family and her extended family was notable. Furthermore, those differences left an impact on a young woman who’s curiosity was being fueled by her education. After graduating from the high school division of a prominent HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), she started her undergraduate degree at Howard University, another prominent HBCU, and started establishing herself as an influential part of the literati. She was one of the early members of Zeta Phi Beta, the third African-American sorority; co-founded the university’s student newspaper, The Hilltop (which was the first, and is still the only, HBCU daily paper); and was invited to join Dr. Alan Locke’s literary club, The Stylus.

“’Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.’”

— Janie Crawford in Their Eyes Were Watching Gog by Zora Neale Hurston

She left Howard without her bachelor’s degree, but was eventually offered a scholarship to Columbia University’s Bernard College. She was the only black student at the all women’s college. Once again, she was in a unique position to observe the differences between people and cultures. What really interested her, however, were the similarities. She studied ethnography and conducted research with Dr. Franz Boas, known as the “Father of American Anthropology,” and with Dr. Ruth Benedict. Also, she was a student during the time that Dr. Margaret Mead was finishing up her graduate studies. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in anthropology in 1928, and spent an additional two years pursuing a graduate degree at Columbia.

It was while she was conducting research with “Papa Franz” that Zora Neale Hurston discovered her scholastic approach to research wouldn’t get her very far in the field(s). It was also during this time that she received the patronage of Charlotte Osgood Mason, a white socialite and philanthropist who also supported other Harlem Renaissance artists, like Langston Hughes. Like Galileo, Ms. Hurston found that the support of the wealthy was a double-edged sword; because the “Godmother” of the Harlem Renaissance wanted control over the artists and their work — even scholastic research around music, folklore, hoodoo (also known as “Lowcountry Voodoo”), and other aspects of Southern culture. Trying to balance the academic requirements of her advisor, along with the demands of her patron — not to mention her newly formed friendships within the Black arts community and her own burgeoning career as an author — proved to be too much, especially since she was also a newlywed.

“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. It is a seeking that he who wishes may know the cosmic secrets of the world and they that dwell therein.

I was extremely proud that Papa Franz felt like sending me on that folklore search. As is well known, Dr. Franz Boas of the Department of Anthropology of Columbia University, is the greatest anthropologist alive, for two reasons. The first is his insatiable hunger for knowledge and then more knowledge; and the second is his genius for pure objectivity. He has no pet wishes to prove. His instructions are to go out and find what is there. He outlines his theory, but if the facts do not agree with it, he would not wrap a jot or dot of the findings to save his theory. So knowing all this, I was proud that he trusted me….

My first six months were disappointing. I found out later that it was not because I had no talents for research, but because I did not have the right approach.”

— quoted from the autobiographical essay “Research” in Dust Tracks On A Road: An Autobiography by Zora Neale Hurston

Ultimately, however, she didn’t need the degree so much as she needed the experience and the material. Her work includes the semi-autobiographical novel Jonah’s Gourd Vine, published in 1934, and Mules and Men, an autoethnographical collection of African-American folklore, published in 1935. She received support from the Guggenheim Foundation in order to conduct research about voodoo in Jamaica and Haiti, which resulted in Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica (published in 1938). Her published views on race relations and, in particular, how race relations in the United States affected women of color led her to cover the trial of Ruby McCollum for the Pittsburgh Courier (Fall — Winter, 1953). In 1937, she published Their Eyes Were Watching God, her best known (and arguably) most influential novel. She followed that up, two years later, with Moses, Man of the Mountain, a re-telling and re-centering of The Second Book of Moses, Called Exodus (from the Bible) based on an African-American perspective — which, given the timing, has also been viewed as an overall criticism of fascism and the Nazi regime.

Throughout her career, Zora Neale Hurston received criticism for using dialects, for her conservative political views, and for [not doing enough for the Black race]. Even though the she was influential during the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston spent her final days in a welfare home and was buried in an unmarked grave. Pulitzer Prize-winner Alice Walker, and Hurston-scholar Charlotte D. Hunt commissioned a grave marker for the woman who had inspired them and were responsible for helping new generations discover short stories like “Spunk” (1925) and the folklore in Every Tongue Got To Confess: Negro Folk-tales from the Gulf States (collected in the 1920’s and published posthumously in 2001).

“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the same horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.

Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly. ”

— quoted from Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Please join me for a 65-minute virtual yoga practice in-person or on Zoom today (Sunday, January 7^th) at 2:30 PM. You must be registered and confirmed to attend in-person. Use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class via Zoom. You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below or by emailing myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.

Sunday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “01072023 Grace, Zora, & Galileo’s Moons”].

NOTE: The before/after music is slightly different, because I could only find one of the folk songs, related to Zora Neale Hurston, on Spotify.

“And when [Nanny] gained the privacy of her own little shack she stayed on her knees so long she forgot she was there herself. There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought.”

— quoted from Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

“‘I love myself when I am laughing.

And then again when I am looking mean and impressive.’”

— “Zora Neale Hurston, in a letter to Carl Van Vechten, December 10, 1934, referring to a series of photographers he had taken of her” as quoted in I Love Myself when I Am Laughing.. and Then Again when I Am Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader Edited by Alice Walker (Introduction by Mary Helen Washington)

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.)

This can be considered “Grace, part I.” “Grace, part II” is coming soon.

### OM / LOVE NO MATTER WHAT ###

EXCERPT: “Sailing Into New Beginnings” January 3, 2024

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Books, Changing Perspectives, Christmas, Healing Stories, Life, Men, Movies, Music, New Year, One Hoop, Peace, Religion, Writing, Yoga.
Tags: 12 Days of Christmas, Animalic, Herman Melville, Hobbits, J. R. R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, Moby-Dick, The Inklings, yoga, yoga philosophy
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Happy 2024 to Everyone!

“Certainly it reminds me very much of Bilbo in the last years, before he went away. He used often to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. ‘It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,’ he used to say. ‘You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to. Do you realize that this is the very path that goes through Mirkwood, and that if you let it, it might take you to the Lonely Mountain or even further and to worse places?’ He used to say that on the path outside the front door at Bag End, especially after he had been out for a long walk.’”

— Frodo reminiscing with Sam and Pippin in “Book 1, Chapter 3: Three is Company” in The Fellowship of the Ring (Volume 1 of the Lord of the Rings) by J. R. R. Tolkien

A new year means a new (and/or continuing adventure). Here’s an excerpt from a post related to just that!

“The thing we sometimes forget is that our ordinary lives can not only lead us to great adventures, they can themselves be great adventures. We may not, as a young Herman Melville did when he set sail for the South Seas today in 1841, find ourselves actually taking part in a mutiny; landing in a Tahitian jail; escaping from that same jail; and then wandering around the island for two years before serendipitously befriending another great literary mind. We may not, as J. R. R. Tolkien was today in 1892, be born into a family of clock, watch, and piano makers; have an Aunt Jane who lived on a farm called Bag End (with no reference to us); and have cousins named Mary and Marjorie who made up a language called ‘Animalic’ (inspiring us to make up our own languages); nor might we spend our adulthood in close friendships with some of the greatest literary minds of our time; and neither might we share those friendships with our son. Still, just as Melville and Tolkien did, we could write about our own lives and life experiences in a way that (sometimes) entertained and amused others. I say ‘sometimes,’ because both authors produced work that has had mixed reviews….”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE POST RELATED TO JANUARY 3^rd!

“Call me Ishmael”

— quoted from “Chapter I. Loomings” in Moby Dick, or The Whale by Herman Melville

Please join me today (Wednesday, January 3^rd) at 4:30 PM or 7:15 PM for a (virtual or in-person) yoga practice. You must be registered to attend in person. 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 myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.

Wednesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “01032021 Melville Sails Tolkien Beginnings”]

NOTE: The YouTube playlist has been updated for continuity of timing.

“‘Nobody else calls us hobbits; we call ourselves that,’ said Pippin….

‘I’ll call you Merry and Pippin, if you please – nice names. For I am not going to tell you my name, not yet at any rate.’ A queer half-knowing, half-humorous look came with a green flicker into his eyes. ‘For one thing it would take a long while: my name is growing all the time, and I’ve lived a very long, long time; so my name is like a story. Real names tell you the story of things they belong to in my language, in the Old Entish as you might say. It is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time saying anything in it, because we do not say anything in it, unless it is worth taking a long time to say, and to listen to.’”

— Pippin and Merry meeting “Treebeard” in “Book 4, Chapter 4: Treebeard” in The Two Towers (Volume 2 of the Lord of the Rings) by J. R. R. Tolkien

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.)

