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

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

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

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

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

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

*

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

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

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

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

*

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

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

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

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

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

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

*

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

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

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

*

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

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

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

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

*

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

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

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

FTWMI: Do You See What I See? & Your Presence Is Requested January 6, 2023

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Art, Books, Changing Perspectives, Christmas, Dharma, Faith, Healing Stories, Hope, Life, Movies, Music, Mysticism, New Year, Pain, Peace, Religion, Suffering, Wisdom, Writing, Yoga.
Tags: avidya, Epiphany, Epiphanytide, Johann Sebastian Bach, John Harrington Edwards, magi, Pamela Dellal, Pope Francis, Rev. Ed Trevors, Reverend Ed Trevors, Ryan Turner, Three Kings Day, Twelvetide, Whitney Houston, Yoga Sutra 2.20, Yoga Sutras 2.12-2.14, Yoga Sutras 2.16-2.18, Yoga Sutras 2.3-2.9
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“Merry Little Christmas, Epiphany, Theophany, Three Kings Day, & Twelfth Day of Christmas (for some)!”

For Those Who Missed It: The following is a compilation of related posts from 2021 and 2022. It contains two (2) very dark different sets of playlists. Links and some language have been updated. 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.

I. Do You See What I See?

“Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king
Do you know what I know (Know what I know)
In your palace warm, mighty king
Do you know what I know (Know what I know)
A child, a child, shivers in the cold
Let us bring him silver and gold
Let us bring him silver and gold, oh yeah, oh”

– 2^nd verse of “Do You Hear What I Hear” by Whitney Houston

It’s been a while, hasn’t it, since a day went by and you didn’t think how can “they” not see the truth that’s right in front of them? It’s been a while, hasn’t it, since a day went by where you didn’t think, “What don’t they understand [what I understand]?”

Funny thing is, no matter who you are and what you believe – let alone why you believe it – you may have found yourself think or even questioning what has motivated people to do the things they are doing (or not doing) over the last few months (or years); which, of course, means that almost everyone is thinking this (or saying this) about everyone else. It seems really twisted, because it is; it’s all twisted up in avidyā (“ignorance”).

In Indian philosophies, like Yoga, suffering – the same suffering that has us asking what someone else was thinking when they did the thing they did – is caused by afflicted/dysfunctional thought patterns (kleśāh). The primary one being avidyā (ignorance), which is defined in The Yoga Sūtras of Patanjali as not understanding the true nature of things. For example, believing short-lived objects are eternal; believing something impure is pure; and believing something that causes suffering brings happiness are classic examples of avidyā. (YS 2.5) This basic level of ignorance becomes the bedrock for four additional forms of afflicted/dysfunctional thinking, all of which lead to more suffering. (YS 2.3 – 2.9, 2.12 – 2.14) After putting the way people think into context (and also explaining about functional thought patterns), Patanjali indicated that everything in the known or sensed world has two-fold purpose: fulfillment and freedom. (YS 2.18) In other words, everything we sense, think, and/or in any way experience can serve the purpose of changing the way we understand the nature of things and, therefore, change the way we think. If we have a better understanding of the world, we can have less suffering. (YS 2.16 – 2.17)

Knowing this, a practitioner might feel ready to move forward in their practice or even impatient to get to the time and place where they have less suffering – especially after the last few months or years. One might even wonder why the basic knowledge is not enough to change the world. Well, turns out there is a sūtra for that…

Yoga Sutra 2.20: draşțā dŗśimātrah śuddho’pi pratyayānupaśyah

– “The sheer power of seeing is the seer. It is pure, and yet it sees only what the mind [brain] shows it.”

The brain (intellect) and mind-body are powerful. So powerful in fact, that they will store information (for us) without us knowing the information is there and/or without us consciously paying attention to the information. If and when our mind decides something is relevant and/or we are ready to understand it, the information moves to our conscious awareness – sometimes as if it is the first time we have ever encountered said information. On the flip side, if we consciously (or even unconsciously) deny the relevancy of information – and/or don’t have the connecting information that puts everything into context – the information gets dismissed.

Don’t get me wrong, the truth can be right in front of our nose (like the tape that was on my glasses for the last few weeks), but the brain filters it out of our conscious awareness. As a result, to us, it’s like the information does not exist. We just don’t see it – just like the tape that was sitting on the bridge of my nose. The difference here, between facts in the world and the tape, is that I put the tape on my glasses and consciously gave my brain permission to ignore it (with full awareness of the fact that the eyes can work like that). But, every now and again, it was like the tape would “magically” (re)appear; every once in a while, I just couldn’t ignore what was right in front of my face.

For the last few days of the “12 Days of Christmas,” the playlist started with an instrumental piece called “Story of My Life” and, as a joke, I would say at the beginning, “Not my life, but…someone’s life.” That someone being Jesus; and while the different parts of Jesus’ life story get told by Christian liturgy throughout the year, they get told in different ways (and sometimes at different times) depending on the tradition and/or denomination. It’s as if, 12 different writers wrote the same story, but emphasized different parts.

Of course, by using the number 12, I am oversimplifying reality and dismissing the fact that humans make bad witnesses. I am, also, mostly leaving out the fact that while Christians may have the corner market on the story of Jesus, they are not the only religious (or philosophical) traditions that tell the story.

Neither are they the only ones in the story…. But that’s another story for another day. Because today, is all about seeing the story through a Christian lens.

“1. Chorus
They will all come forth out of Sheba,
bringing gold and incense
and proclaiming the price of the Lord.

2. Chorale
The kings came out of Sheba,
they brought gold, incense, myrrh along,
Hallelujah!”

– quoted from “Sie werden aus saba alle kommen” (“They will all come forth out of Sheba”), BWV 65 by Johann Sebastian Bach (translation from Pamela Dellal for Emmanuel Music, Artistic Director: Ryan Turner)

January 6^th, is Epiphany, also known as Theophany (in some Eastern traditions) and Three Kings Day. As I mentioned yesterday, January 6^th is almost always Epiphany, with the exception of some places in Columbia that observe this Feast Day on the second Monday of January (and countries that celebrate on the first Sunday in January). It’s also good to note that while since some Eastern Christian traditions use the Julian calendar, their January 6^th falls on the Gregorian calendar’s January 19^th.

“Epiphany” comes from the Greek word meaning “manifestation” or “striking appearance” and the root word meaning “to appear.” “Theophany” comes from a Greek phrase meaning “The Day of the Lights.” In Christian traditions, it is a feast day to celebrate Jesus being revealed as Divine, God incarnate, and God’s gift to the world. Some traditions specifically focus on the visit of the magi, which is why it is also known as “Three Kings Day.” In some Eastern traditions, the magi visit on December 25^th and therefore the story of theophany focuses on Jesus’ baptism by his cousin John the Baptist and/or the first miracle attributed to Jesus (when he turned water into wine and during the Wedding at Cana).

There are masses and feasts on this day, as well as caroling. There is even some highly elevated singing, as several composers have written pieces for the day. In fact, Johann Sebastian Bach wrote several pieces for the various days of Christmastide and at least two pieces for Epiphany. One of those pieces, “Sie werden aus saba alle kommen” (“They will all come forth out of Sheba”), BWV 65, premiered today in 1724, to mark Bach’s first Christmas season as “Thomaskantor” (cantor at Saint Thomas) in Leipzig, Saxony, Germany. I have heard that he composed the 7-movement Christmas cantata, with lyrics inspired by The Book of the Prophet Isaiah (60:6), in the first few days of the New Year (as the piece is dated 1724 and Saxony switched the Gregorian calendar in 1699).

“‘Its final cause,’ [Bach] wrote, ‘is none other than this, that it ministers solely to the honor of God and refreshment of the spirit, whereof, if one take not heed, it is no proper music, but devilish din and discord.’”

– quoted from God and Music by John Harrington Edwards (published 1903)

“3. Recitative B
What Isaiah foresaw there,
That happened at Bethlehem.
Here the wise men appear
at Jesus’ manger
and want to praise him as their king.
Gold, frankincense, myrrh are
the delicious gifts
With which they grace this baby Jesus in
Bethlehem in the stable.
My Jesus, when I think of my duty now,
I must also turn to your manger
and also be grateful:
For this day is a day of joy for me,
Since you, O prince of life
The light of the Gentiles….”

– quoted from “Sie werden aus saba alle kommen” (“They will all come forth out of Sheba”), BWV 65 by Johann Sebastian Bach (translation from Pamela Dellal for Emmanuel Music, Artistic Director: Ryan Turner)

The Gospel According to Saint Matthew (2:1 – 12) is the only canonical New Testament gospel to tell the story of the “wise men” (as they are called in the King James Version). More modern versions of the text refer to them as “magi” and even “kings,” but traditionally they are only directly referred to as “kings” in a prophesy found in The Book of the Prophet Isaiah (60:1 – 6) and, perhaps indirectly, in The Book of Psalms (“Psalm 72: A Psalm for Solomon”) – both of which are in the Hebrew Bible or Christian Old Testament. None of these cited texts reference a number, but most Western Christians consider them three (based on the gifts) … while some Eastern Christians consider them 12. Still others focus on the gift bearers as neither magi nor kings, but of shepherds.

It is also interesting to note, if you will patiently think back with me, that the “12 Days of Christmas” song does not mention magicians or scholars, but definitely mentions drummers. Classically, there are “12 drummer’s drumming” – which, according to the catechism myth represents the 12 points of faith in the Apostle’s Creed. Sometimes, however, there are 9 or 10 or 11, which means they could also symbolize the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit; the Ten Commandments; or the eleven “faithful” apostles (respectively). I also find it interesting, and thematically beautiful, that the little drummer boy not only sees himself in the baby Jesus, but also brings the same gift: his presence.

“But what do I bring, you King of Heaven?
If my heart is not too little for you, then
accept it graciously,
Because I cannot bring anything noble.”

– quoted from the 3^rd movement (Recitative B), of “Sie werden aus saba alle kommen” (“They will all come forth out of Sheba”), BWV 65 by Johann Sebastian Bach (translation from Pamela Dellal for Emmanuel Music, Artistic Director: Ryan Turner)

Some people wait until Epiphany or Theophany to add the Three Kings to their Nativity Scene – even though some cultures mark the change from Christmastide to Epiphanytide by taking their Christmas decorations down on the 7^th. Some people have their King Cake or Twelfth Night Cake on this date, hoping to find the coin or the tiny baby Jesus figurine that indicates they will be extra blessed or lucky/fortunate in the year ahead. In some cultures, the person who finds the coin or baby is responsible for supplying the next year’s cake (which some people love and others think is not so lucky).

For those people who focus on Jesus’ baptism as a moment of revelation, January 6^th is a day to gather by the water. Priest, pastor, or preacher led processions will make their way through the town or city until they reach the water. After blessing the water, the priest, pastor, or preacher will throw a cross into the water and some people will engage in a little “winter swimming.” In this case, the person who finds the cross is considered extra blessed. Additionally, some people will choose this date to be baptized, as it is a symbol of how they are changed.

“We often make do with looking at the ground: it’s enough to have our health, a little money and a bit of entertainment. I wonder if we still know how to look up at the sky. Do we know how to dream, to long for God, to expect the newness he brings, or do we let ourselves be swept along by life, like dry branches before the wind? The Magi were not content with just getting by, with keeping afloat. They understood that to truly live, we need a lofty goal and we need to keep looking up.”

– quoted from “Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord,” Papal Mass, Homily of Pope Francis (Vatican Basilica, Saturday, 6, January 2018)

For the faithful, a sermon or homily is a big part of Epiphany or Theophany. This is especially true in the Roman Catholic tradition. Pope Francis has (in my humble opinion) a definite knack for weaving the narrative of the story into present day application. In 2018, his homily encouraged people to be “imitate the Magi: looking upwards, setting out, and freely offering our gifts.” The modern day gifts that the pontiff mentioned were gifts of the self: “care for a sick person, spend time with a difficult person, help someone for the sake of helping, or forgive someone who has hurt us. These are gifts freely given, and cannot be lacking the lives of Christians.” He also spoke in terms of taking a risk and the importance of sometimes following what might not always seem to be brightest thing on the horizon.

In thinking about Epiphany, in a religious context, I often think about epiphany in the context of innovative or scientific discovery. For someone to have an ah-ha, light bulb, or eureka moment – for someone to have an epiphany – they have to be prepared. They have to know what they are seeing or hearing. They have to know the importance of what’s growing on a culture plate when they get back from holiday; otherwise they throw it away. They have to understand that the light touch that wakes them from a deep sleep is the touch of an angel and not the touch of their sleep-mate or cattle. Whether it is in religion or science or humanity, one must have faith in order to take a risk.