### RAISE YOUR SAILS ###

2 Short EXCERPTS: “Living ‘A (SAD) Wonderful Life’” December 20, 2023

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Books, Changing Perspectives, Faith, Healing Stories, Hope, Life, Love, Movies, Music, One Hoop, Pain, Suffering, Tragedy, Wisdom, Yoga.
Tags: Charles Dickens, Clarence Odbody, Frank Capra, George Bailey, It's A Wonderful Life, mental health, Philip Van Doren Stern, SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder
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Peace and blessings to all, and especially those celebrating Advent.

“Every time you hear a bell ring, it means that some angel’s just got his wings.”

— Clarence Odbody (AS2), quoted from It’s A Wonderful Life

Here are a couple of excerpts about a holiday favorite:

Even people who don’t celebrate Christmas, as a religious holiday or otherwise, may have a favorite Christmas story or carol. These stories — which become such perennial favorites they are often turned into plays, ballets, musicals, and all manners of pageants — are full of not only the trappings and traditions of Christmas, but also the spirit. You may think the spirit of which I speak is the hope, the cheer, and the good tidings; but, one consistent element in these stories is grief, desolation, isolation, sadness — and yes, also SAD-ness.

The Greatest Gift was self-published by its author, Philip Van Doren Stern, in 1943 – exactly 100 years after Charles Dickens first published A Christmas Carol. In fact, Stern (who was half Jewish) was partially inspired by the Dickens-classic. Although the story takes place at Christmastime and was initially sent out as Stern’s 1943 Christmas cards, the author intend the story to be universal. The following year the story was picked up by a two different magazines (including Good Housekeeping, which called it ‘The Man Who Was Never Born’) and a movie production company. By 1945, the original movie rights for The Greatest Gift had been sold to director and producer Frank Capra, who would change the title and tweak some of the details.”

Click here for more about Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life, which premiered today in 1946.

“[Remember,] real life is different from a novella by Dickens, a short story by Stern, or a movie by Capra; in part because there’s not a writer or director making sure the intervention happens. Also, not everything gets tied up at the end. However, if you or someone you know is experiencing symptoms associated with SAD, it is important to take two big lessons from these fictional works: 1. You are not alone. 2. You can get help.”

“Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. And when he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?”

— Clarence Odbody (AS2), quoted from It’s A Wonderful Life

Please join me today (Wednesday, December 20^th) at 4:30 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 myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.

Wednesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “12202020 A SAD Wonderful Life”]

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

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

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

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.)

### Breathe. Know that you are loved. ###

Working Together (a post–practice Monday post) September 4, 2023

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Books, Changing Perspectives, Gratitude, Healing Stories, Hope, Karma, Life, Movies, One Hoop, Pain, Peace, Philosophy, Suffering, Tragedy, TV, Wisdom, Writing, Yoga.
Tags: capitalism, Cornell University, Eugene V. Debs, F. Peterson, Labor Action Tracker, Labor Day, nurses, R. Hyman, SAG-AFTRA, school staff, Starbucks, teachers, Teamsters, Warrior Met Coal strike, Writers Guild
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May you be safe, protected, and appreciated.

This post–practice post for Monday, September 4^th, Labor Day in the United States and parts of Canada. You can request an audio recording of either practice via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.

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

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

**“Strike: ‘A temporary stoppage of work by a group of workers in order to express a grievance or to enforce a demand. Such a grievance or demand may or may not be workplace-related.’**

– -The first sentence of this definition is heavily influenced by Peterson (1937: 3),¹ also used by Hyman (1989: 17).² The only difference we make to the first part of this definition is by changing ‘employees’ to ‘workers.’

Labor Protest: ‘Collective action by a group of people as workers but without withdrawing their labor in order to express a grievance or enforce a demand. Such a grievance or demand may or may not be workplace-related. A labor protest may also consist of a group of people not acting in the protest as workers as long as the central demand is workplace related.’

We distinguish between strikes and labor protests as a core component of our labor action tracker. The major distinction between strikes and labor protests relates to whether a group of workers stopped work during the course of the event. We believe this definition of strikes is relatively inclusive, but we need to convincingly demonstrate that a stoppage of work led by a group of workers occurs to label an event a strike.”

— quoted “Section I: Definitions” on the “Methodology” page of the Cornell University Labor Action Tracker

The last few years have been the most active years, in my lifetime, with regard to labor action. According to the Labor Action Tracker maintained by Cornell University, 394 strikes occurred in 615 locations between September 4, 2022 and September 4, 2023. That is in addition to 458 labor protests (in 568 locations) during the same period. That’s a total of 852 labor actions found in 1183 locations.

Some of these labor disputes — like the strikes involving teachers and school staffs, nurses, and members of SAG-AFTRA* and the Writers Guild, as well as the Starbucks union initiatives and various Teamster union actions — have been front and center in the media and in the minds of the general populace. Some — like the nearly 2-year long Warrior Met Coal strike in Alabama — never got the kind of coverage that sways public opinion one way (or the other). The thing is, all of these labor actions occur because people want the same things workers have always wanted: better working conditions and better pay.

On one hand, better working conditions and better pay do not seem too much to ask when companies are pulling in billions (and sometimes) trillions of dollars — and/or when corporate leaders and superintendents are being paid even as stocks fall and children struggle. On the other hand….

Yep, nope; not going to both sides this. Because, at the end of the day, the companies — not to mention the country — run because of the workers who are asking for the same things people have always wanted: to be safe and to make enough money to take care of themselves and their families. Additionally, it inevitably costs more (on a lot of different levels) to not come to the bargaining table and work out an agreement than it does for everyone to come together and work together.

Click here for the 2020/2022 post that shows how all of this is rooted in the history of Labor Day.(Includes video!)

In many ways, the way labor works in the world is similar to the way the different parts of our mind-body-spirits work. We may think one part has nothing to do with another part because the two parts are not touching on the outside (and, therefore, we are not conscious of the connections); but, let the imbalance go unaddressed and suddenly the whole system falls apart. Similarly, we can argue that focusing on one part takes away from another part. However, if we don’t work to create balance, the imbalance will (again) cause our system to fail.

Bottom line: If the workers don’t work, the company (and the country) don’t work. Everything shuts down. Additionally, when people are forced to work in unsafe and unfair conditions, they break down — which ultimately results in the company (and the country) breaking down. Finally, when we come together and figure out equitable ways to work together, everyone benefits — even those people who are not in a specific union and/or industry.

“I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.”

— Eugene V. Debs, quoted from his statement to the Federal Court (Cleveland, Ohio), after being convicted of violating the Sedition Act, September 18, 1918

There is no playlist for the Common Ground Meditation Center practices.

*NOTE: SAG-AFTRA is the Screen Actors and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

“¹Peterson, F. (1937). Strikes in the United States: 1880-1936. Washington: United States Department of Labor.

² Hyman, R. (1989). Strikes: Fourth Edition. London: Macmillan.”

— quoted “Section I: Definitions” on the “Methodology” page of the Cornell University Labor Action Tracker

### YOGA ###

EXCERPT (with links): “I Can’t Say That… Can I?” August 30, 2023

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Art, Books, Changing Perspectives, Healing Stories, Hope, Life, Movies, Music, One Hoop, Pain, Peace, Suffering, Tragedy, Wisdom, Women, Writing, Yoga.
Tags: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Molly Ivins, Moscow-Washington Direct Communication Link, SCOTUS, Second Battle of Bull Run, Second Battle of Manassas, Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall, Washington-Moscow Direct Communication Link
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May you be safe, peaceful, healthy, and hydrated.

“‘You are in the wrong,’ replied the fiend; ‘and instead of threatening, I am content to reason with you. I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all…? Shall I respect man when he condemns me? Let him live with me in the interchange of kindness, and instead of injury I would bestow every benefit upon him with tears of gratitude at his acceptance. But that cannot be; the human senses are insurmountable barriers to our union. Yet mine shall not be the submission of abject slavery. I will revenge my injuries; if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear, and chiefly towards you my archenemy…’”

– quoted from Chapter 17 of Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

The following excerpt is from a 2020 post:

“After all is said and done, there is a part of me, like Mary Shelley, that finds a kindred spirit in the heart of the ‘monster.’ There is that part of me that would like to know only peace and love; and would choose to practice those favorite mantras (‘Peace In, Peace Out; Inhale Love, Exhale Kindness’) as if we live in a vacuum. There is also a part of me that recognizes why so many in the world are turning towards the ‘monster’s’ other choice. And, in this moment, I seek (and seek to teach) the practice that helps us deliberately choose peace and love in light of the situations that cause others to rage.”

“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”

– quoted from the movie based on Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Click here to read the short post highlighting Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (b. 1797); the end of the Second Battle of Bull Run (also known as Manassas) in 1862; Molly Ivins (b. 1944); the first message sent via the Moscow–Washington hotline (in 1963); and Thurgood Marshall’s confirmation to the Supreme Court of the United States (today in 1967).

Please join me for a “spirited” virtual yoga practice on Zoom today (Wednesday, August 30^th) at 4:30 PM or 7:15 PM. 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 by emailing myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.

Wednesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “10202020 Pratyahara”]

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

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

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

### THE LIGHT IS STILL ON & THE LINE IS STILL OPEN!! ###

The McGuffin’s MacGuffin, redux (mostly the music) August 13, 2023

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Art, Books, Changing Perspectives, Healing Stories, Life, Meditation, Movies, Music, One Hoop, Pain, Peace, Philosophy, Suffering, Wisdom, Yoga.
Tags: Alfred Hitchcock, Berlin Wall, Ibram X. Kendi, Leland Poague, Potsdam Conference, Richard Freeman, Thomas Leitch, Todd McGowan
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May we all be safe and protected… and hydrated.

“May all of us together be protected….”

– excerpt from the beginning of the “Teaching Shantipat,” chanted in Sanskrit by Richard Freeman (when we are in the studio)

Please join me for a 65-minute virtual yoga practice on Zoom today (Sunday, August 13^th) at 2:30 PM. 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 by emailing myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.

Sunday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “08132022 The McGuffin’s MacGuffin”]

“Hitchcock’s example of the MacGuffin emphasizes its impossible status: not only is the object that one [never has], but one cannot even isolate it as an idea. It remains necessarily empty, and yet functions as an engine for the Hitchcockian narrative. The emptiness of the MacGuffin as an object permits spectators to locate their satisfaction in the striving that it unleashes rather than identifying satisfaction with the discovery of its secret.”

– quoted from “The Empty Object” in “27. Hitchcock’s Ethics of Suspense: Psychoanalysis and the Devaluation of the Object” by Todd McGowan (as published in A Companion to Alfred Hitchcock, edited by Thomas Leitch and Leland Poague)

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.)

### BE Fearless & PLAY. BE WISE.###

The Grace of Kindness & God’s Silence March 18, 2023

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in 19-Day Fast, Baha'i, Books, Changing Perspectives, Faith, Healing Stories, Health, Hope, Lent / Great Lent, Life, Love, Minnesota, Movies, Music, One Hoop, Pain, Peace, Poetry, Religion, Suffering, Twin Cities, Wisdom, Writing, Yoga.
Tags: 2 Corinthians, Alison McGhee, Carry app, Clem Snide, Denis Johnson, Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright, Franz Wright, James Wright, Julia Keller, pandemic, Pulitzer Prize, Season for Nonviolence, Season of Nonviolence
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Peace and 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!

“You could call someone
where it’s still early.

Go out and look at the stars
shining
in the past

Or open the Joachim Jeremias to the densely printed
page, it’s corner folded
for some reason
not yet remembered

before you set the clock.

You have to set the clock—
for a moment that doesn’t exist yet”

– quoted from the poem “Home Remedy” in God’s Silence by Franz Wright

Do you remember this week, three years ago? Do you remember today?

I know, I know, some parts of the last three years are a blur; but, three years ago today, I was putting together a full-length practice video, to post on YouTube. It was a Wednesday, everything was shutting down, and I was posting the video so people could keep up their practice. I had no real plans to do anything else… other than post on the blog for two weeks and maybe post a couple of more videos. Goodness. Do you remember when…?

It’s a little surreal to realize that – not counting my videos on the Carry prenatal yoga and meditation app – my first full-length (physical) practice video, with all it’s flaws, is still my only full-length (physical) practice video. What is super surreal is to think about the hundreds of full-length audio recordings I’ve made in the meantime and, also, to realize that 2019 was the last time I taught a live class on the anniversary of the birth of Franz Wright.

“I am here to learn
to bear
the beams of love,
what else

Bells
through the leaves, I am here to endure the

bells tolling
underground”

– quoted from the poem “Introduction” in God’s Silence by Franz Wright

Born in Vienna, today in 1953, Franz Wright spent portions of his childhood in Washington (state), California, and the Midwestern United States (in particular, Minnesota). In addition to sharing similar poetic themes, he and his father, James Wright, are the only parent and child to win a Pulitzer Prize in the same category. The elder Wright suffered from depression, bipolar disorders, and alcoholism and focused on the emotional suffering he saw around him, especially that suffering experienced by the disenfranchised in America. The younger Wright wrote about isolation, loneliness, longing, insomnia, and death intersecting with kindness, love, faith, hope, and peace. Three years ago today, I thought it oddly and serendipitously appropriate that my first virtual offering focused on Franz Wright’s work.

Three years later, I find his words still ring true and, oddly, still fit our current circumstances.

Versions of the following were original posted on March 18th and 20th of 2020. You can click on the dates (to the left) to view the original posts. Some links (below) will take you away from my blog.

Chicago Tribune critic Julia Keller once described one of Franz Wright’s collections as being “ultimately about joy and grace and the possibility of redemption, about coming out whole on the other side of emotional catastrophe,” while Denis Johnson supposedly compared his poems to “tiny jewels shaped by blunt, ruined fingers – miraculous gifts.” I know, that’s a lot to take in (and you might need to read that Va. Woolf-like sentence again). The thing is; I think we are (still) in the middle of a Franz Wright poem. So, brace yourself.

I first came across Franz Wright’s poem “Solution” in a 2015 blog post written by Alison McGhee, a New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize-nominee, who writes and teaches up the street from where I was in March of 2020. In the post (which I strongly recommend), Professor McGhee wrote about an encounter she had with someone best described as her exterior opposite. Yet the interior movements of the heart, all of our hearts, are ultimately the same – something both Alison McGhee’s short post and Franz Wright’s poem illustrate bluntly, beautifully, and miraculously.

Both the post and the poem contain reminders we could all use right now.

“What is the meaning of kindness?
Speak and listen to others, from now on,
as if they had recently died.
At the core the seen and unseen worlds are one.”

– “Solution” by Franz Wright

Franz Wright’s poems are full of natural spirituality and that oftentimes “heartbreaking human conflict between religion and spirit.” The final line of the poem “Solution” reminds me of 2 Corinthians 4:18 where Saint Paul and Saint Timothy wrote, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” NOTE: The New Living Translation translates this passage as “So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.” In 2020, I suggested focusing on what is unseen (during the practice). Today, I suggest focusing on the unseen as grace (how ever that resonates for you).

“II

The long silences need to be loved, perhaps
more than the words
which arrive
to describe them
in time.”

– quoted from the poem “Home Remedy” in God’s Silence by Franz Wright

Franz Wright won two National Endowment for the Arts grants (1985 and 1992), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1989), a Whiting Award (1991), the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, (1996), and the aforementioned Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. His first collection after winning the 2004 Pulitzer Prize was entitled God’s Silence. I haven’t read all of it (yet), but I am still fascinated by the idea of 144 pages worth of Franz Wright poetry curated around the idea of “God’s Silence.” Notice, that it’s 144 pages – not 144 poems. (Poets everywhere are now doing the math.) This is the kind of the thing that gets me oddly excited, because there is so much I want to know!

I want to know if he was referring to silence that is the response to a prayer or a request (or even a curse); the silence that precedes an answer; the silence that follows the answer (when the questioner is dumbfounded or in awe of the response); the silence when one is pondering the best way to phrase something and therefore measuring their words; the silence of shock (can we shock God?); the silence of disappointment; the silence of wonder; the silence when no one is around; the silence of sleeping children; the silence between one breath and the next; the silence of meditation; the silence of peace; the silence honoring the dead; the silence just before a newborn declares itself alive; or….The list goes on.

He could have been talking about all of the above. Or none of the above. There are so many possibilities – and they are all full of grace (whatever that means to you in this moment)!

“I

Armed Conflict

Snowy light fills the room
pronouncing itself

softly. The telephone ringing

in the deserted city— ”

– the poem “Armed Conflict” quoted from God’s Silence by Franz Wright

The first section of God’s Silence is entitled “East Boston, 1996” and the first poem in that section, “Armed Conflict,” sets the stage for the other poems, including “Solitary Play: Minnesota, 1961” – which is a dark and twisted coming of age poem. The latter feels even darker and more twisted given so many current events related to children and our conflicts about the 2nd Amendment. And that’s the thing, again, about Franz Wright’s poetry: We don’t have to go through the things he went through to feel, deep inside of our own hearts, the gut-wrenching things he felt.

We don’t have to be the son of James Wright to understand what it is like to stand in the shadow and the light of a parent who struggled every day with their own darkness and light. Neither do we have to be abandoned by said parent to see the poignant irony of living (and dying) in much the same ways. Nor do we have to spend our finally days, dealing with terminal lung cancer and writing what are essentially love poems to our spouse*, to understand why a collection of memories is named Kindertotenwald (essentially, a forest of ones who will never age). We all get it, can get it; especially, if we read (or listen to) Franz Wright’s poetry.

Maybe, possibly, we can also get the grace that was his kindness, love, faith, hope, and peace.

“After all, it was only a blizzard in Minneapolis in 1959. How are you supposed to describe something like me? And when you think about it, why should you try, why should you even care?”