~~Last year~~ 2020 was very different from 2017 and ~~this year~~, in 2021, Pope Francis again reflected the times. He spoke, in some ways, very much along my way of thinking: that one must be prepared. In speaking of the magi, he said, “Worshiping the Lord is not easy; it does not just happen. It requires a certain spiritual maturity and is the fruit of an at times lengthy interior journey.” He talked about the importance of prayer and, again, the importance of looking up – lifting up one’s eyes in order to “‘see’ beyond the veil of things visible, which often prove deceptive.” Basically, he offered three steps in the form of three phrases, from The Liturgy of the Word, for a deeper relationship with God: “to lift up our eyes,” “to set out on a journey,” and “to see.”

Of course, we can only see, what we are prepared to see – which is the whole purpose of the journey, which we can only take when we look up (and around) and get curious.

“And it concludes by saying that at the time, ‘the word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the wilderness’ (Lk 3:2). To none of the magnates, it to but to a man who had withdrawn to the desert. Here is the surprise: God does not need the spotlights of the world to make himself known.

When we listen to that list of distinguished personages, we might be tempted to turn the spotlight on them…. But God’s light does not shine on those who shine with their own light. God ‘proposes’ himself; he does not ‘impose’ himself. He illumines; he does not blind. It is always a very tempting to confuse God’s light with the lights of the world. How many times have we pursued the seductive lights of power and celebrity, convinced that we are rendering good service to the Gospel! But by doing so, have we not turned the spotlight on the wrong place, because God was not there. His kindly light shines forth in humble love. How many times too, have we, as a Church, attempted to shine with our own light! Yet we are not the sun of humanity. We are the moon that, despite its shadows, reflects the true light, which is the Lord. He is the light of the world (cf. Jn 9:5). Him, not us.”

– quoted from “Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord,” Papal Mass, Homily of Pope Francis (Vatican Basilica, Sunday, 6, January 2019)**

**NOTE: During the ZOOM Wednesday’s ZOOM classes on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, I cited the incorrect date for the last quote from Pope Francis. (At the time it was also mis-dated on the Vatican’s website.) I think 2019 is correct, but I could still be mistaken. My apologies for any confusion.

The vinyasa playlist for this date is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “01062021 Epiphany & Theophany”]

(Note: The playlists are slightly different for the before/after practice music. Also, I added Whitney Houston’s version of the song that was popping up in my head before the 2021 practice.)

### SEEING IS BELIEVING, BUT ONLY WHEN YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE SEEING ###

II. Your Presence Is Requested

“What I really want to get to today is why the Magi came. What was it that brought them to Bethlehem? What was it that brought them to find Jesus and his family?”

*

– quoted from “The Epiphany Light: Another Reflection” by Reverend Ed Trevors (dated Jan 6, 2022)

On the surface, the embedded video below contains a direct message to Christians. However, if you pay attention, you will realize that the overall focus is for all: “Be a light.” Accept this invitation to be a light.

Please join me tonight, Friday, January 6^th, 7:15 PM – 8:20 PM (CST), for First Friday Night Special #27: “Looking Up / Getting & Being Ready” on Zoom. 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.

*

Friday Night’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “01062023 Looking Up / Getting & Being Ready”]

This Yin Yoga practice is accessible and open to all.

Prop wise, this can be kitchen sink practice. You can practice without props or use “studio” props and/or “householder” props. Example of Commercial props: 1 – 2 blankets,2 – 3 blocks, a bolster, a strap, and an eye pillow. Example of Householder props: 1 – 2 blankets or bath towels, 2 – 3 books (similar in size), 2 standard pillows (or 1 body pillow), a belt/tie/sash, and a face towel.

You may want extra layers (as your body may cool down during this practice). Having a wall, chair, sofa, or coffee table may be handy for this practice.

### OHR ###

FTWMI: What You Will See January 5, 2023

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Art, Books, Changing Perspectives, Christmas, Faith, Food, Healing Stories, Mantra, Meditation, Movies, Music, Mysticism, Philosophy, Religion, William Shakespeare, Wisdom, Writing, Yoga.
Tags: 12 Days of Christmas, Epiphanytide, New Year, Theophany, Twelfth Night, Twelvetide, William Shakespeare, Yoga Sutra 1.28, Yoga Sutras 1.32-1.39
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“Happy New Year,” to everyone! Happy Twelfth Night, to those who are celebrating!

For Those Who Missed It: The following was originally posted in January of 2021 and re-posted in 2022. Some language was updated in 2022. You can request an audio recording of a previous year’s practice via a comment below or by emailing myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.

“I’ll do my best”

– Viola (a twin in disguise) in Act I, scene iv of Twelfth Night, or What You Will by William Shakespeare

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been practicing yoga and/or meditation, there can be days where it is hard to focus. Sometimes the practice is all about bringing your awareness back to your focal point – again and again and again, to the best of your ability…. Actually, that is always the practice; it’s just that sometimes we are more aware that to keep our awareness fixed on something requires a certain amount of conscious effort – until it doesn’t. It requires a certain amount of conscious effort until the mind moves through the layers of words and meaning and effort; and becomes absorbed or merged with the object of our focus. Until that time, we just have to be like Viola.

Sometimes, the object itself is the most helpful anchor for our awareness. In the first part of Yoga Sūtras, the chapter or foundation on concentration, Patanjali offers a list of objects on which one might focus in order to overcome the obstacles to practice and achieve clarity of mind (YS 1:28, 1:32 – 39: repetition of OM/AUM; attitudes of the heart (loving-kindness for those who are happy, compassion for those who are suffering, happiness for the virtuous, and non-judgment for the non-virtuous); the parts of breath; a point on the body and/or a sense organ (and it’s corresponding sensation); the point of inner light and joy; a person who is virtuous and free of desire/suffering (or our own self in such a state); intuitive wisdom (revealed in a “dream” state); or “whatever”… in other words, “what you will”).

Yoga Sūtra 1.39 doesn’t actually instruct us to literally bring our awareness to “whatever” or “what you will.” Patanjali is more specific than that and literally states that “… by meditating on a well-considered object of one’s choice, one attains steadiness of mind.” Whenever we focus-concentrate-meditate, that combined effort (samyama) will lead us somewhere; it will lead us towards the object, possible into absorption or the merging with the object. So, Patanjali cautions the practitioner to choose wisely, to pick something – something “well-considered” – that will lead one towards peace, balance, maybe in joy; something that will lead us, as gently as possible, closer to our goals and closer to the people around us. So, focus-concentrate-meditate on what you will; but with the full awareness that some objects will just create more confusion where there is already a lot of confusion.

“O time, thou must untangle this, not I.
It is too hard a knot for me t’untie.”

– Viola (a twin in disguise) in Act II, scene ii of Twelfth Night, or What You Will by William Shakespeare

There is a lot, and I mean, a lot of confusion in William Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night, or What You Will. There’s confusion around identity, the state of twins, and who loves whom. Don’t get it twisted, people know who they are (inside and out), but people are disguised – and that often involves a little gender bending or reversal of “social norms.” Then, people fall in love with people who are in disguise; other people think they are loved (sometimes by someone in disguise); and still others try to fool someone into thinking someone loves them. I know, this all sounds really convoluted and confusing… because it is; it is intentionally so.

The confusion in Twelfth Night, or What You Will, results in much of the audience’s entertainment. But, let’s be real, sometimes even the audience is just as confused as the players. There’s just so much; kind of like the “Twelve Days of Christmas Song,” which sometimes gets confusing as we get closer to the end – especially if it is being sung in a round.

“If music be the food of love, play on.”

– Orsino (Duke of Illyria) in Act I, scene i of Twelfth Night, or What You Will by William Shakespeare

Depending on when you started counting the “Twelve Days of Christmas,” today is either the eleventh day or the twelfth day. According to the catechism myth attached to the “12 Days of Christmas” song, the gifts for these days translates to: “a partridge in a pear tree” for Jesus (and the cross); “two turtle doves” representing the Old and New Testament; “three French Hens” for the theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity (Love); “four calling birds” for the four canonical New Testament Gospels (or their corresponding evangelicals, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John); “five gold rings” are the first Five Books of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament (which provide the back story for the three Abrahamic religions); “six geese a-laying” for the six days of creation; “seven swans a-swimming,” the consistently most expensive gift, stand for the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord) or the seven sacraments (Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation, Reconciliation, Anointing of the Sick, Marriage, and Ordination); “eight maids a-milking” for the eight beatitudes (or blessings); “nine ladies dancing” for the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit; “ten lords a-leaping” for the ten commandments; “eleven pipers piping” for the eleven faithful apostles; and “twelve drummers drumming” for the 12 points of faith in the Apostle’s Creed.

I personally get “confused” – or, maybe a better word is flummoxed (in the sense of dumbfounded) – that the eleven “faithful” apostles are highlighted, but one of the key elements of the 12 points of doctrine is directly tied to the “unfaithful” servant. But, let me not jump ahead; because that just makes things more confusing.

“Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun, it shines everywhere.”

– Feste (the Countess Olivia’s servant, a jester) in Act III, scene i of Twelfth Night, or What You Will by William Shakespeare

Going by the Western Christian tradition, tonight is either the Twelfth Night, or tomorrow night is the twelfth night. I know, still much confusion. One way to clear things up is to consider that Twelfth Night, or What You Will is often considered twelfth night entertainment for people awaiting a moment of “striking appearance.” Think of Scrooge being shown a twelfth night play by one of the ghosts: It is a way to spend some time, preparing, until it is time to see what one is prepared to see.

Although, for some, it is entertainment for the celebration after they have seen what they are prepared to see.

Still confused? That’s OK; we’re getting closer to clarity.

January 6^th is Epiphany. It’s almost always Epiphany, also known as Theophany in some Eastern traditions, with the exception of some places in Columbia that observe this Feast Day on the second Monday of January (and countries that celebrate on the first Sunday in January). Also, In the Eastern Christian traditions that use the Julian calendar, January 6^th falls on the Gregorian calendar’s January 19^th.

Clear as mud, right? Maybe this will help.

“Epiphany” comes from the Greek word meaning “manifestation” or “striking appearance” and the root word meaning “to appear.” “Theophany” comes from a Greek phrase meaning “The Day of the Lights.” In Christian traditions, it is a feast day to celebrate Jesus being revealed as an incarnation of God. Some traditions specifically focus on the visit of the magi, and so the day is also known as “Three Kings Day.” Other traditions focus on Jesus’ baptism by his cousin John the Baptist and/or the first miracle attributed to Jesus (during the Wedding at Cana).

“Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?”

– Sir Toby Belch (Olivia’s uncle) to Malvolio (Viola’s steward) in Act II, scene iii of Twelfth Night, or What You Will by William Shakespeare

However one looks at it, Twelfth Night is directly tied to Epiphany. It marks the end of Christmastide and the beginning of Epiphanytide, which for some Christians rolls directly into Carnival or Mardi Gras season… or Shrovetide… or Ordinary Time – all of which leads to the Lenten season and, ultimately, to Holy Week and Easter (and then, for some, Pentecost). There are a lot of different cultural traditions associated with Twelfth Night celebrations, but many in the West center around caroling, feasting, and wassail (a mulled cider). Some people will wait until Twelfth Night to add the “Three Wise Men” (and even the little drummer boy) to their Nativity scene. Some people will share a “Three Kings” or Twelfth Night cake, which will have a coin or a baby figurine inside. The person who receives the “prize” is considered extra blessed or lucky – and sometimes has to bring the cake the following year.

If you are not Christian, or are unfamiliar with why different Christian traditions have different customs, consider that the liturgical season is a way to tell the story of Jesus – and the story of God’s relationship with people, through a Christian lens. As with any good story – or any history – there are different perspectives and different narrators. Each tradition highlights the aspects of history in a way that helps people understand what is important to the faith.

“If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.”

– Fabian (a servant for the Countess Olivia) in Act III, scene iv of Twelfth Night, or What You Will by William Shakespeare

The playlist for this practice is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “01052021 and Twelfth Night” or “01052021 aka Twelfth Night”]

In the spirit of generosity (“dana”), the Zoom classes, playlists, 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 to Common Ground are tax deductible.)

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.”

– Malvolio (a steward for the shipwrecked twins) in Act II, scene v of Twelfth Night, or What You Will by William Shakespeare

### BE GREAT, BE GRATEFUL, & BE NICE ###

FTWMI: Sailing Into New Beginnings January 3, 2023

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Books, Changing Perspectives, Christmas, Healing Stories, Life, Men, Movies, New Year, 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 New Year!” to everyone.