– quoted from the prose poem “Wintersleep” in Kindertotenwald by Franz Wright

I not only care about poetry that gets you through hard times, I love it. In part, because it makes you realize that someone has been through harder – or, as hard of a time as you. Additionally, I think one of the reasons I was/am so fascinated with the idea of God’s Silence is that part of my practice involves silence, moving into silence and stillness. The kind of silence and stillness that can make people uncomfortable, because it is so powerful. Yet, it is simultaneously the kind of silence and stillness that is the epitome of peace. When Patanjali codified the philosophy of yoga in the Yoga Sūtras, he wrote, “yogash citta vritti nirodah.” (YS 1.2) Yoga ceases the fluctuations of the mind.

Silence.

Perhaps, God’s silence.

“Like you a guest, a ghost here

Everything will be forgotten

And either I am too alone
or I am not
alone enough
to make each moment
holy

(no one bats 1,000 friend
no one
bats 500)

And I have heard God’s silence like the sun
and sought to change

Now
I’m just going to listen to the silence
till the Silence.”

– quoted from the poem “Introduction” in God’s Silence by Franz Wright

Please join me for a 90-minute virtual yoga practice on Zoom today (Saturday, March 18^th) at 12:00 PM. 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 by emailing myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.

Saturday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “07082020 On Death & Dying”]

*NOTE: Franz Wright was married to the translator Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright. In addition to writing and recording some of his poems (including the Clem Snide song “Encounter at 3AM,”) Mr. Wright recorded some of his final thoughts and conversations before he died in 2015. Last Words, is a documentary featuring those final recordings.

“All of this is for your benefit. And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.

That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day.

For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!

So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.”

– The Second Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians 4:15 – 18 (NLT)

This playlist includes the full-length practice from 2020 and music for that practice. The music is similar to the playlists above.

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.)

### Ecology ###

FTWMI: Winning the Lottery, with some Powerball® thoughts (the “missing” Monday post) March 6, 2023

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in "Impossible" People, 19-Day Fast, Art, Baha'i, Bhakti, Books, Changing Perspectives, Confessions, Dharma, Faith, Food, Healing Stories, Hope, Kirtan, Lent / Great Lent, Life, Minneapolis, Movies, Music, Mysticism, Peace, Philosophy, Purim, Religion, Suffering, Wisdom, Women, Writing, Yoga.
Tags: Aaron Koller, Bob Dylan, Hebrew, lottery, Maccabeats, Nissim Black, Powerball®, R'Shua, Søren Kierkegaard, Star Wars, Sting, Susanna Barkataki
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Happy Purim! Many blessings to all, and especially to those observing Lent, Great Lent, the Baháʼí 19-Day Fast, and/or Purim during this “Season for Non-violence” and all other seasons!

For Those Who Missed It: This “missing” post for Monday, March 6^th, is an abridged version of a 2022 post about Purim. (But this is not the story you think it is!) A link to the original post is embedded below (at the point where I shortened it. There is also a lottery link that connects to an outside source. You can request an audio recording of any of these 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.)

“It is perfectly true, as the philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.”

– quoted from Journals (IV A 164), 1843 by Søren Kierkegaard

You know how there are some stories, like the Star Wars movies, that begin as one thing and then over time and generations become something else? That question can be answered as it relates to the story, but here I am specifically talking about the sequence.* When the original movie came out in May of 1977, it was just Star Wars. When the next movies came out – in May of 1980 and May of 1983 – they had their own titles. However, if someone referred to them numerically, they would be first, second, and third (or 1, 2, and 3). Fast forward over two decades from the originally released movie and there were prequels, which (while I am loath to admit they exist) changed the order of things. Fast forward another decade (going on two) and there were (pretty amazing) sequels to the originally released movies. The story continues… and I love that.

I love of stories and storytelling. I think it’s fascinating that we meet each other in the middle of our stories and simultaneously work forwards and back. We don’t always think about it, but the way the Star Wars movies were released is actually how we meet and how most of the stories we read, hear, and watch work too. It’s very rare that we meet characters at the beginning of creation. A story usually begins in the middle or at the end. So, part of what I love about storytelling is how the storyteller (or the story) chooses to unfold the tale. In fact, part of the beauty of the story is watching it unfold.

One of my favorite stories – in part, because the way the story unfolds is part of the story – is the story people tell on Purim. It is the story in and around The Megillah or The Megillat Esther.

In case you are unfamiliar with the holiday and the story, Purim [פּוּרִים] is a Hebrew word meaning “lots” – as in “casting lots” or “lottery.” It is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the story told in the Megillah (“scroll”) of Esther, which is the story of how Queen Esther saved the Jewish people from the evil plot of a man whose actions are good examples of someone who was narcissistic, power hungry, and also anti-Semitic. The “Book of Esther” is not only found in the Hebrew Bible it is also one of the five megillot (“scrolls”) that make up part of the Christian Old Testament. Some people think of it as a great story about the power of a woman – and while it is that, it is also something more; because the story has a lot of “hidden” elements.

The story is quite literally about things that “someone” decided to “hide and hide” [הַסְתֵּ֨ר אַסְתִּ֤יר].

“Another approach, found already in rabbinic literature, takes the absence of God as a positive statement made by the author. The Rabbis, and numerous other readers since, understood the literary absence of God to be merely a surface-level fact, and in fact to be a subtle argument for the hiddenness of God, rather than his absence. A Talmudic comment (in B. Hullin 139b) playfully asks, ‘What is the source for Esther in the Torah?’ The answer given is that Esther was foretold in Deuteronomy 31:18: ‘I will indeed hide (haster astir) my face on that day.’ In part this is a pun, linking the name Esther to the Hebrew phrase ‘I will indeed hide’ (haster astir), but in part it is a serious theological claim: where did the Torah foretell a story with no God?”

– quoted from “8. Diaspora revisions: rethinking Exodus and rethinking God – Entering the fray: Esther as a political book” in Esther in Ancient Jewish Thought by Aaron Koller

People celebrate Purim by dressing up in costume – hiding one’s true identity – and having a party or feast. People may also have a parade and a pageant. The costuming and the party (even the parades and pageants) are all, symbolically, part of the story. To add yet another symbol from the story, the feasting includes hamantaschen, a yummy triangular shaped pastry that I always think of as Haman’s hat, but which literally means “Haman’s pockets.” In some Jewish communities they are referred to as “Haman’s ears.”

The story is symbolically reinforced in many different ways during the celebration of Purim, because the biggest part of the holiday is the story itself. In fact, listening to a public reading of the Book of Esther, in the evening (since the holiday starts at sunset) and in the morning, is one of four mitzvoh (“commandments”) related to Purim. The other three take place during the day and are sending food gifts to friends; giving charity to the poor; and eating a festive meal.

While I don’t read the actual text** to people during the practice, I do tell the story. And for years, I have used the music to help me tell the story – just like I do with all the other stories. Up until ~~this year~~ 2022, however, my Purim playlist was a little… shall we say, problematic. Because there was something hidden in my playlist – and not in a good way.

“This desert rose
Whose shadow bears the secret promise
This desert flower
No sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this
And now she turns
This way she moves in the logic of all my dreams
This fire burns
I realize that nothing’s as it seems”

– quoted from the song “Desert Rose” by Sting

Some of my playlists have always reflected the culture behind the story or theme of the day. For instance, my Saint Patrick’s Day playlist is full of Irish musicians and musicians with Irish heritage, just like my Cinco de Mayo playlist is full of musicians with Mexican heritage. As I’ve previously mentioned on the blog, I’ve very deliberately made some playlists multi-cultural to highlight the fact that so many cultures celebrate things like light overcoming darkness. Then, years ago, a friend’s comment really made me consider why my playlists mostly featured men. Despite all that, I never really considered that there was something off about my Purim playlist.

And, that takes us back to why certain songs were popular, while other also very good songs were not as popular.

“It’s so not an accident that most of the kirtan and ‘yoga music artists’ on our playlists are NOT from within the tradition. (It is called erasure and happens to people of color in our own traditions ALL THE TIME.)⁣⁣⁣”

– quoted from a January 2022 message entitled “What Are You Listening to? On Decolonizing Your Yoga Playlists” by Susanna Barkataki

Susanna Barkataki is a yoga advocate, a teacher, a public speaker, and the author of Embrace Yoga’s Roots: Courageous Ways to Deepen Your Yoga Practice. In her book, her articles, and her classes, she encourages students and teachers to (re)connect to yoga’s ancient roots. She strongly recommends that teachers consider why they do the things they do (and say the things they say) when teaching. She also suggests that teachers take a look at how some of the things we say and do are the result of colonization and cultural erasure. However, she does not simply point to how elements of our modern, Western-centric practice are problematic. She also offers tools and solutions. For instance, she specifically points to music and highlights the fact that those of us using kirtan – which is a form of bhakti or devotional yoga – are almost always using non-traditional musicians. Sometimes, even using musicians that mispronounce the Sanskrit words.