For Those Who Missed It: The following was originally posted in January 2021 and re-posted in 2022. I have made some slight revisions and updated some links and class details.

“Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began.

Consider all this; and then turn to the green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half-known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!”

– quoted from “Chapter LVIII. Brit” in Moby Dick, or The Whale by Herman Melville

On more than one occasion, I have compared breathing to our “own personal ocean.” I even once honored one of my teachers by sharing that at the end of her classes people felt like there were floating on a surfboard after a spending a whole day riding the waves; muscles completely relaxed, the mind-body completely one with the rising and falling of the waves as they ebb and flow. Those are just my words to express very common experiences. And, before you ask; no, I don’t actually surf. I have, however, spent all day, for several days, learning how to sail and much of my young life playing and swimming in the ocean water of the Gulf. I also read a lot. And, the way the brain works, it’s not uncommon for me to make the visceral connection between something I’ve done and something I’ve read.

It happens with the very best of books: we find ourselves in the middle of a grand adventure, full of pirates, mutineers, and cannibals, or elves, dwarfs, and hobbits. There may be dragons to slay, train, or befriend; there may be fire on the mountaintop; there may be rings of temptation or friendship; there may be wagers in the middle of battles and so much merriment we can barely contain the laughter that pops out loudly enough that we find ourselves, suddenly, back in the our ordinary lives.

“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

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.

While Melville’s first two sea-based novels met with quite a bit of success, his third book was so poorly received he said that he wrote the fourth and fifth just for the money. His sixth novel, Moby Dick, or The Whale, was first published in London in three installments and is now easily considered his most famous novel, but it was a critical flop when first published. On the flip side, Tolkien was surprised that his first book of fiction, The Hobbit, Or There and Back Again, turned out to be such a hit… with children – and was later surprised that he and his work inspired a very passionate, loyal, and scholastic fan base. Even though his books were heavily influenced by his Catholic upbringing, his experiences at war, and his fascination with all things mythical and mystical, he was not always a fan of other work in the “fantasy adventure” genre and thought people read way too much into his books.

“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….

‘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

Remember that, in the yoga tradition, our ability to combine meaning with sound, remember and share the combination, and create and share a visual representation of the combination of sound and meaning all fall into one of the “powers unique to humans;” and, as I mentioned yesterday, the brain likes naming things. So, there is great power in a name. J. R. R. Tolkien was very clear about this on more than one occasion in his books and the idea of words being powerful is further emphasized by the fact that he made up languages to solidify the cultures of the different characters he created. Herman Melville, on the other hand, started off his most well-known novel with the introduction and naming of a character that plays a major role in the telling of the story, but a minor one in the action.

The opening line to Moby Dick, or The Whale is easily in the top 5 most well-known (and quoted) opening lines of fiction. It is extra interesting when we consider the name (Ishmael) as it is connected to the Abrahamic religions. First, the name is often associated with people of little means and few (blood) relational ties – and Melville’s narrator explains that he was both, at the time of the story, “having little or no money in my purse and nothing particular to interest me on shore[.]” Second, the name itself can be translated into English as “God has hearkened” – meaning “God (has) listened.” Which begs the question, how can we (mere mortals) not listen?

“‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo.

‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given, us. And already, Frodo, our time is beginning to look black. The Enemy is fast becoming very strong. His plans are far from ripe, I think, but they are ripening. We shall be hard put to it. We should be very hard put to it, even if it were not for this dreadful chance.’”

– quoted from “Book 1, Chapter 2: The Shadow of the Past” in The Fellowship of the Ring (Volume 1 of the Lord of the Rings) by J. R. R. Tolkien

“I try all things; I achieve what I can.”

– quoted from “Chapter LXXIX. The Prairie” in Moby Dick, or The Whale by Herman Melville

In a normal year (depending on which study you read and the time period studied), only about 20% – 40% of people who make New Year’s resolutions actually achieve their desired goals. I know that’s a big gap, but either way you look at it over half of people who make resolutions don’t follow through. There are all kinds of explanations for this, and all kinds of “life hacks” to improve your odds, but ultimately it all comes down to little things. Little things and baby steps can make a big difference. They keep us focused on our intentions and they keep us progressing on the right track – even when there’s a detour. Little things and baby steps even help us appreciate the detour that is actually the scenic route. As we leave a year that was hard for just about everyone – and figure out a way to look forward to what’s to come – I wouldn’t be surprised if the odds are stacked against us.

Daunting thought I know. But, as Tolkien reminds us (in The Hobbit, Or There and Back Again), “It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.” So, think for a moment about the fact that something as small and powerful as a word, or a name, can change the odds in your favor. Now ask yourself: What name would you choose for yourself to indicate how you want to move through this New Year? What’s you symbol, what’s your sign, for this new beginning? What will be your own personal reminder throughout the year and thus, at the end of the year, part of your story?

“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.”

– quoted from “Chapter XXXIX. First Night-Watch: Fore-Top (Stubb solus, and mending a brace)” in Moby Dick, or The Whale by Herman Melville

“‘No!” said Thorin. ‘There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. But sad or merry, I must leave it now. Farewell!’”

– quoted from “Chapter XVIII: The Return” in The Hobbit, Or There and Back Again by J. R. R. Tolkien

Even though many, maybe most, are still struggling with all those we’ve lost and everything we experienced, these last few years have reinforced the value of friendship, fellowship, kinship and a good laugh shared at the expense of no one. They have also made people reevaluate their values – although, again, this is one with which some are still struggling. But, no matter where you are in your journey, I encourage you to never underestimate the power of being nice, smiling, and eating a second dinner (and then dancing or walking it off, you know, Hobbit style).

Keeping that in mind, I just want to say, for the record, that I have not forgotten about those of y’all who are counting the “Days of Christmas.” To catch up, today is the 9^th or 10^th day (depending on when you start counting). According to the catechism myth attached to the “12 Days of Christmas” song, the gifts for these days translates to: “a partridge in a pear tree” for Jesus (and the cross); “two turtle doves” representing the Old and New Testament; “three French Hens” for the theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity (Love); “four calling birds” for the four canonical New Testament Gospels (or their corresponding evangelicals, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John); “five gold rings” are the first Five Books of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament (which provide the back story for the three Abrahamic religions); “six geese a-laying” for the six days of creation; “seven swans a-swimming,” the consistently most expensive gift, stand for the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord) or the seven sacraments (Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation, Reconciliation, Anointing of the Six, Marriage, and Ordination); “eight maids a-milking” for the eight beatitudes (or blessings); “nine ladies dancing” for the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit; and “ten lords a-leaping” for the ten commandments.

Note, again, that there are different versions of the list and the last four or five days worth of gifts deviate the most (in type of gift and order) from one version to another – which might be the cause of the effect of people getting all mixed up. In fact, The Journal of American Folk-lore, Volume XXX, No. CXVII (published July-September 1917, edited by Franz Boas), features an article on “Ballads and Songs” (edited by G. L. Kittredge) specifically listing a wide variety of versions that include (but are not limited to): “some part of a juniper tree;” “a-bleating lambs;” “a-bleating rams;” “fiddlers fiddling;” “bulls a-roaring;” “stags a-leaping;” “silver florins;” “golden pippins;” “hounds a-howling” – and a 78-year old singer from Massachusetts who, according to assistant editor Kittredge, forgot the eighth day gift on December 30, 1877.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

– The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Galatians (2:22 – 5:23, NIV)

Please join me today (Tuesday, January 3^rd) at 12:00 PM or 7:15 PM for a yoga practice on Zoom. You can use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email me at myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.

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

“It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off – then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship.”

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

“Not all those who wander are lost.”

– quoted from a letter dated “Midyear’s Day, Shire Year 1418” from Gandalf to Frodo, delivered by Strider/Aragon/Elessar in “Book 1, Chapter 10: Strider” in The Fellowship of the Ring (Volume 1 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.)

### Grace (Enuf) ###

FTWMI: Appreciate the Power by Using the Power, Wisely December 28, 2022

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Abhyasa, Art, Books, Changing Perspectives, Christmas, Confessions, Depression, Faith, Healing Stories, Hope, Life, Loss, Love, Movies, Mysticism, One Hoop, Pain, Peace, Philosophy, Religion, Suffering, Super Heroes, Tragedy, Vairagya, Wisdom, Writing, Yoga.
Tags: 12 Days of Christmas, Art Simek, Childermas, Feast of the Holy Innocents, Jack Kirby, Kwanzaa, MCU, Neil Ellis Orts, Nguzo Saba, siddhis, Stan Lee, Sāmkhya Karika, Twelvetide, Ujima, Vince Colletta
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[“Kwanzaa, yenu iwe na heri!” – “May your Kwanzaa be happy!” to everyone who is celebrating! May you have a meaningful observation if your focus is on the Innocents.]

For Those Who Missed It: The following was originally posted in December of 2020 and re-posted in 2021. Class details and some links have been updated.

“…aware at last that in this world, with great power there must also come — great responsibility!”

– quoted from Amazing Fantasy #15 by Stan Lee, et al (August 1962)

I can’t help it. I’m sorry (not sorry), but I. Just. Can’t. Help. It! When I think of responsibility one of the first things that pops into my head is that famous line from the 1962 introduction of Spiderman. Then I start thinking about Stan Lee…

Born today in 1922 (as Stanley Lieber), Stan Lee did not invent the phrase or the sentiment many associate with Peter Parker and his uncle Ben Parker. He did, however, make it wildly popular and combined it with the awareness that everyone can do something to help alleviate the struggles and suffering of others. After all, for the most part, Lee’s characters in the Marvel Universe were not and are not (initially or typically) perfect alien humanoids without a care in the world. They were not sent to Earth to save humankind. No, they were making their home a better place.

And, Lee’s characters were just like his readers: people with very human fears, flaws and insecurities; people with bad tempers, impatience, fits of melancholy and vanity; people who bickered, worried about paying their bills, worried about impressing a love interest; and people who got bored or even sick. They were people – like the Fantastic Four (1961), Spiderman (1962), X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Dr. Strange, Daredevil, the Avengers (1963), and Black Panther (1966) – who had to reconcile their abilities, their sometimes suddenly discovered powers, with all the need in the world… and the fact that people often thought they were freaks … and the fact that they couldn’t always solve every problem. But, neither, could they look away.

We are all able to do something. Sometimes we think what we are able to do is not much – which can be a self defeating attitude. Sometimes that attitude comes from not think about people who are not able (physically, mentally, emotionally, and/or energetically) to do what we can do. Nor do we always think about the importance of doing things the special way we do them. In neglecting to appreciate what we have to offer, we run the risk of missing an opportunity to make the world a better place.

“‘Nevermore shall men make slaves of others! Not in Asgard — not on Earth — not any place where the hammer of Thor can be swung — or where men of good faith hold freedom dear!’”

– quoted from the end panel of “Tales of Asgard, Home of the Mighty Norse Gods: Trapped by the Trolls” in Journey Into Mystery Volume I, with the Mighty Thor #108 (1964) by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Vince Colletta, Art Simek, et al (1964)

Ultimately, each Marvel character is charged with doing “what they can, as much as they can, for as long as they can” in order to help the people around them. While that description fits two of the Nguzo Saba, or Seven Principles of Kwanzaa, today I’m mostly going to focus on today’s principle, the third principle; Ujima (collective work and responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brother’s and sister’s problems our problems and to solve them together. Ujima is connected to the first green candle on the kinara (special candelabra), which is a symbol of the future and prompts celebrants to consider a future free of some of our current struggles, suffering, and plights.

We may not be able to travel through time and change the future like Dr. Strange, Rina Patel, or Iron Lad, but each of us has the power to consider cause-and-effect. We can take a look at how our past actions are reflected in our current circumstances and how our actions in this moment are the seeds that blossom into “tomorrow’s” circumstances. In fact, in the Yoga tradition such abilities are included in a list of siddhis, supernormal “powers” or abilities.

Some siddhis very much seem like Marvel Universe powers or Jedi Knight Tricks. However, there are six that are described as being “powers unique to being human.” We not only find these specifically human powers (as described in the Sāmkhya Karika) in every Marvel comic book, we find them in every one of ourselves:

the power of discovery (i.e., intuitive knowledge);
the power “to give a form to sound, assign meaning to each segment of sound, and to store both sound and meaning in memory….[and] the capacity to communicate both sound and its meaning to others. We also have the capacity to give a visual form to each segment of sound and the meaning associated with it[;]”
the power to “study, analyze, and comprehend” abstract ideas no matter how they are (effectively) communicated;
the power to eliminate “three-fold sorrow – physical, mental, and spiritual;”
the power to “[cultivate] a good heart; finding friends;”
the power of dana, which is “the ability to give.”