To be clear, Ms. Barkataki uses the words “cultural erasure,” but it’s a concept I’ve always known as whitewashing. And, above and beyond anything else, she encourages us all to be mindful about the choices we make. Being mindful meant that when I was getting ready for Purim ~~this~~ last year, I realized that in most of the ways that counted, my culturally-specific playlist was specifically the wrong culture.

In my effort to pick songs that told the story, I neglected to pick Jewish musicians. Even worse, given the context of the story, my original playlist included several songs with Arabic lyrics and/or Arabic-related references that had nothing to do with Jewish heritage. To be clear about my own hubris, I knew this… I just leaped over the issue. In some ways, my mental gymnastics included the fact that those songs could be about a Jewish woman like Esther. They could very easily have been songs written by people who didn’t know their beautiful “Persian” queen was born Hadassah. Anything is possible.

However, the reality was that they were just popular songs that were also really good, worked with the practice, and could fit the story. They were songs that I knew, because I had heard them on the radio.

“Erasure is when the originators of a particular tradition are surpassed, replaced or ignored. Why? Because it makes it easier to colonize and exploit our cultural and spiritual wisdom and wealth.”

– quoted from a January 2022 message entitled “What Are You Listening to? On Decolonizing Your Yoga Playlists” by Susanna Barkataki

I recently heard a young, up-and-coming artist compare achieving a huge milestone to winning the lottery. For sure, I can see that. Especially when you consider how many people commented on the fact that this artist hit this much deserved milestone before his much lauded collaborator. (Don’t misunderstand me, I’m a big fan of both artists, but there’s something more than talent at play here.) I think having a hit song is also like that. Because while there is a lot of hard work that goes into creating a hit song, there’s also a lot of luck. It’s like that old adage: you can’t win if you don’t play. Of course, most people who play, don’t win – at least not really big – and it’s the same thing with being a big star in music.

The existence of streaming services and social media means that a lot of hustle and marketing on the part of the artist (and their community) can get an artist noticed today, in a way they couldn’t get noticed 20-plus years ago. That attention can really push a song up the charts. However, we’re still in a time time when songs are hits (in part) because they are played on the radio. And for all that hustle, many songs are played on the radio because of the way the musician looks. This is true across genres. This is even more so when it comes to music in and from certain countries and cultures. Being talented and having the “right” size, complexion, ethnicity, and (on a certain level) gender and sexuality, is like hitting the Powerball®.

““The Multi-State Lottery Association encourages all lottery players to be responsible in their amount of play.

For some people gambling can become a problem. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, there are a number of helpful resources listed below.

National Council on Problem Gambling
24 Hour Confidential National Helpline
Call: 1-800-522-4700
Chat: ncpgambling.org/chat
Text: 1-800-522-4700

Association of Problem Gambling Service Administrators”

– quoted from the “Play Responsibly” tab on the Powerball® website

While I’ve been known to play bingo in a church basement (for charity and the chance to win a homemade quilt), I’m not really one to play the lottery. My limited understanding is that there’s a lot of different ways you can win with a Powerball®. However, just like with music and other things that could make you wealthy beyond your dreams, you have to be responsible and avoid the scams. You have to balance the temptation and your desire with reality. The reality, again, being that if you don’t play, you don’t win; but most people don’t win… big.

If you’re talented and have the aforementioned equivalent of the Powerball®, you can do things other people can’t do. You can write songs that make people re-think the world. You can sing songs other people not only wouldn’t think to sing, but might be afraid to sing. You can inspire people to sing your songs… even when they don’t always understand you. To me, Bob Dylan and his eponymous first album are a great example of a musical Powerball®.

Click here to read the remainder of the musical Powerball® notes.

There is no playlist for the Common Ground Meditation practice.

The 2022 playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “Purim 2022”]

*NOTE: Here’s a funny aside (related to the original 2022 post). In 2020, just as we started locking down for the pandemic, I blogged and posted a playlist about stories and music. That would have been Part I, except that it was for March 22^nd – which means that if I ever get everything posted in sequential order it would be Part III (after the Purim or Saint Patrick’s Day post and the Bob Dylan post).

**NOTE: Since I don’t actually read the Purim text during the practice, I almost always leave out the part where Haman is begging for his life and the King misreads the situation. In some ways, it is an important part of the cause-and-effect of the narrative – and it definitely brings up another aspect of how our perceptions affect our stories – but it’s comes at the end so I often overlook it.

Here’s something fun that’s on the YouTube playlist, but is not (yet) available on Spotify.

And, here’s an old favorite.

### Are You Lucky or Are You Blessed? ###

A Kitchen Story (or 2) on Day 4 (the “missing” Wednesday post) January 26, 2023

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Books, Changing Perspectives, Confessions, Depression, Healing Stories, Hope, Life, Loss, Meditation, Movies, Music, New Year, One Hoop, Pain, Philosophy, Suffering, Tragedy, Vipassana, Wisdom, Women, Writing, Yoga.
Tags: asana, Dr. Toya Webb, hatha yoga, Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Kitchen God, Lunar New Year, Metta, Michael Cunningham, Pancham Sinh, Patanjali, priviledge, Spring Festival, Virginia Woolf, Year of the Cat, Year of the Rabbit, Yoga Sutras 2.51-2.52
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“Happy (Lunar) New Year!” and “Happy Carnival!” to those who are celebrating.

This is the missing post for Wednesday, January 25^th. Like the playlist, this is a remix of 2022 posts (one of which was a remix from 2021). If you click on the link in the “CODA, redux,” please note that the beginning is similar (but the posts are different).

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\. Donations are tax deductible.

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

CODA, redux

Do you ever think about what yoga and Virginia Woolf have in common? No? Just me? Ok, that’s fine; it’s not the first time – and will not be the last time that I make what, on the surface, appears to be a really random connection. It’s not even the first (and probably won’t be the last) time this week. However, whenever I circle back to this practice and this theme, I found myself thinking about different similarities. Last year, I found myself thinking a little more about mental health and the implications of having space, time, and the other resources to focus, concentrate, contemplate, and meditate. This year, I find myself thinking more about what it takes to tell our stories and the vantage point(s) from which we tell our stories – especially the stories we tell about our defining moments.

“A writer is a person who sits at a desk and keeps his eye fixed, as intently as he can, upon a certain object—that figure of speech may help to keep us steady on our path if we look at it for a moment. He is an artist who sits with a sheet of paper in front of him trying to copy what he sees. What is his object—his model?”

“A writer has to keep his eye upon a model that moves, that changes, upon an object that is not one object but innumerable objects. Two words alone cover all that a writer looks at—they are, human life.”

– quoted from the essay “The Leaning Tower (A paper read to the Workers’ Educational Association, Brighton, May 1940.)” as it appears in The Moment and Other Essays by Virginia Woolf

We all have defining moments in our lives. These may be moments that we use to describe the trajectory of our lives or maybe moments that we use to describe ourselves. Either way, when a single moment plays a big part in who we are and what’s important to us, we sometimes forget that that single moment – as important as it may be – is part of a sequence of moments. It is the culmination of what’s happened before and the beginning of what happens next; it’s just a single part of our ever-changing story. Even when – or especially when – that moment is the story, we have to be careful about how we frame it. It doesn’t matter if we are telling our story or someone else’s story; how we tell the story matters.

For a lot of people who are celebrating the Lunar New Year, the fourth day is the day when things start going back to normal (whatever that is these days). People go back to work and back to school. People who were able to travel to see family start heading back home (or are already home). Even though those celebrating the Spring Festival for 15 days, will reign in the festivities a bit. However, each day still has significance and special rituals. For instance, the fourth day of the Lunar New Year is not only the birthday of all sheep (in some Chinese traditions), it is also the day when the Kitchen God returns to the hearth.

According to one set of stories, the Kitchen God was at one time a man who, after gaining a certain amount of power and wealth, abandoned his first wife and married a younger woman. Years after the original couple divorced, the man fell on hard times. He lost his wealth, his power, his second wife, and his eyesight. He became a beggar on the streets. One day, the stories tell us, the man’s first wife saw her former husband begging in the streets. She was a woman of great kindness and compassion and so she invited him to her simple home and offered him a shower, some food, and a moment of warmth by the fire.

Remember, the old man could no longer see and didn’t know that this generous woman was the same woman he had treated so poorly. Full, clean, and sitting by the fire, however, he started to talk about his first wife. He lamented about his first marriage and the life they could have had if he hadn’t dumped her. In the process of soothing her now sobbing former husband, the woman revealed her identity and said that she forgave him. Miraculously, the man was suddenly able to see; but he was so distraught that he threw himself into the kitchen stove.