In addition to being the Stan Lee’s birthday and the third day of Kwanzaa, today corresponds with the third or fourth day of the “12 Days of Christmas” (depending on when you start counting). For those of you keeping track of the gifts related to the catechism myth, today’s gifts and symbols are: “a partridge in a pear tree” for Jesus (and the cross); “two turtle doves” representing the Old and New Testament; “three French Hens” for the theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity (Love); and “four calling birds” for the four canonical New Testament Gospels (or their corresponding evangelicals, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John).

Finally, as many Christians (and in particular Catholics) observe these days between Christmas and Epiphany as “fast free days,” I will mention that one of the feast days associated with today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, also known as Childermas or Innocents Day. This is a day devoted to the remembrance of young children killed in Bethlehem when King Herod the Great learned that the Magi, at the suggestion of an angel, had tricked him and would not lead him back to the newborn Jesus. This day (today in Western Christianity, but December 29^th in some Eastern traditions) has been observed as a fast day and was even, at one time, associated with practices considered a mockery of the faith and religion. However, today some consider it a day for children to be children… and do the things that children do (especially when they do not fear persecution, oppression, hunger, famine, or disease).

“All six of these stories – nearly half the stories in the book – speak to me of a longing in our human condition, a desire for more life (either here or in the hereafter) or a desire to turn regrets around to something joyous….

None of the characters in this collection are more powerful than a locomotive, none are faster than a speeding bullet, but what they are able to do, I believe, reveals something of our desires, something of our humanity – the best and worst in us.”

– quoted from the introduction to able to…: a literary look at super powers by…, edited by Neil Ellis Orts

Please join me today (Wednesday, December 28^th) at 4:30 PM or 7:15 PM for a yoga practice on Zoom. Use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. You will need to register for the 7:15 PM class if you have not already done so. 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 “12282021 Power, Responsibility, & Children”]

CHECK OUT THE CALENDAR! You can kick off New Year’s Day 2023 in two ways: with the very active practice of 108 Sun Salutations at 10:00 AM or with the very “chill” practice of a Yin+Meditation practice beginning at 5:00 PM. All times are Central Standard. Details are posted on the class schedules calendar. And, yes, some folks have done both!!

In the spirit of generosity (“dana”), the Zoom classes, playlists, 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). If you don’t mind me knowing your donation amount you can also donate to me directly. Donations to Common Ground are tax deductible; class purchases and donations directly to me are not necessarily deductible.)

“Umoja (unity)—To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.

Kujichagulia (self-determination)—To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.

Ujima (collective work and responsibility)—To build and maintain our community together and make our brother’s and sister’s problems our problems and to solve them together.

Ujamaa (cooperative economics)—To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.

Nia (purpose)—To make our collective vocation the building and development of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

Kuumba (creativity)—To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.

Imani (faith)—To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.”

– The Nguzo Saba (or “Seven Essential Pillars”) of Kwanzaa

### You’ve Got the Power! ###

Revisiting “The Other Plan B” (the “missing” Tuesday post) September 14, 2022

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Art, Gratitude, Healing Stories, Life, Movies, Philosophy, Science, Wisdom, Women, Yoga.
Tags: 1 Samuel, Beau Lotto, Catherine Johnson, David, Donatello, Dorothy Vaughn, Goliath, Hidden Figures, International Literacy Day, Mary Jackson, Michelangelo, Taraji P. Henson
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The following “missing” post for Tuesday, September 13^th contains some information previously posted in two 2020 posts. You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email me at myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.

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

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

“David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart….”

– quoted from 1 Samuel – The Old Testament (17:32 NIV)

Today, I’m going to tell you a story. It’s not the story I used to tell on September 13^th, back when we were doing all of this in person. This is a story I started telling in 2020. It’s the story about what you do when things don’t go according to plan – or, you find out things will work just as you planned, but that that’s not the way you want things to work out. Have you had days like that?

Every once in a while it happens. I start off the day, working on a plan, and something in me says, “No, not that today.” So, I go to Plan B – and sometimes I get really into it, get really excited about it, and then something in me will say, “Naw, I don’t think so.” So, I either go back to the drawing board or… I fight it. Yes, it’s true; sometimes I don’t listen to that “still quiet voice.” Sometimes I think the big capital “I” (which is my ego) knows better than whatever is moving around in my heart. Sometimes, I get halfway through the day, or all the way to the end of the day, and think, “Oh, maybe that’s why I should have paid more attention and been more present.”

There are, however, times when I absolutely am open to the Spirit and open to the moment. There are times when I let go of my frustration at things not going the way I planned and I breathe…. That’s it. I take a breath and open to the moment. I still have a plan. In fact, it’s the best of all plans, That Other Plan B: Breathe – keep breathing; be open to the present; believe and be aware of “what it is you have to offer.”

Today, I offer you a story about David. It’s actually two stories… about the same David – even though it is simultaneously the same story about two different Davids… with a little side note about two additional Davids. (You might especially appreciate that “confusing” statement if you were around for this past Saturday’s practice, but that’s a whole other story.) To clarify today’s offering(s), the first story and the first David is the one from the Bible, specifically the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. You remember that David?

People love the story of that David, because it is the story of the underdog. When faced with the towering figure of Goliath, David used his inner resources. He drew from the experience he had as a shepherd (rather than being preoccupied by the experience he didn’t have as a soldier). He focused on what he could do (not on what he was “trying” to do). His inner strength, courage, and wisdom were what he took into his reign as king. Yes, King David made mistakes – he was human; but his legacy is firmly established by the story of his victory against Goliath, his son Solomon (who is considered the ruler with the wisest heart in the history of the world), and the statue by Michelangelo.

This brings me to the “second” David and the second story: the story of Michelangelo’s David.

You may already be familiar with the basic premise of the story: On September 13, 1501, a 26-year old artist named Michelangelo was commissioned to create a statue of the legendary David. That marble statue, unveiled in Florence, Italy on September 8, 1504, continues to captivate people to this very day. At various times throughout history, it has represented the epitome of the male form. It established Michelangelo as an artistic powerhouse, a giant in the art world. People started calling him “Il Divino” (“the divine one”). They praised, and even envied, his terribilitá – his ability to provoke intense emotion through his work.

But, Michelangelo was not the original sculptor. In fact, when the piece was first commissioned by the Overseers of the Office of Works of the Florence Cathedral (the Operai), it was part of a series of large Old Testament statues intended for the Florence Cathedral. And, at that time, in the early 1400s, Michelangelo wasn’t even on the short list of those being considered. Granted, the main reason he wasn’t on the list was because he hadn’t been born yet, but that’s beside the point. The point being that Michelangelo, like David, wasn’t Plan A or Plan B.

“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”

– Michelangelo

In 1408, at the same time that Nanni di Banco was commissioned to carve a marble statue of the prophet Isaiah, Donatello was commissioned to sculpt a marble statue of David. Both statues ended up abandoned in the workshop for about seven years. In 1410, Donatello made a statue of Joshua (an assistant to Moses) and may have been Agostino di Duccio’s mentor when the latter was commissioned, in 1463, to create Hercules. (Hercules is an odd choice for the series, yes, but there he is.) Donatello’s Joshua and Agostino’s Hercules were terracotta – and Donatello would create a statue of Saint John the Evangelist shortly after those terracotta pieces were finished.

In between all that, around 1416, Donatello was asked to make some changes to his David – perhaps to make it more “generic” – and that altered David was placed at the Palazzo della Signoria, on top of an engraved pedestal. This clothed version of David is not, however, the primary David (statue) of today’s story. (Neither is it Donatello’s most famous depiction of David; the mostly-nude bronze he created in the 1440s, which was initially placed in the Palazzo Medici).

“Pro patria fortiter dimicantibus etiam adversus terribilissimos hostes Deus praestant victoria”

[Latin for “God provides victory for the country fighting strongly even against the most terrible enemy.”]

– Possibly the original (1416) engraving on the pedestal of Donatello’s marble statue of David (which currently reads “Pro patria fortiter dimicantibus etiam adversus terribilissimos hostes dii praestant auxilium”*)

In 1464, Agostino accepted the commission for the second marble statue of David. The idea was to create the statue from several blocks of marble. However, in 1465, Agostino found a large block of marble in the Fantiscritti quarry in northern Tuscany and had that transported – by sea and river – to Florence. He didn’t get much done – just blocked out the shape of the legs, feet, torso, and some drapery – before Donatello’s death in December of 1466. At that point, Agostino lost the commission and yet another artist (possibly Antonio Gamberelli, a. k. a. Antonio Rossellino) was commissioned to finish the statue in 1476. However, it doesn’t seem like this second artist got very far. The marble, that may or may not have even had a gap to distinguish the two legs, was left abandoned, exposed to the elements for 26 years.

So much for Plans A and B.

Of course, that hunk of “badly blocked out” marble was expensive (and represented the additional expense and effort of its acquisition). So, in 1501, the Operai started looking for a master artist – someone with experience – to take on what they referred to as “Il Gigante” (“The Giant”).

Yes, it is kind of ironic that the unfinished statue of the biblical underdog who took on “the Giant” was referred to by officials of the Church as “The Giant.” Perhaps it is most fitting, then, that while several artistic giants, like Leonardo da Vinci, were considered; they did not receive the final commission. Instead, the commission went to the artistic equivalent of the underdog, a young Michelangelo.

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

– Michelangelo

Consider what it would be like to be 26-year old Michelangelo, staring at a chunk of marble. To the outside observer, it is nothing. But he sees inside. Seeing inside takes effort and may be harder for some than for others, but the artist who is literate in their craft may not think much about the process: They just do what they do.

To someone who is not an artist, the artistic process may seem magical and impossible. If a non-artist were to undertake such a task, without knowing what to look for and what steps to take, the process would be frustrating. The final effort might even be embarrassing. That’s not to say that one of us non-artists couldn’t do it, it just means that we would require more steps, maybe more training and more practice.

As neuroscientists Dr. Beau Lotto pointed out in a 2017 Big Think video entitled, “The Neuroscience of Creativity, Perception, and Confirmation Bias,” we all have “a space of possibility” that, based on our history and experiences, establishes our logical next steps. Ergo, what the artist does can be very similar to you reading this post (or even me writing this post). Yes, it takes effort and energy; however, if you are a literate adult – who learned how to read as a child and doesn’t have a reading impairment – you don’t think back to the struggle of the learning process every time you read or write. Even though the yoga philosophy defines this exchange of words and meaning as one of the “powers unique to being human,” we don’t always think of our ability to communicate as anything more than a tool. It’s simply part of our landscape… like the rocks on the ground before David picked them up. Or, like the hunk of marble before Michelangelo got to it.

Post Script: I didn’t love the way I wrapped up the 2022 Noon practice. Serendipitously, just before the evening practice started, some of us had a conversation about the movie Hidden Figures and it made me think of the acceptance speech Taraji P. Henson gave when the cast won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast (or Ensemble) in a Motion Picture. Her opening words (“Steady yourself heart; talk to me God; listen…”) could be the words anyone says before undertaking a big task. But, what she says about the women at the center of the movie – Catherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn, Mary Jackson – the giants on whose shoulders the cast stood, perfectly described the mindset of underdogs like David and Michelangelo:

“They didn’t complain. They focused on the solutions.”

– quoted from Taraji P. Henson’s speech during the 23rd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, January 29, 2017

Tuesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “09132020 What Is Inside, II”]

*NOTE: According to some historians, the current pedestal engraving for Donatello’s marble David is not the original and may have been changed for political/religious reasons. Interestingly, the most common English translation – “To those who fight heroically for the fatherland (or motherland) the gods provide help even against the most terrible foes” – may obfuscate an error (in the Latin) made by someone in the 16^th century.

This past Thursday (September 8^th) was the anniversary of the unveiling of Michelangelo’s David and it was also International Literacy Day. For the approximately 775 million people worldwide who are functionally illiterate and lack the basic reading and writing skills to manage daily living and employment tasks, my blog posts can be like Goliath. (I know, I know: Even when you are literate, these blog posts can be like Goliath – but, if you are literate, you are David and you have what it takes to conquer!) To read more about why International Literacy Day is important, you can click here and scroll to the end of my original “David” post or go directly to the official United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) International Literacy page.