Legend has it, the woman could only save his leg – which became the fireplace poker – and the man became the “Kitchen God,” who leaves the kitchen alter just before the New Year and returns to heaven in order to give the Jade Emperor an accounting of each household’s activities during the previous year. In the final days of the old year, people will clean up their homes – so the alter(s) will be ready for the return of the gods and ancestors – and, sometimes, smear honey on the lips of the Kitchen God so that his report is extra sweet. Then the Kitchen God and other household gods return on the fourth day of the New Year.

I always imagine that some years the Kitchen God’s report is really, really, wild. Can you imagine? Seriously, imagine what he would say about the way we have treated each other over the last few years. Sure, some of us might not be portrayed too badly; but others of us….

More to the point, consider what happens when the Kitchen God’s report includes an update about someone’s defining moment(s). Just imagine a report from the beginning of 1882 (which would have been the end of the year of the snake); the fall of 1928 (year of the dragon); Spring of 1940 (year of the dragon); and the beginning of 2008 (the year of the boar). Imagine, even, the report from 1941 (another year of the dragon). What hard truths would have been in those reports?

“But the leaning-tower writers wrote about themselves honestly, therefore creatively. They told the unpleasant truths, not only the flattering truths. That is why their autobiography is so much better than their fiction or their poetry. Consider how difficult it is to tell the truth about oneself—the unpleasant truth; to admit that one is petty, vain, mean, frustrated, tortured, unfaithful, and unsuccessful. The nineteenth-century writers never told that kind of truth, and that is why so much of the nineteenth-century writing is worthless; why, for all their genius, Dickens and Thackeray seem so often to write about dolls and puppets, not about full-grown men and women; why they are forced to evade the main themes and make do with diversions instead. If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.”

– quoted from the essay “The Leaning Tower (A paper read to the Workers’ Educational Association, Brighton, May 1940.)” as it appears in The Moment and Other Essays by Virginia Woolf

Born Virginia Stephen in Kensington, England, on January 25, 1882, Virginia Woolf wrote nine novels (including one published shortly after her death), five short story collections (most of which were published after her death), a hybrid novel (part fiction, part non-fiction), three book-length essays, a biography, and hundreds of articles, reviews, and essays. Some of her most famous essays and speeches addressed the labor of writing – telling stories – and why (in the Western canon) there were so few accomplished female writers. For instance, In October 1928, she gave two speeches to two different student societies at Newnham College and Girton College, which at the time were two of the all-women colleges at the University of Cambridge. (NOTE: Newnham is still an all-women’s college. Girton started accepting men in 1971 and started allowing men to be “Mistress,” or head of the college, in 1976.)

These speeches about women and fiction specifically detailed why there were so few women writers who had earned acclaimed (and, to certain degree, why those that did often did so anonymously or with “male” names). She highlighted the absurd trichotomy between the two wildly archetypical ways women are portrayed in literature and the reality of the very different types of women in the room, let alone in the world. She also speculated about the works that might have come from a woman (say, in Shakespeare’s time) who had a helpmate to take care of the cooking, cleaning, children, and other household business. In addition to talking about the social constraints that prevented a woman from devoting copious time to the practical application of her craft – writing, she also discussed the social constraints and inequalities that could result in what would amount to writer’s block. All this, she detailed, even before she addressed the issue of a market place predisposed to highlight male writers. All this, she detailed, as she highlighted two (really three) of the things a woman would need to overcome the obstacles of society: (time), space, and money.

“… a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction…”

– quoted from the essay “A Room of One’s Own,” as it appears in A Room of One’s Own And, Three Guineas by Virginia Woolf

“surājye dhārmike deśe subhikṣhe nirupadrave |
dhanuḥ pramāṇa-paryantaṃ śilāghni-jala-varjite |
ekānte maṭhikā-madhye sthātavyaṃ haṭha-yoghinā || 12 ||

The Yogī should practise [sic] Haṭha Yoga in a small room, situated in a solitary place, being 4 cubits square, and free from stones, fire, water, disturbances of all kinds, and in a country where justice is properly administered, where good people live, and food can be obtained easily and plentifully.”

– quoted from “Chapter 1. On Āsanas” of the Haţha Yoga Pradipika, translated by Pancham Sinh (1914)

When I first started going deeper into my physical practice of yoga, I looked into some of the classic texts within the tradition. One of those texts was the Haţha Yoga Pradipika (Light on the Physical Practice of Yoga), a 15^th Century text that focuses on āsanas (“seats” or poses), prāņāyāma (breath awareness and control), mudrās (“seals” or “gestures”), and Samādhi (that ultimate form of “meditation” that is absorption). Throughout the text, and in particular in the chapter on mudrās, there is a breakdown of how energy, power, or vitality moves through the body and the benefits of harnessing that power.

I would eventually appreciate how the text is almost a summary of the earlier Yoga Sūtras, but (as an English lit major), what first struck me was how similar Virginia Woolf’s advice to women writers were to these early instructions about a practice that can be used to cultivate clarity and harness the power of the mind. Additionally, the practice requires – nay demands – that we sit and turn inward (in order to consider our perspectives and vantage points), just as Ms. Woolf’s essays highlighted the importance of noticing a writer’s seat.

“But before we go on with the story of what happened after 1914, let us look more closely for a moment, not at the writer himself; nor at his model; but at his chair. A chair is a very important part of a writer’s outfit. It is the chair that gives him his attitude towards his model; that decides what he sees of human life; that profoundly affects his power of telling us what he sees. By his chair we mean his upbringing, his education. It is a fact, not a theory, that all writers from Chaucer to the present day, with so few exceptions that one hand can count them, have sat upon the same kind of chair—a raised chair. They have all come from the middle class; they have had good, at least expensive, educations. They have all been raised above the mass of people upon a tower of stucco—that is their middle-class birth; and of gold—that is their expensive education…. Those are some of them; and all, with the exception of D. H. Lawrence, came of the middle class, and were educated at public schools and universities. There is another fact, equally indisputable: the books that they wrote were among the best books written between 1910 and 1925. Now let us ask, is there any connection between those facts? Is there a connection between the excellence of their work and the fact that they came of families rich enough to send them to public schools and universities?”

– quoted from the essay “The Leaning Tower (A paper read to the Workers’ Educational Association, Brighton, May 1940.)” as it appears in The Moment and Other Essays by Virginia Woolf

According to Virginia Woolf, there was an undeniable connection between wealth, the education that wealth, and the success of [male] English writers in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. She saw that common thread of privilege as the very foundation of (and secret to) these writers’ success and described it as a tower, stating, “He sits upon a tower raised above the rest of us; a tower built first on his parents’ station, then on his parents’ gold. It is a tower of the utmost importance; it decides his angle of vision; it affects his power of communication.” She also saw it as a blind spot (for such writers and society) and noted that the tower stood strong well into the twentieth century. While the writers supported by this metaphorical tower sometimes had empathy for those less fortunate than them, she observed that they had no desire to dismantle the tower or descend from it’s heights. Furthermore, the tower (and lack of awareness about it) perpetuated misconceptions about women and about why there were not more women – nor more people from lower income brackets – in the ranks of acclaimed authors.

Here is where I see another similarity between yoga and Virginia Woolf’s work, because some people have misconceptions about what it means to practice yoga, what happens when you practice yoga, who practices yoga, and why people practice yoga. For instance, while the instruction for the Haţha Yoga Pradipika instructed a person to practice when they were “free from…disturbances of all kinds” (HYP 1.12); “free from dirt, filth and insects” (HYP 1.13); and “free from all anxieties” (HYP 1.14), the vast majority of people practicing in the modern world do so in order to free themselves from the various maladies that plague them. More often than not, these types of misconceptions stem from a lack of knowledge about the history and practice of yoga. Unfortunately, that lack of knowledge often causes people to not practice and/or to judge people for practicing.

Just as Virginia Woolf addressed misconceptions about women in her essays and fiction, the translator Pancham Sinh addressed some misconceptions about people who practice yoga and the practice of prāņāyāma in an introduction to the Haţha Yoga Pradipika. Part of the introduction is an admonishment to people who would study the practice, but do not practice it, stating, “People put their faith implicitly in the stories told them about the dangers attending the practice, without ever taking the trouble of ascertaining the fact themselves. We have been inspiring and expiring air from our birth, and will continue to do so till death; and this is done without the help of any teacher. Prāņāyāma is nothing but a properly regulated form of the otherwise irregular and hurried flow of air, without using much force or undue restraint; and if this is accomplished by patiently keeping the flow slow and steady, there can be no danger. It is the impatience for the Siddhis which cause undue pressure on the organs and thereby causes pains in the ears, the eyes, the chest, etc. If the three bandhas be carefully performed while practicing [sic] the Prāņāyāma, there is no possibility of any danger.”

Siddhis are the powers or “accomplishments” achieved from continuous practice. They range from being able to extend peace out into the world and understanding all languages; to being able to levitate and know the inner workings of another’s heart and mind; to the six “powers unique to being human.” Bandhas are “locks” and refer to internal engagements used to seal sections of the body in order to control the flow of prāņā. The three major bandhas referred to in the text are the same engagements I encourage when I tell people to “zip up” and engage the pelvic floor and lower abdominal cavity (mūla bandha), the mid and upper abdominal cavity (uḍḍīyana bandha), and the throat (jālandhara bandha). I typically refer to a fourth – pada bandha – which is a seal for the feet; however, in classical texts the fourth bandha is the engagement of the three major bandhas (root, abdominal, and throat) at the same time.

Before anyone gets it twisted, let’s be clear that this introduction is not advice to grab a book and follow instructions without the guidance of a teacher. In fact, Pancham Sinh specifically advised people to find a teacher who practiced and indicated that while one could follow the directions from a (sacred) book, there are some things that cannot be expressed in words. There are some things that can only be felt.

This is consistent with Patanjali’s explanation that the elements and senses that make up the “objective world” can be “divided into four categories: specific, unspecific, barely describable, and absolutely indescribable.” (YS 2.19) That is to say, there are some things that have specific sense-related reference points; some things that can be referred back to the senses, but only on a personal level; some things that have no reference points, but can be understood through “a sign” or comprehension of sacred text; and some things which cannot be described, because there is no tangible reference point and/or “sign” – there is only essence. To bring awareness to all of these things, we “sit and breathe” (even when we are moving).

“athāsane dṝdhe yoghī vaśī hita-mitāśanaḥ |
ghurūpadiṣhṭa-mārgheṇa prāṇāyāmānsamabhyaset || 1 ||

Posture becoming established, a Yogî, master of himself, eating salutary and moderate food, should practise [sic] Prâṇâyâma, as instructed by his guru.”

– quoted from “Chapter 2. On Prāņāyāma” of the Haţha Yoga Pradipika, translated by Pancham Sinh (1914)

Yoga Sūtra 2.51: bāhyābhyantaravişayākşepī caturthah

– “The fourth [prāņāyāma] goes beyond, or transcends, the internal and external objects.”

Yoga Sūtra 2.52: tatah kşīyate prakāśāvaraņam

– “Then the veil over the [Inner] Light deteriorates.”

“Unconsciousness, which means presumably that the under-mind, works at top speed while the upper-mind drowses, is a state we all know. We all have experience of the work done by unconsciousness in our own daily lives. You have had a crowded day, let us suppose, sightseeing in London. Could you say what you had seen and done when you came back? Was it not all a blur, a confusion? But after what seemed a rest, a chance to turn aside and look at something different, the sights and sounds and sayings that had been of most interest to you swam to the surface, apparently of their own accord; and remained in memory; what was unimportant sank into forgetfulness. S it is with the writer. After a hard day’s work, trudging round, seeing all he can, feeling all he can, taking in the book of his mind innumerable notes, the writer becomes—if he can—unconscious. In fact, his under-mind works at top speed while his upper-mind drowses. Then, after a pause the veil lifts; and there is the thing—the thing he wants to write about—simplified, composed. Do we strain Wordsworth’s famous saying about emotion recollected in [tranquility] when we infer that by [tranquility] he meant that the writer needs to become unconscious before he can create?”

– quoted from the essay “The Leaning Tower (A paper read to the Workers’ Educational Association, Brighton, May 1940.)” as it appears in The Moment and Other Essays by Virginia Woolf

When we “sit and breathe” a lot of things bubble up: thoughts, emotions, sensations, memories. Part of the practice is noticing what comes up and part of the practice is remaining the witness to what comes up (rather than engaging every little fluctuation of the mind). Contrary to some popular misconceptions, people who practice feel a lot – they’re just not always distracted by every thing they feel. Instead, they allow the different thoughts, emotions, sensations, and memories to pass back and forth between their conscious, subconscious, and unconscious mind until the busy brain rests. They are not constantly cataloging what is specific, what is unspecific, what is barely describable, and what is absolutely indescribable; however, they are aware of all of these categories as they experience them.

One of the things we can feel, but not touch, is emotion. Emotions can come with visceral experiences and, in that way, can fall into the “unspecific” category. More often than not, however, what we feel is “barely describable” (or even indescribable) – and yet, writers are always trying to describe or capture the essence of what is felt. Virginia Woolf constantly endeavored to describe what she felt and what she felt she saw others feeling. Even more salient, she often focused on the disconnection between what her characters felt and what they could describe about what they felt. The author’s efforts were hindered, or aided (depending on one’s viewpoint), by the fact that she experienced so much trauma and heartbreak; much of which led to emotional despair.

“I feel a thousand capacities spring up in me. I am arch, gay, languid, melancholy by turns. I am rooted, but I flow.”

– quoted from “Susan” in The Waves by Virginia Woolf

Click here if you want to read the 2022 post that details some of Virginia Woolf’s trauma and heartbreak.

“vapuḥ kṝśatvaṃ vadane prasannatā
nāda-sphuṭatvaṃ nayane sunirmale |
aroghatā bindu-jayo|aghni-dīpanaṃ
nāḍī-viśuddhirhaṭha-siddhi-lakṣhaṇam || 78 ||

When the body becomes lean, the face glows with delight, Anâhatanâda manifests, and eyes are clear, body is healthy, bindu under control, and appetite increases, then one should know that the Nâdîs are purified and success in Haṭha Yoga is approaching.”

– quoted from “Chapter 1. On Āsanas” of the Haţha Yoga Pradipika, translated by Pancham Sinh (1914)

“The human frame being what it is, heart, body and brain all mixed together, and not contained in separate compartments as they will be no doubt in another million years, a good dinner is of great importance to good talk. One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”

– quoted from the essay “A Room of One’s Own,” as it appears in A Room of One’s Own And, Three Guineas by Virginia Woolf

The Air I Breathe, one of my favorite movies, was released in the United States January 25, 2008. Inspired by the idea that emotions are like fingers on a hand, the main characters are known to the audience as Happiness, Pleasure, Sorrow, Love, and Fingers – and their stories are interconnected, even though they don’t necessarily realize it. In fact, some of the most desperate actions in the movie are motivated by fear and a sense of isolation. Promotional materials for the movie proclaimed, “We are all strangers / We are all living in fear / We are all ready to change” and in the movie Happiness asks, “So where does change come from? And how do we recognize it when it happens?” Happiness also says, “I always wondered, when a butterfly leaves the safety of its cocoon, does it realize how beautiful it has become? or does it still just see itself as a caterpillar? I think both the statement and the questions could be applied to so many, if not all, of Virginia Woolf’s characters. They could also be applied to all of us in the world right now.

This time of year, the statements and the questions also remind us that change happens every time we inhale, every time we exhale – and we can make that change happen.

“‘For,’ the outsider will say, ‘in fact as a woman, I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.’ And if, when reason has had its say, still some obstinate emotion remains, some love of England dropped into a child’s ears… this drop of pure, if irrational, emotion she will make serve her to give to England first what she desires of peace and freedom for the whole world.”

– quoted from the novel-essay “Three Guineas,” as it appears in The Selected Works of Virginia Woolf by Virginia Woolf

As I have mentioned before, I consider the 8-Limbed Yoga Philosophy to have very real-time, practical applications and I normally think of the physical practice as an opportunity to practice, explore, and play with the various elements of the philosophy. I will even sometimes use aspects of alignment as a metaphor for situations in our lives off the mat. Given ~~this last year~~ the last few years, however, I have really started to consider how āsana instructions from classic texts like The Yoga Sūtras of Patanjali and the Haţha Yoga Pradipika, can be more practically applied to the most basic aspects of everyday life.

For instance, if we spend our time on the mat cultivating a “steady/stable, comfortable/easy/joyful” foundation in order to breathe easier and more deeply, doesn’t it make sense to spend some time cultivating the same type of foundation in our lives?
Going out a little more, if we do not have the luxury or privilege of practicing “in a country where justice is properly administered, where good people live, and food can be obtained easily and plentifully,” doesn’t it behoove us to create that land?
Finally, what happens if we (to paraphrase yoga sūtras 2.46-47) establish a baseline for stability and then loosen up a little bit and focus on the infinite? Patanjali and the authors of the other sacred texts told us we would become more of who we are: leaner in body, healthier, brighter, more joyful, “clearer, stronger, and more intuitive.” In other words: peaceful and blissful.

“lōkāḥ samastāḥ sukhinōbhavantu”

– A mettā (loving-kindness) chant that translates to “May all-beings, everywhere, be happy and be free.”

Wednesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify.

“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.”

– quoted from The Hours: a novel by Michael Cunningham

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

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

“Realize that there is freedom in telling your story and that there is power in your words.”