### DREAM. BREATHE. DREAM. BREATHE. ###

FTWMI: Impossible x3 August 3, 2022

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in "Impossible" People, Changing Perspectives, Faith, Healing Stories, Hope, Life, Loss, Men, Movies, Mysticism, Pain, Philosophy, Religion, Suffering, Tragedy, Wisdom, Women, Writing, Yoga.
Tags: Dr. Etka Liebowitz, Dr. Viktor Frankl, Havdalah, Holocaust, In the Footsteps of Regina Jonas, Rabbi Gesa Ederberg, Rabbi Max Dienemann, Rabbi Regina Jonas, yoga
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The following was originally posted in 2020. Class details and links have been updated.

“Here there is a role reversal of what was related in bSotah – instead of the woman [Queen Salome Alexandra] being “nameless” now she is named and cunningly tries to get around the rabbinic prohibition, while the male character, her son, is unnamed and plays no role in the matter in dispute.”

– commentary on bShabbat (16b – 14b) in doctoral thesis entitled “Queen Alexandra: The Anamoly of a Sovereign Jewish Queen in the Second Temple Period” by Etka Liebowitz, PhD

There was a time when being a female (non-nun) member of the clergy would have been considered impossible. But, imagine for a moment, someone who was not only the first woman to be ordained in their religion, but to receive the highest orders during a time when it was hard to even be a male member of your religion. Allow me to introduce you to (or re-acquaint you with) Rabbi Regina Jonas ([‘re-ghee-na yo-nas]). Born today in 1902, Rabbi Jonas was not only the first woman to be ordained as a rabbi; she was ordained in Berlin in 1935. In other words, she became the first woman to be named as a Jewish teacher during the height of Nazi Germany.

Throughout history, you can find plenty of women who fulfilled rabbinical duties. They did not, however, hold the title. These women, like Beruryah (Rebbetzin Meir), Yalta, the Hasmonean queen Salome Alexandra (also known as Alexandra of Jerusalem), and the daughters and granddaughters of the great Talmud scholar Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzachaki), are found in the Talmud and would have been studied by Rabbi Jonas and other women who studied at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin, the Jūdisch-Theologisches Seminar in Breslau, and other theology schools that admitted women. Unlike her female peers, however, Rabbi Jonas didn’t just want the academic teacher’s degree; she wanted the title and the responsibilities. And this desire was something that she felt and expressed from a very young age.

“If I am to confess what drove me, as a woman, to become a rabbi, two things come to mind. My belief in God’s calling and my love of my fellow man. God has bestowed on each one of us special skills and vocations without stopping to ask about our gender. This means each one of us, whether man or woman, has a duty to create and work in accordance with those God-given skills.”

– quoted from the doctoral thesis entitled “May a woman hold rabbinic office?” by Rabbi Regina Jonas

Rabbi Regina Jonas had a passion for Jewish history, the Bible, and the Hebrew language; a passion that was remembered even by her high school friends and supported by Orthodox rabbis like Isidor Bleichrode, Delix Singerman, and Max Weyl (who officiated at the synagogue the Jonas family attended). When she decided to pursue her degree and also the title, Rabbi Jonas wrote and submitted a final theses, which was a requirement for ordination. Her final theses topic, which was based on Biblical, Talmudic, and rabbinical sources, was near and dear to her heart: “May a woman hold rabbinic office?”

While halakhic literature did not specifically with ordination, she combined halakhic theory related to women’s issues with a modern attitude about women’s roles. She did not, however, use a Reform movement argument. Instead, Rabbi Jonas wanted to establish gender equality within the (and as a) continuity of tradition – and, in doing so, established herself as independent of both the reform movement and Orthodoxy. She also included in her argument very specific gender qualities and expectations centered around Zeni’ut (“Modesty”), which she viewed as being essential to someone’s role as a rabbi. Interestingly, some of her thesis is very much consistent with the ideas Hannah Crocker expressed in 1818.

Rabbi Jonas concluded that yes, a woman could be a rabbi according to halachic sources. She went even further by saying that female rabbis were a “cultural necessity, in part because of so-called female qualities like compassion, interpersonal skills, and psychological intuition. Her final thesis, which was supervised by Eduard Baneth, renowned professor of Talmud at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin, was submitted in June 1930. Unfortunately, Rabbi Baneth died soon after her submission and his successor was not willing to ordain women. Ironically, a leader in the Reform movement, Rabbi Leo Baeck, also rejected her submission.

“Almost nothing halakhically but prejudice and lack of familiarity stand against women holding rabbinic office.”

– quoted from the doctoral thesis entitled “May a woman hold rabbinic office?” by Rabbi Regina Jonas

Despite the fact that her professors were not willing to ordain her, she received a “good” grade for her thesis and graduated as a religious teacher. She then began teaching religion at several girls’ schools in Berlin. At this same time, however, anti-Semitism created an increased need for Jewish teachers and religious education. Rabbi Max Dienemann, executive director of Liberaler Rabbinerveband (Conference of Liberal Rabbis) agreed to ordain Rabbi Jonas on behalf of the conference and, within two years, she began to serve the official community as “pastoral-rabbinic counselor.” She particularly ministered to those in the Jewish Hospital, those who were considering emigrating, and people economically affected by “Kristallnacht.” As more and more rabbis were imprisoned by the Nazis or fled the persecution, she began to lecture to various groups, preach in liberal synagogues and lead some Havdalah (“weekday”) services in the Neue Synagogue, the flagship of German Jewry. At one point, during the winter of 1940 – 1941, the Germany Jewry organization established by the Nazis actually sent her to cities that no longer had rabbis. Even when she was forced to work in a factory, she continued her ministry.

On November 2, 1942, Rabbi Jonas was compelled to fill out a declaration form where she listed her property, including all of her books. Two days later, all of her property was confiscated by the Nazis. The next day, she and her mother were arrested. They were deported November 6^th, to Theresienstadt concentration camp, where she continued to preach and counsel. The psychoanalyst Viktor Frankl asked her to help him with crisis intervention, including meeting and assessing new arrivals and helping to prevent suicide attempts. On October 12, 1944, at the age of 42, Rabbi Jonas and her mother were deported to Auschwitz, where they were killed.

“Since I saw that her heart is with God and Israel, and that she dedicates her soul to her goal, and that she fears God, and that she passed the examination in matters of religious law, I herewith certify that she is qualified to answer questions of religious law and entitled to hold the rabbinic office. And may God protect her and guide her on all her ways.”

– quoted from the Diploma of Ordination for Rabbi Regina Jonas (approved by Rabbi Max Dienemann)

None of the male religious leaders who survived the Holocaust spoke of Rabbi Regina Jonas. However, a copy of her thesis, her teaching certificate, her rabbinical diploma, personal documents, and two photos have been preserved at the Centrum Judaicum in Berlin. Included in those personal documents were letters of gratitude from refugees she had counseled (and whose families she continued to counsel in Germany). There is also a list of 24 sermons and lectures she delivered, along with notes for at least one full sermon. In the Footsteps of Regina Jonas is a documentary about her life and legacy, which features rabbis like Gesa Ederberg, who celebrated the 75^th anniversary of Rabbi Jonas’s ordination with a Havdalah service – the very type of weekday service Rabbi Jonas led in Berlin.

“God has placed abilities and callings in our hearts without regard to gender. If you look at things this way, one takes woman and man for what they are: human beings.”

– quoted from a 1938 news article by Rabbi Regina Jonas

Please join me today (Wednesday, August 3^rd) at 4:30 PM or 7:15 PM for a yoga practice on Zoom. Use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. You will need to register for the 7:15 PM class if you have not already done so. Give yourself extra time to log in if you have not upgraded to Zoom 5.0. You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below or by emailing myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.

Wednesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “08032022 Always Answering the Impossible Call”]

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.)

### SHALOM שָׁלוֹם ###

FTWMI: Introducing….You July 11, 2022

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Books, Changing Perspectives, Healing Stories, Life, Movies, Philosophy, William Shakespeare, Wisdom, Writing, Yoga.
Tags: 8-Limbs, Bob Minzesheimer, Charlotte's Web, Cicero, Diogenes, E. B. White, Jhumpa Lahiri, Minke, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Nikolai Gogol, Pope John II, Rynx, samskāras, Socrates, svadyaya, Teresa Wiltz, The Elements of Style, The Namesake, Ursula Nordstrom, William Strunk Jr., yoga philosophy, yoga practice, Yoga Sutra, Yoga Sutra 2.28
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The following was originally posted in July of 2021. Class details have been updated.

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

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

“Saepe est etiam sub pallĭolo sordĭdo sapientia.

*

[English translation: Wisdom often is under a filthy cloak.]”

*

– Latin proverb (associated with Socrates, Diogenes, and Cicero)

Imagine, for a moment, that you are meeting someone for the first time. It is also the very first time you’ve seen them – and maybe you are meeting them in a cold place during winter or a rainy place during the rainy season. Either way, you are both wearing overcoats. You’re also both of a certain age, whatever that means to you at this moment. So, you’re meeting not at the beginning of your stories but in the middle, maybe even at the end.

We may not think about it, but this is how we most often meet – in the middle of our stories and without being able to see what’s inside.

We exchange names and, if we know someone else with said name, we start seeing this new person through the layers and layers of previously formed ideas, impressions, and opinions. That’s just the way the mind-body works. If, however, we are each the first person either of us has met with said names, we start forming ideas, impressions, and opinions about a person with said name. That’s just the way the mind-body works.

We may not even be consciously aware of it, but there it is. Our first sense of someone is based on an overcoat, samskaras (mental impressions), whatever is happening in the middle of the story, and a name – that may or may not be their given name (or, under certain circumstances, may or may not be the name by which most people know them). The overcoat in this case is, literally, an article of clothing – and also all the external factors like the samskaras, the name, and anything else we may know or assume based on the situation (like occupation, vocation, race, ethnicity, gender, and age range).

Over time, the overcoat comes off, literally and figuratively. We make more mental impressions, maybe we learn another name, and as we move through the rest of the story we also learn (in a backwards sense) about the beginning of a person’s story: why they are the way they are; think and do the things they think and do. Over time, we go deeper.

“Pleased to meet you
But I’m quick to judge
I hope you drop the grudge
I know I’m not what you want from me”

*

– quoted from the song “Pleased to Meet You” by Rynx (featuring Minke)

Every practice is an opportunity to introduce (or reintroduce) you to yourself. Every pose, every sequence, allows you to remove the layers and layers of overcoats until you reach the heart and core of who you are. That’s svādhyāya, “self-study.”

Sometimes, I also use the practice to introduce (or reintroduce) people to different philosophical aspects of the practice – as I did this time last year – and/or to various rituals and traditions. I also use the practice to introduce (or reintroduce) people to some of my favorite people. People like two writers who share a birthday and, obviously, an occupation. Both of these writers just happen to be Pulitzer Prize winners; have ties to The New Yorker magazine; and are mostly recognized by (first) names that are not on their passports and birth certificates.

Remember, their names are part of their overcoats.

Elwyn Brooks White was born July 11, 1899, in Mount Vernon, New York. Nilanjana Sudeshna Lahiri was born July 11, 1967, in London, England. While very different in some ways, their books prove that anyone can be the hero (or heroine) of a great story; that situations we’ve never personally encountered can be highly relatable when related by a good storyteller; and that fiction (like yoga) can be a great way to process difficult emotions.

“That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.”

*

– quoted from The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

*

“Place yourself in the background; do not explain too much; prefer the standard to the offbeat.”

– quoted from “An Approach to style” by E. B. White published in The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White

Even though most readers know him by his initials, E. B. White was known to friends and professional colleagues as “Andy.” Ostensibly, the nickname came about because of a tradition at Cornell University whereby students with the last name “White” are renamed after the university’s co-founder Andrew Dickson White.

Jhumpa Lahiri’s birth name is not known to many of her readers – and for a similar reason: her name was also “changed” at school. However, in her case, the change came because her name was unfamiliar (rather than so familiar). Dr. Lahiri’s parents migrated from West Bengal, India to the United Kingdom. When the author was three, the family migrated to Kingston, Rhode Island – where at least one teacher was unfamiliar Bengali names and unwilling to learn how to pronounce them. According to an August 19, 2003, USA Today article by Bob Minzesheimer, “[A kindergarten teacher] said something like ‘That’s kind of a long name’ and decided it was easier to pronounce ‘Jhumpa’” – her nickname.

Remember, names are part of our overcoats. What we call each other makes a difference in how we see and understand each other.