– quoted from the November 2018 TedxDelthorneWomen talk entitled, “Change Your Perspective and Change Your Story” by Dr. Toya Webb

### BRING AWARENESS TO YOUR SEAT! ###

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A Joyful Practice

Understanding [Your] Karma & Putting Cash in Your Karmic Bank Account (the “missing” Saturday post) January 13, 2024

— quoted from the Lion’s Roar article “Understanding Karma” by Reginald Rey

— quoted from the Lion’s Roar article “Understanding Karma” by Reginald Rey

“The literal meaning kriya is ‘verb.’ Every verb is representative of a distinct process or function and no process of function reaches fruition without a doer.”

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

“[Verse 1] I hear the train a-comin’, it’s rolling ’round the bend And I ain’t seen the sunshine since I don’t know when I’m stuck in Folsom prison, and time keeps draggin’ on But that train keeps a-rollin’ on down to San Antone”

— quoted from the song “Folsom Prison Blues” by Johnny Cash

“[Verse 2] When I was just a baby, my mama told me, ‘Son Always be a good boy, don’t ever play with guns’”

— quoted from the song “Folsom Prison Blues” by Johnny Cash

“… Well, you wonder why I always dress in black Why you never see bright colors on my back And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone Well, there’s a reason for the things that I have on

… I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town I wear it for the prisoner who is long paid for his crime But is there because he’s a victim of the times”

— quoted from the song “The Man in Black” by Johnny Cash

“Each week we lose a hundred fine young men

… And I wear it for the thousands who have died Believin’ that the Lord was on their side I wear it for another hundred-thousand who have died Believin’ that we all were on their side

… Well, there’s things that never will be right, I know And things need changin’ everywhere you go But ’til we start to make a move to make a few things right You’ll never see me wear a suit of white

… Ah, I’d love to wear a rainbow every day And tell the world that everything’s okay But I’ll try to carry off a little darkness on my back ’Til things are brighter, I’m the man in black”

— quoted from the song “The Man in Black” by Johnny Cash

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

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

— Swami Jnaneshvara Bharati

### GIVE ###

Grace, Zora, & Galileo’s Moons (a “long lost” Saturday post for Sunday) January 7, 2024

But then there are known-unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. Alright? Then, there are unknown-unknowns. There are things that we don’t know that we don’t know.

And then, fourthly, there are unknown-knowns — these are things that we don’t know that we know.”

— quoted from the lecture “From Tyndale to Galileo: Grace and Space” by David Block, professor emeritus in the School of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Ishvara kripa (grace of God / Divine grace)

Shastra kripa (grace of scriptures / sacred texts)*

Guru kripa (grace of the Guru)

Atma kripa (grace of oneself)

— the four kinds of Kripa in the Himalayan philosophical traditions

“You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him to find it within himself.”

— Galileo Galilei, as quoted in How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

— quoted from Sidereus Nuncius by Galileo Galilei

— quoted from the lecture “From Tyndale to Galileo: Grace and Space” by David Block, professor emeritus in the School of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

— quoted from “Introduction: First Part” in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Stillman Drake

“Nothing that God ever made is the same thing to more than one person. That is natural.”

— quoted from Dust Tracks On A Road: An Autobiography by Zora Neale Hurston

“’Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.’”

— Janie Crawford in Their Eyes Were Watching Gog by Zora Neale Hurston

“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. It is a seeking that he who wishes may know the cosmic secrets of the world and they that dwell therein.

My first six months were disappointing. I found out later that it was not because I had no talents for research, but because I did not have the right approach.”

— quoted from the autobiographical essay “Research” in Dust Tracks On A Road: An Autobiography by Zora Neale Hurston

“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the same horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.

Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly. ”

— quoted from Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

— quoted from Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

“‘I love myself when I am laughing.

And then again when I am looking mean and impressive.’”

This can be considered “Grace, part I.” “Grace, part II” is coming soon.

### OM / LOVE NO MATTER WHAT ###

EXCERPT: “Sailing Into New Beginnings” January 3, 2024

— Frodo reminiscing with Sam and Pippin in “Book 1, Chapter 3: Three is Company” in The Fellowship of the Ring (Volume 1 of the Lord of the Rings) by J. R. R. Tolkien

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE POST RELATED TO JANUARY 3rd!

“Call me Ishmael”

— quoted from “Chapter I. Loomings” in Moby Dick, or The Whale by Herman Melville

“‘Nobody else calls us hobbits; we call ourselves that,’ said Pippin….

— Pippin and Merry meeting “Treebeard” in “Book 4, Chapter 4: Treebeard” in The Two Towers (Volume 2 of the Lord of the Rings) by J. R. R. Tolkien

### RAISE YOUR SAILS ###

2 Short EXCERPTS: “Living ‘A (SAD) Wonderful Life’” December 20, 2023

“Every time you hear a bell ring, it means that some angel’s just got his wings.”

— Clarence Odbody (AS2), quoted from It’s A Wonderful Life

Click here for more about Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life, which premiered today in 1946.

“Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. And when he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?”

— Clarence Odbody (AS2), quoted from It’s A Wonderful Life

### Breathe. Know that you are loved. ###

Working Together (a post–practice Monday post) September 4, 2023

“Strike: ‘A temporary stoppage of work by a group of workers in order to express a grievance or to enforce a demand. Such a grievance or demand may or may not be workplace-related.’

– -The first sentence of this definition is heavily influenced by Peterson (1937: 3),1 also used by Hyman (1989: 17).2 The only difference we make to the first part of this definition is by changing ‘employees’ to ‘workers.’

— quoted “Section I: Definitions” on the “Methodology” page of the Cornell University Labor Action Tracker

Click here for the 2020/2022 post that shows how all of this is rooted in the history of Labor Day.(Includes video!)

“I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.”

— Eugene V. Debs, quoted from his statement to the Federal Court (Cleveland, Ohio), after being convicted of violating the Sedition Act, September 18, 1918

### YOGA ###

EXCERPT (with links): “I Can’t Say That… Can I?” August 30, 2023

– quoted from Chapter 17 of Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”

– quoted from the movie based on Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

### THE LIGHT IS STILL ON & THE LINE IS STILL OPEN!! ###

The McGuffin’s MacGuffin, redux (mostly the music) August 13, 2023

“[Verse 1]
I hear the train a-comin’, it’s rolling ’round the bend
And I ain’t seen the sunshine since I don’t know when
I’m stuck in Folsom prison, and time keeps draggin’ on
But that train keeps a-rollin’ on down to San Antone”

“[Verse 2]
When I was just a baby, my mama told me, ‘Son
Always be a good boy, don’t ever play with guns’”

“… Well, you wonder why I always dress in black
Why you never see bright colors on my back
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone
Well, there’s a reason for the things that I have on

… I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down
Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town
I wear it for the prisoner who is long paid for his crime
But is there because he’s a victim of the times”

… And I wear it for the thousands who have died
Believin’ that the Lord was on their side
I wear it for another hundred-thousand who have died
Believin’ that we all were on their side

… Well, there’s things that never will be right, I know
And things need changin’ everywhere you go
But ’til we start to make a move to make a few things right
You’ll never see me wear a suit of white

… Ah, I’d love to wear a rainbow every day
And tell the world that everything’s okay
But I’ll try to carry off a little darkness on my back
’Til things are brighter, I’m the man in black”

***Shastra kripa* (grace of scriptures / sacred texts)***

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE POST RELATED TO JANUARY 3^rd!

**Click here for more about Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life, which premiered today in 1946.**

**“Strike: ‘A temporary stoppage of work by a group of workers in order to express a grievance or to enforce a demand. Such a grievance or demand may or may not be workplace-related.’**

– -The first sentence of this definition is heavily influenced by Peterson (1937: 3),¹ also used by Hyman (1989: 17).² The only difference we make to the first part of this definition is by changing ‘employees’ to ‘workers.’

“You could call someone
where it’s still early.

Go out and look at the stars
shining
in the past

Or open the Joachim Jeremias to the densely printed
page, it’s corner folded
for some reason
not yet remembered

You have to set the clock—
for a moment that doesn’t exist yet”

“I am here to learn
to bear
the beams of love,
what else

Bells
through the leaves, I am here to endure the

bells tolling
underground”

“What is the meaning of kindness?
Speak and listen to others, from now on,
as if they had recently died.
At the core the seen and unseen worlds are one.”

The long silences need to be loved, perhaps
more than the words
which arrive
to describe them
in time.”

Snowy light fills the room
pronouncing itself

And either I am too alone
or I am not
alone enough
to make each moment
holy

(no one bats 1,000 friend
no one
bats 500)

And I have heard God’s silence like the sun
and sought to change

Now
I’m just going to listen to the silence
till the Silence.”

“This desert rose
Whose shadow bears the secret promise
This desert flower
No sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this
And now she turns
This way she moves in the logic of all my dreams
This fire burns
I realize that nothing’s as it seems”