“SOME PIG”

“TERRIFIC”

“RADIANT”

“HUMBLE”

*

– quoted from the messages in the web in Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White (illustrated by Garth Williams)

When Charlotte (the spider) comes up with her plan to save Wilbur, she says, “Why, how perfectly simple.” She then goes on to use her experience (as a master weaver) to introduce (and reintroduce) her friend (the pig) in a way that makes him more valuable alive, rather than dead. Her plan is, in fact, perfectly simple: write what you know… and change the overcoat. Even through their details are different, the stories written by both E. B. White and Jhumpa Lahiri are about their own personal experiences… and what happens when we get underneath the outer layers.

E. B. White is remembered as the author of beloved (and sometimes banned) children’s books like Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web, but he started off as a journalist. He also worked for an advertising agency (and in some non-literary jobs) before submitting manuscripts for the then newly-founded The New Yorker. He eventually became a writer and contributing editor for the magazine. It was during his tenure at The New Yorker that he got a blast from his (Cornell University) past when he was asked to update work by one of his former professors.

The Elements of Style (sometimes called White & Strunk’s Elements of Style) was originally composed and self-published by William Strunk Jr. for his English students at Cornell University. It contained what Dr. Strunk Jr. considered the fundamentals: “Seven rules of usage, eleven principles of composition, a few matters of form, and a list of words and expressions commonly misused [and/or misspelled]….” When it was published by Harcourt, Brace & Howe in 1920, it included eight “elementary rules of usage,” ten “elementary principles of composition,” “a few matters of form,” a list of 49 “words and expressions commonly misused,” and a list of 57 “words often misspelled.” In the late 1950’s, Macmillan Publishers commissioned Mr. White to expand and modernize “the little book” (partially based on a 1935 edition by William Strunk Jr. and Edward A. Tenney). Since its 1959 publication, White & Strunk’s Elements of Style has been reprinted three times, illustrated, and served as the inspiration for an opera and a comprehensive history.

Mr. White won a Newberry Award, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal, a Presidential Freedom Award, a Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, a National Medal for Literature, and a L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award. He was also awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for Letters, an award that actually recognized all of his work. In 2004, the Association of Booksellers for Children (ABC) even established an award in his honor for books that “embodied the universal read aloud standards that were created by [his work].” You might think all of those accolades meant that Mr. White always followed his own advice. But, let’s be real: talking farm animals, airplane-flying mice, and Public Relations specialists who just happen to be spiders wasn’t very standard in 1945 and 1952.

“No, I have never encountered any story plot like Charlotte’s Web. I do not believe that any other writer has ever told about a spider writing words in its web. Perhaps I should ask some of the children’s book ladies who go back even further in time than I do, but I am sure nothing even remotely like this has been written.”

– quoted from a letter addressed to “Andy” (E. B. White), from Ursula Nordstrom, Harper & Row publisher and editor-in-chief, Department of Books for Boys and Girls (dated April 2, 1952, as it appears in Dear Genuis: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom)

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“It used to be clear to me, slopping a pig, that as far as the pig was concerned I could not be counted on, and this, as I say, troubled me. Anyway, the theme of “Charlotte’s Web” is that a pig shall be saved, and I have an idea that somewhere deep inside me there was a wish to that effect.

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As for Charlotte herself, I had never paid much attention to spiders until a few years ago…. Spiders are skilful [sic], amusing and useful, and only in rare instances has anybody ever come to grief because of a spider.”

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“I haven’t told why I wrote the book, but I haven’t told you why I sneeze, either. A book is a sneeze”.

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– quoted from a letter addressed to Ursula Nordstrom, Harper & Row publisher and editor-in-chief (Department of Books for Boys and Girls), from E. B. White (dated September 29, 1952)

The January 1948 issue of The Atlantic contained an essay by E. B. White entitled, “Death of a Pig,” which described the short life and “premature expiration of a pig” – as well as the burial and how the whole community mourned the occasion. In the essay, Mr. White said, “I have written this account in penitence and in grief, as a man who failed to raise his pig, and to explain my deviation from the classic course of so many raised pigs.“ While there is no mention of a spider in the essay – and he doesn’t specifically mention a pig dying in his September 29, 1952 letter to Ursula Nordstrom, his publisher / editor – many believed that the essay wasn’t enough and that he felt the need to write more in order to express his sorrow and regret, to process his feelings about his experiences. On the other hand, it doesn’t take a letter to an editor (or a fan) to see how Jhumpa Lahiri has also used fiction to process personal experiences.

“In Bengali the word for pet name is daknam, meaning, literally, the name by which one is called, by friends, family, and other intimates, at home and in other private, unguarded moments. Pet names are a persistent remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is not always so serious, so formal, so complicated. They are a reminder, too, that one is not all things to all people.”

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– quoted from The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Despite having conflicted feelings associated with her name and schooling, Jhumpa Lahiri went on to earn a B. A. in English literature from Barnard College of Columbia University and four degrees from Boston University. A few years after completing her doctorial thesis, Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies became the seventh collection of short stories (in 82 years) to win the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. (There have now been only nine collections to win the award in over 100 years.) Several years after her award-winning debut, The New Yorker published her short story entitled, “The Namesake.” It was the story of a Bengali boy living in a strange land with a strange name.

The story became a book and then a movie and, in the process, “Jhumpa Lahiri” became a household name.

In addition to winning a Pulitzer Prize, Jhumpa Lahiri’s accolades include a PEN/Hemingway Award, a Frank O’Connor International Story, and the National Humanities Award. She has also been a finalist for the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction. Her second collection of short stories, Unaccustomed Earth, debuted at number one on The New York Times best seller list – an achievement one book editor associated with her “newfound commercial clout,” but an achievement (I would humbly suggests) actually rests on the beauty and clarity of her storytelling. As one critic put it, “There is nothing accidental about her success; her plots are as elegantly constructed as a fine proof in mathematics.”

Unaccustomed Earth was also named number one by the editors of The New York Times Book Review’s “10 Best Books of 2008.” Perhaps, even more telling is the fact that when the collection won the Frank O’Connor International Story award that same year, there was no shortlist because, as reported by The Guardian on July 4, 2008, “The jurors decided that Unaccustomed Earth was so plainly the best book that they would jump straight from longlist to winner….” The Frank O’Connor award was one of the world’s richest awards for short story collections and normally had a longlist of approximately 60 books and a short list of three or four.

“In so many ways, his family’s life feels like a string of accidents, unforeseen, unintended, one incident begetting another…They were things for which it was impossible to prepare but which one spent a lifetime looking back at, trying to accept, interpret, comprehend. Things that should never have happened, that seemed out of place and wrong, these were what prevailed, what endured, in the end.”

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― quoted from The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri is a polyglot who speaks Bengali, English, and Italian. She, undoubtedly, also understands a little bit of Spanish (and maybe Greek). Not only has she written and translated work in (and out) of all three of the languages she speaks, in 2015 she wrote an essay for The New Yorker stating that she was now only writing in Italian. Since 2015, she has published two books in Italian and edited and translated at least two collections of work by Italian writers.

Dr. Lahiri’s love of language is obvious not only in the languages she speaks and writes, but also in the connections that she makes through her writing. Both The Namesake and Unaccustomed Earth have ties to two of her literary predecessors: Nikolai Gogol and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Some people might be confused by her success with the “masses,” because she is so clearly erudite. However, above and beyond anything else, what a reader finds in Jhumpa Lahiri’s books are regular, everyday people navigating the spaces between two worlds and two identities – just like she does. (Just like E. B. White’s characters do.)

“Writing was also an escape [for Jhumpa Lahiri]. Growing up brown and ‘foreign’ in a town where white was the predominant theme had its challenges. There was the persistent feeling of other, not American enough, not Indian enough, of constantly straddling fences, stretching identities. She is amused, and slightly annoyed, by Indians who immigrate to the United States and eagerly embrace a Caucasian identity, excitedly reporting to their Indian friends that they’d moved into an all-white neighborhood, where there were no blacks. Thanks to her parents — her mother would often retort to these friends, ‘What do you think you are?’ — she said, ‘I was never into any sort of denial.’”

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– quoted from The Washington Post article entitled, “The Writer Who Began with a Hyphen” by Teresa Wiltz (dated October 8, 2003)

Please join me today (Monday, July 11^th) at 5:30 PM for a 75-minute virtual yoga practice on Zoom. Use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below or by emailing myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.

There is no playlist for the Common Ground practice.

The previously used playlist for this practice is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “07112020 An Introduction”]

”His family name was Bashmachkin. It is evident from the name, that it originated in bashmak (shoe); but when, at what time, and in what manner, is not known. His father and grandfather, and even his brother-in-law, and all the Bashmachkins, always wore boots, and only had new heels two or three times a year. His name was Akakii Akakievich. It may strike the reader as rather singular and far-fetched; but he may feel assured that it was by no means far-fetched, and that the circumstances were such that it would have been impossible to give him any other name; and this was how it came about.”

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– quoted from “The Overcoat” (as it appears in The Overcoat & Other Short Stories, Dover Thrift Editions) by Nikolai Gogol (story translation by Isabel F. Hapgood)

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[The 2020 post for July 11th is linked above. Here’s different post related to the naming of things.]

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### “Juliet: ‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;” WS ###

When Awareness Expands (a “renewed” and expanded post) June 1, 2022

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Books, Changing Perspectives, First Nations, Gratitude, Healing Stories, Hope, Life, Loss, Men, Movies, Music, One Hoop, Pain, Peace, Philosophy, Suffering, Tragedy, Wisdom, Women, Yoga.
Tags: "Chicken Noodle News", "Diamond Dick", "red summer", 1889 Land Rush, awareness, Bernard Shaw, Black Frissell Memorial Hospital, Black Wall Street, Cable News Network, Census Report, Center for Public Secrets, Chicago Illinois, CNN, Colfax Louisiana, Dick Roland, Dick Rowland, Elaine Arkansas, Fred E. Voorhies, George Floyd, Greenwood District, J. M. Adkison, James Baker, John A. Gustafson, John Holliman, Knoxville Tennessesse, Kwanzaa, Margaret Tutwiler, Matthew Lysiak, Maurice Willows, Memorial Day, Morningside Hospital, National Guard, Netisha Currie, O. W. Gurley, Oklahoma, Oklahoma Bureau of vital Statistics, Oklahoma Supreme Court, Omaha Nebraska, Perception, Persian Gulf War, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Red Cross, Robert Hopkins, Samyama, Sarah Page, T. D. Evans, Ted Turner, The CNN Effect, This Land Press, Tulsa, Tulsa Tribune, Tulsa Union Depot, Ujamaa, Walt Whitman, washington DC, Willard McCullough, Wlmington North Carolina, yoga sutra 3.5
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Nobly endure through humility and gratitude.

The following includes a 2020 post and an abridged version of a post from 2021. Trigger Warning: There are references to war and violent conflicts. Date and class related information have been updated. If you are short on time, the video marks the break between the related themes.

“The coverage was as unprecedented as it was surreal. Viewers from around the world gathered around their television sets in the comfort of their living rooms to watch the first bombs drop in real time.

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There was another first for the Cable News Network. While the Big Three had celebrity anchors reading from the teleprompters, at CNN the news had always been the star and the anchors largely anonymous, seemingly interchangeable with each other. Now, for the first time, CNN had its own media stars, with the cool and collected Bernard Shaw becoming an overnight pop phenomenon.”

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– excerpt from The Drudge Revolution: The Untold Story of How Talk Radio, Fox News, and a Gift Shop Clerk with an Internet Connection Took Down the Mainstream Media by Matthew Lysiak

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“This is, uh…something is happening outside. Umm…The skies over Baghdad have been illuminated. We are seeing bright flashes going off all over the sky.”

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– Bernard Shaw, reporting live from Baghdad for CNN on Thursday, January 17, 1991

Take a breath – a deep breath in, a deeper breath out – and take a moment to notice what you notice; bring your awareness to your awareness. You can “do that 90-second thing.” (I’ll wait.) Or, you can just take a few breaths and really pay attention to something. What I mean is, when you notice any the many things you can notice in this moment, pick one thing to make important. Now, focusing on that one thing – as you take a deep breath in, and a deeper breath out – consider if you stuck with that one thing and made it so important that it informed your next decision. What if everything else you noticed was understood through the perspective of that one object that is your focal point?

Don’t go back and try to pick something that you think should be a guide post. Stick with the first thing that came to mind. Whether it was a smell, a taste, a sight, a sound, a sensation of the skin, or a random thought, doesn’t matter. Make whatever you noticed paramount. Now, consider not only building a whole life around the one thing you noticed, but also having to explain that one thing. Like, right now. (I’ll wait… but I might get impatient.)

When Ted Turner’s CNN (Cable News Network) premiered today, Sunday, June 1, 1980, at 5 PM EST, it was the first 24-hour news channel and the first all-news television in the United States. Other outlets made fun of the new network, but Ted Turner had a slogan, a mantra to keep people focused: “Go live, stay with it, and make it important.” The fact that they were able to put those words into action, for ~~going on~~ over 40 years, changed the face of television, politics, and social science. The way CNN tuned into the world, and the way the world tuned in to CNN, created a phenomenon that is studied by political scientists, media analysts, and journalism students all over the world: the CNN Effect.

“The one thing it does, is to drive policymakers to have a policy position. I would have to articulate it very quickly. You are in real-time mode. You don’t have time to reflect.”

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– former Secretary of State James Baker, “clarifying the CNN Effect”

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“Time for reaction is compressed. Analysis and intelligence gathering is out.”

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– Margaret Tutwiler, former press secretary to James Baker, “clarifying the CNN Effect”

There have been a couple of times in the last four years, when current events and politics made me re-think a class theme. For instance, I stopped doing a class based on the Chanukah story “if the Maccabees had Twitter” and, for a couple of years I stopped doing classes on the CNN Effect. But I’ve missed those classes, because I’ve missed the point of those classes. With the class around the CNN Effect, I particularly miss the focus on focus, and how it relates to concentration and meditation. Focus, concentration, and meditation being one way to translate the last three limbs (dhāraņā, dhyāna, samādhi) of the 8-limbed Yoga Philosophy. Another way to translate these final limbs is concentration, meditation, and spiritual absorption. Either way you translate them, Patanjali referred to the combination of the three as a powerful tool for integration called Samyama.

Yoga Sutra 3.5: tád jayat prajñā lōkāh

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– “Through the mastery of that [three-part process of samyama] comes the light of knowledge, transcendental insight, or higher consciousness.”

Theoretically, the more informed we are, at any given moment – about the given moment – the better we are able to make any decisions needed in a given moment. That, however, is just a theory. That theory is based, in part, on the idea that all the information is correct and/or that the incorrect information is easily identifiable. One of the growing pains CNN encountered early on (and something that has sometimes become a problem over the years) is that real time coverage can often include misinformation or incomplete information. Yes, the internet allows for “real time” fact checking, but that really only works when you have some indication that someone is going to lie to you on air (nope, not going there); someone is sitting off-camera pulling up the necessary information; and/or the person on-air is an expert in the field they are covering. A reporter’s job, however, is not to be an expert in anything other than witnessing/observing the facts of the story and communicating the facts of the story. That’s journalism; that’s the job – even when they, the reporters, become part of the story.

“Hello, Atlanta. Atlanta, this is Holliman. I don’t know whether you’re able to hear me now or not. But I’m going to continue to talk to you as long as I can.”

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– John Holliman, reporting live from Baghdad for CNN on Thursday, January 17, 1991 (after the CNN feed went dead during the bombing)

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CNN staff remembers covering the beginning of the Persian Gulf War

No one has the same experience on the same day every year; time forces us to overlap experiences. So, while we can associate a certain day with a certain meaning – and we can communicate that meaning to others – we still might not always share the same experiences. Not sharing the same experiences also means that we do not always share the same awareness.

For example, take this past Monday, which was Memorial Day (in the United States). For some it was a time “to get better air in our lungs” and a time for holiday sales; others were remembering, memorializing, veterans who were lost during wars and conflicts here and abroad. But, time is tricky, and the fact that Memorial Day doesn’t happen on the exact same date every year, means that (this year) some people were remembering George Floyd – as well as the protests and riots that erupted after he was killed. Still others were remembering a Memorial Day 100 years (and a day) ago – Memorial Day 1921, when a 19-year old shoe shine boy known as Dick Rowland got on an elevator operated by a girl known as Sarah Page (who was reported as being 17 years old, but may have actually been 21) and what happened next set-off a riot and massacre the ramifications of which people are still experiencing today.

Of course, there was no CNN (or anything like it) a hundred-plus years ago. And, even if there had been, there’s no telling how different the outcome might have been. After all, when the dust settles today, people can be just as conflicted as when the dust settled today in 1921… and the results can be just as tragic.

The following is an excerpt from a 2021 post. It does not include the fact that an Oklahoma judge ruled (in May 2022) that three survivors of the massacre could proceed with a lawsuit against the City of Tulsa, Tulsa County Board of County Commissioners, Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission, Tulsa Development Authority, Tulsa Regional Chamber, Tulsa County Sheriff, the Oklahoma National Guard, and the Oklahoma Military Department.

No one knows for sure what happened that day, other than that on a holiday when they were both working, “Diamond Dick Rowland” took his only means of transportation to go to a segregated bathroom and something startled Sara, making her scream and him run – after all, she was white, he was Black and they were in an enclosed area.

No one knows for sure what happened but, by all accounts, there was no assault – sexual or otherwise – committed by Dick (who was Black) and Sara (who was white) never claimed that there was. However, there were rumors and innuendo, and “Diamond Dick” was arrested. A front page story in the Tulsa Tribune stated that he was arrested for sexual assault and – as was a common occurrence at the time, when a Black man or boy was arrested (especially if it was related to the harming of a white woman or girl) – a lynch party gathered at the jail. In this case, the sheriff (Willard McCullough) told the group to go home that their presence was unnecessary. He even moved the young man in order to protect him (and possibly kept him hidden even after the riots).

Another thing that was different was the presence, in segregated Tulsa, of a prominent Black community – a thriving community of businesses and residences that, in some ways, was independent of the white community. Established in 1906 by O. W. Gurley (who relocated during the 1889 Land Rush), the area was called the Greenwood District and it sat in Indian Territory. Today, we remember it is as “Black Wall Street.” Some members of this Black community, including some World War I veterans newly returned from the war, showed up to support and protect one of their own. Of course, conflict arose, a shot was fired, someone died, and in a matter of hours – from May 31^st to June 1^st – a whole community was destroyed.

“Your actions speak so loudly, I cannot hear what you are saying.”

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– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Martial law was declared. The National Guard came in to squash the violence, but it was too late to save the Greenwood District; too late to save those who had died and too late to save the homes of those who were displaced. The Oklahoma Bureau of Vital Statistics and a 2001 Oklahoma state commission both recorded 36 confirmed deaths (26 Black and 10 white) as a result of the Tulsa Massacre. However, historians have offered a wide range of estimated deaths and injuries, estimates that go all the up to 300. The Red Cross repeatedly stated “there was no reliable way of accounting for people that died” and indicated that, because of the ensuing cover-up and mass burials, any recorded numbers were sheer conjecture. However, the Red Cross officially documented and offered estimates of damages: approximately 1,256 houses were burned (some by firebombs dropped by airplanes); 215 others were looted (but not torched); 2 newspapers, a school, and a number of churches, hotels, stores, and black-owned business destroyed or damaged by fire.

Because Tulsa was segregated and the Black Frissell Memorial Hospital (established in 1918) was one of the places that burned down, very few Blacks were actually taken to the hospital. This just added to the confusion. Some people were treated in the basement of Morningside Hospital, which had also been established in 1918 (because of the influenza pandemic) and the Red Cross registered 8,624 people (about 2,480 families) as being affected. Of that number, “183 people were hospitalized [see above]; 531 required first aid or surgical treatment;” and 19 people died from their injuries by the end of the year. Additionally, eight miscarriages were attributed to the massacre.

The National Guard helped put out fires, but a lot of their energy was dedicated to rounding up and “capturing” Black Tulsans. By June 2^nd, approximately 6,000 Black people were under guard at the fairgrounds and convention hall. An all-white jury blamed the “riot” on “Black mobs” and indicted over 85 individuals, however no one was convicted of anything. Just as happened after public lynchings, photographs of corpses, Black Tulsans being captured, and Black people attempting to recover their belongings from their ravaged homes were turned into postcards.

“When the bullets stopped flying and the fires ceased on June 2, Tulsa Mayor T. D. Evans sent a short communication to the Red Cross Society:

‘To the Red Cross Society:

Please establish headquarters for all relief work and bring all organizations who can assist you to your aid. The responsibility is placed in your hands entirely.

T. D. Evans, Mayor’

Director of Disaster Relief Maurice Willows arrived in Tulsa with the stated purpose of ‘picking up the fragments – the relief of human suffering – the care of the sick and wounded, and bringing order out of the chaos.”

– quoted from the Rediscovering Black History article “‘The Responsibility is Placed in Your Hands Entirely’ – Red Cross Relief after the Tulsa Race Massacre” by Netisha Currie, archives specialist at the National Archives in College Park (which also appeared in The National Council of Social Studies’ Social Education (volume 85, no. 1)

The white citizens who actually carried out the destruction were not arrested, as most of them (approximately 400) had been deputized by Police Commissioner J. M. Adkison and Chief of Police John A. Gustafson. Over half of those deputized (at least 250) were also armed by the chief – who would later be investigated for a plethora of corruption violations. The chief of police was ultimately indicted (on five counts) and, on July 30, 1921, found guilty of two counts: failing to stop and conspiracy and fraud/embezzlement in a different situation. He went to jail for the latter count. Since “Diamond Dick” reappears on the jail rosters after John Gustafson’s conviction, some believe the young Black man was kept hidden because of the chief’s corruption (and his part in a previous lynching).

All charges and indictments against “Diamond Dick” were eventually dropped. It is believed that he fled Tulsa after his release at the end of September 1921, possibly with assistance from the Sheriff Willard McCullough and his deputy Barney Cleaver (who had been Tulsa’s first African-American police office – until he was fired by police chief Gustafson). Although no one seemed certain about what happened to “Diamond Dick,” sightings were reported in Kansas City, Missouri; South Omaha, Nebraska; back in Tulsa; and – as late as the 1960’s – in Oregon. Some of the confusion about what happened to the man at the center of the events that lead to the destruction of Black Wall Street may be due to a name change. It has been reported (by several sources, including by Tulsa-based This Land Press in May 2013) that the shoe shining teenager may have actually been named James Jones and that people called him “Jimmie” Jones until he changed his surname to Roland, to honor the adopted grandparents who helped raise him. He appears in the police custody logs as “Dick Rolland” (with an exta “L”), but Dick Roland is the name which appears on his sworn affidavit from September 1921. At some point, he decided he liked Dick more than James or Jimmie – although one classmate said that he also went by “Johnny.” According to This Land Press, the extra “w” in the young man’s name was a mistake made by reporters.

Reports about Sarah Page were just as convoluted – especially after she refused to press charges against “Diamond Dick” (who, again, by all legitimate accounts, didn’t do anything illegal). According to the Tulsa-based Center for Public Secrets, records show a Sarah “Sarie” Elizabeth Beaver born in Arkansas on July 27, 1899, who married and divorced twice – first married to Robert H. Fisk in March 1918 (divorced by January 1920) and then married to Raymond M. Page in Missouri in February 1920. The Pages divorced after a 1-year waiting period, in 1921, and Sarah’s divorce petition was served by Tulsa County Sheriff Willard McCullough (yes, the one and only), who would falsely malign her character. Her second divorce was decreed on June 4, 1921 at which point she returned to Missouri and the name “Sarah Bever.” After testifying as a witness during the grand jury investigation into the Tulsa massacre, returned to Tulsa in September 1921 and eventually married Fred E. Voorhies (who had also testified during the grand jury). The 1940 census shows a couple fitting their stats living in California, and having a daughter named Sue. Additional records indicate that lived out their remaining days together.

“On Thursday morning, June 2, 1921, one of Tulsa’s many problems was that of optics. A large chunk of the city had been obliterated in a matter of hours and an embarrassingly large portion of the city’s population had a hand in the obliterating. How this was going to look to outsiders was far from an irrelevant concern for many Tulsans, especially the city’s elite for whom pride in the city’s accomplishments was keen…. Would businesses go elsewhere? Would other ‘better citizens’ from other places look down their noses?”

– quoted from The Center for Public Secrets Journal article entitled, “Mask of Atonement: The Plan to Rebuild the Homes of Greenwood” by Randy Hopkins

Efforts to rebuild Black Wall Street were hampered by trauma, a lack of resources, a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, and the fact that many of the 35 blocks previously designated as the Greenwood District were co-opted by the city. Some Black survivors fled Tulsa and never returned. Those that stayed lived in tents as they tried to rebuild and, subsequently, were referred to as “destitute.” Meanwhile, national news outlets immediately started running front page headlines stating that Tulsa would rebuild the homes, in a way that served as “an atonement for the harm done,” and that Tulsa would serve as an example for other cities in the country. Public fundraising efforts kicked off immediately, but barely any of the funds made it to the Greenwood residents and, by June 4^th, the Associated Press was telling major news outlets not to donate. A committee of seven, which would eventually name itself the Board of Public Welfare, was referred to as the “reparations committee” – knowing good and well there were no reparations, because they were not only telling people not to donate, they were returning some of the donations.

While city officials were publicly applauded for assisting the impoverished, white developers (with the backing of the mayor) attempted to enact city (fire) ordinances and get new zoning in place that would have prevented Blacks from rebuilding in what was considered prime real estate. The Oklahoma Supreme Court deemed the primary ordinance unconstitutional; but, constantly battling restrictions in how and what residents could build created more and more setbacks. It was also demoralizing. Even though they were backed and supported by their “angels of mercy” (as the called the Red Cross), Black residents found themselves up against the interests (and substantial efforts) of the mayor and the all-white reconstructing committee that wanted a larger “industrial” separation between the races.

The committee wanted Black residents to sign over their land to a holding company so that the land could be appraised by a white appraisal committee, which would then pay the Black citizens at the lower industrial-zoned value – even though the property was residentially zoned. Naturally, the Black citizens balked; but, to little avail. By the time the Red Cross pulled out of Tulsa, 700 “semi-permanent buildings and homes” had been constructed, but 49 families were still living in “tent-homes.” Over the next decade, a smaller, less elegant Black Wall Street emerged. The difference in size was partially due to the fact that city officials expanded earlier plans for a small rail hub. They used the destruction of Black Wall Street as an excuse to construct Tulsa Union Depot, a large rail hub connecting three major railroads traveling through Oklahoma and onward to Missouri, Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and California.

The construction of Tulsa Union Depot cost $3.5 million dollars, which was paid by a bond passed in 1927. (And trust me when I tell you don’t want me to get into Tulsa’s history with bonds right now.) The Depot was hailed as “the single best [Public Works Administration] symbol of hope for economic recovery during the bleak days of the depression” and opened in 1931 to crowd of at least 60,000 people. It operated as a train station until 1967; was purchased by a private company in 1980; and was renovated (by the same contractor company that built it). In 1983, it re-opened as a privately held office complex. In 2004, the county purchased the building for $2.2 million and used $4 million for renovations. After an internal transfer (between different divisions within the county), the Tulsa County Industrial Authority (TCIA) signed a 99-year lease with the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame. The Jazz Hall’s lease was for $1, with the stipulation that they would pay (the city) for operating expenses. As of 2020, the space was in the middle of a legal dispute that will ultimately cost millions to resolve.

I don’t know if you’re keeping track, but that last paragraph detailed almost $10 million that was spent on something other than rebuilding the Greenwood District – and it does not account for any revenue earned by the city because of the depot. In many ways, you could say the initiative to build the Depot was the very opposite of Ujamaa (“Cooperative Economics”), the fourth principle of Kwanzaa.

“The extent of aid and relief, as in many aspects of the Red Cross work, stopped short of a supportive hand. Survivors of the massacre were only supplied the lumber to rebuild their homes; for labor they had only themselves to rely on and any other able-bodied friends who could pitch in. Greenwood, once lined with homes ranging from fancy mansions to modest well-kept abodes, resembled a shantytown emerging from a way.”

– quoted from the Rediscovering Black History article “‘The Responsibility is Placed in Your Hands Entirely’ – Red Cross Relief after the Tulsa Race Massacre” by Netisha Currie, archives specialist at the National Archives in College Park (which also appeared in The National Council of Social Studies’ Social Education (volume 85, no. 1)

Ujamma is in practice when people within a community buy locally, support local businesses and each other – that’s what Black people were doing in the Greenwood District before it was destroyed. That’s what Black people were doing all around the segregated South. Think about it for a moment and it’s easy to see that it’s what’s happening in most ethnic-minority communities around the country. But that local rallying doesn’t happen so much, any more, in African American communities (comprised of the descendants of emancipated Africans) – and the reason why comes back to what happened to Black Wall Street.

But, people’s hesitancy is not just about the devastation that happened in Tulsa in 1921. It’s also about the devastation that happened in Colfax, Louisiana in April of 1873 (when at least 150 Black men were murdered). It’s about the fact that after Black officials were elected in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1898, white supremacists decided to overthrow the Wilmington government and destroy the press – somewhere between 60 – 300 Black people were killed (Again, exact numbers are hard to ascertain when there’s a cover-up that lasts over 100 years.) It’s also about the Atlanta Massacre in 1906 (when at least 100 people were killed) – as well as what happened in Chicago, Illinois; Knoxville, TN; Washington, D.C.; Omaha, Nebraska; and several dozen cities during the “red summer” of 1919.

The “red summer” included what happened in Elaine, Arkansas in 1919 when Black sharecroppers (who outnumbered their white peers) created a union and white people showed up to riot. One white man was shot and killed at the meeting (at least 4 others were killed as things unfolded); anywhere between 50 to 200+ Black people – including veterans and children were also killed. Many of the Black workers were arrested and tortured until they “confessed” to an insurrection that never happened. The imaginary insurrection that never happened was reported by major news outlets, including the New York Times and Arkansas Gazette. Sixty-seven Black men were convicted by an all-white jury and received sentences from 20 years to life. The trial for twelve additional men lasted about 1 hour; at the conclusion of which, the man had been given the death penalty. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) took the case all the way to the Supreme Court and ensured the exoneration of the “Elaine 12” – exonerations which were partially based on the 14^th Amendment.

There was also Rosewood, Florida in 1923 – the history of which sounds a lot like Tulsa, plus 102 years. About 150 Black people were killed, but a grand jury and special prosecutor decided there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute any white men that might have been involved in the murders. If you add it up, just using the minimum of the estimates, over 700 people were killed just because they had Black skin and were creating their own little piece of the American dream. Again, that’s the bare minimum and it doesn’t take into account any individuals who were murdered outside of these incidents nor does it include anyone killed during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s.

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

– quoted from the preface to Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

Please join me today (Wednesday, June 1^st) at 4:30 PM or 7:15 PM for a yoga practice on Zoom. Use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. You will need to register for the 7:15 PM class if you have not already done so. Give yourself extra time to log in if you have not upgraded to Zoom 5.0. You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below or by emailing myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.

Wednesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “06012021 The Difference A Day Made”]

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.)

*

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

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

### PEACE IN, PEACE OUT ###

FTWMI: Doing the Work May 16, 2022

Posted by ajoyfulpractice in "Impossible" People, Books, Buddhism, Changing Perspectives, Dharma, Faith, Healing Stories, Hope, Life, Mantra, Movies, Music, Mysticism, One Hoop, Pain, Philosophy, Science, Suffering, Tragedy, Wisdom, Yoga.
Tags: Bhagavad Gita, Dr. B. B. Cael, Four Noble Truths, HaYom Yom, John Doe, Jose Ortega y Gasset, KISS MY ASANA, Manisha Koirala, Marcus Aurelius, Mona Miller, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak of Lubavitch, Ranbir Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Sanju, Seane Corn, Shreya Ghoshal, Sukhwinder Singh, Susanna Barkataki, yoga sutra 2.18
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Be humble, strong, and balanced.

While yesterday’s practice served up “phun” with a side of suffering, how we deal with suffering is the main course during tonight’s practice. The following was originally posted in 2021. I have updated the date-related practice information. Even though there is no music for the Monday night practice, I have retained the links from last year’s practice.

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.)

“‘Bhikkhus, I could tell you in many ways about the animal kingdom, so much so that it is hard to find a simile for the suffering in the animal kingdom. Suppose a man threw into the sea a yoke with one hole in it, and the east wind carried it to the west, and the west wind carried it to the east, and the north wind carried it to the south, and the south wind carried it to the north. Suppose there were a blind turtle that came up once at the end of each century. What do you think, bhikkhus [monks]? Would that blind turtle put his neck into that yoke with one hole in it?’

Bhikkhus: ‘He might, venerable sir, sometime or other at the end of a long period.’

‘Bhikkhus, the blind turtle would take less time to put his neck into that yoke with a single hole in it than a fool, once gone to perdition, would take to regain the human state, I say. Why is that? Because there is no practicing of the Dhamma there, no practicing of what is righteous, no doing of what is wholesome, no performance of merit. There mutual devouring prevails, and the slaughter of the weak.’”

– quoted from “The Animal Kingdom” in Majjhima Nikāya 129, Balapandita Sutta: Fools and Wise Men

Don’t ask me why, because I can give you a hundred reasons, but I always seem to “mis-remember” a certain Buddhist story. I mix up the details of the story – I have heard that other teachers (greater teachers than me) do the same. In my case, the blind turtle becomes a dolphin who likes to play; another teacher makes the piece of driftwood a golden ring, heavy enough to sink down to the bottom of the sea (only to get churned back up again). Additionally, I have heard others say that the convergence of the ring and the sea creature happens every hundred years, every thousand years, every five billion years, or a kalpa (based on Hindu and/or some Buddhist texts). But, be all that as it may, the purpose of the story doesn’t change: it highlights the odds of being born (or reborn) into a human existence and the preciousness of human life. And, just as the purpose of the story doesn’t change, neither does the driving compulsion to tell the story – even when one mixes up the details.

While we are on the subject of details, take a moment to consider the details of your life. Consider your unique experiences, thoughts, words, deeds, and relationships. Back in 2016, Dr. B. B. Cael, who was then a graduate student in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program (Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), calculated that the probability of a blind sea turtle randomly rising up so that it’s head poked through a hole in a piece of drift wood was 7.2 x 10^-16 and the probability of a human being (who is going to be reincarnated) coming back as another human was 6.5 x 10^-16. Now, all of that is just random – without any consideration to specific details like in which body of water the creature rise or what month or what year. Imagine if you will, the probability of you… or me…or anyone we know actually existing as we do. It is miraculous and magnificent!

When I consider how magnificent and miraculous it all is, it reinforces my belief that we are all here for a purpose: a divine purpose. Or, at the very least, that our lives should have a purpose; that we should live a purpose-driven life.

“Find your struggle, learn your lesson, and then know your purpose.”

– a “Monaism” (saying by Mona Miller, as quoted by Seane Corn)

Mona Miller was the teacher of one of my teachers, Seane Corn. Like me, like Seane, like pretty much every teacher who regularly guides a group of people, Mona had things she was known for saying. Her students called those sayings, Monaisms, and the one above reminds me of Marcus Aurelius’ stoic belief that the obstacle is the way. It is also a perfect recipe for being driven and staying driven. After all, we all have struggles, strife, challenges, discomfort, suffering, and disease – and we all want (and deserve) relief from that which ails us. If we take a moment, just a moment, to reflect on what ails us we start to realize four very salient facts:

We are not the only person suffering.
Someone else has, is, and will suffer as we are suffering.
How we deal with our suffering can alleviate suffering or cause more suffering (in ourselves and others).
How we deal with our suffering can inspire others as they deal with their suffering.

If we lay these facts over the Buddha’s “Four Noble Truths” and some of Patanjali’s aphorisms on afflicted/dysfunctional thought-patterns and the nature of suffering, we find that even our smallest goals and desires – the things we think are the most personal to us and our circumstances, in fact, directly and indirectly affect others and their suffering. Everything, as Patanjali points out in Yoga Sūtra 2.18, can bring fulfillment and freedom (from suffering).

“Sanklapa goes beyond just intention. Sankalpa truly cares for the impact.”

– Embrace Yoga’s Roots: Courageous Ways to Deepen Your Practice by Susanna Barkataki

Our ritual of setting an intention and “dedicating” our practice is similar to the Buddhist tradition of “dedicating of the merit” and is rooted in the fifth niyama (“internal observation”), Īśvarapraņidhāna, which is offering our efforts back to the source. The underlying idea in these practices is the very definition of karma yoga as outlined in The Bhagavad Gita (2.31 – 2.51): that we should do our best and work without desire, because the work we do is our “personal duty in life (one’s sva-dharma).”

On Saturday, we go a little deeper by practicing with a sankalpa. The Sanskrit word can be translated into English as “will,” “determination,” and “(the highest) vow.” However, as Susanna Barkataki points out, there is no English word that encompasses the complete and true meaning. Part of the problem with the English translations is that we don’t have one word for something that simultaneously compels us, fuels us, and motivates us. We don’t have an English word for something that consciously embed so deeply into our fiber that it unconsciously starts determining how we live, think, speak, and act. Even “purpose” has to be “driven.”

Of course, these practices require a certain level of trust, a certain level of faith, or – at the very least – a certain level of hopeful desire that what benefits us will also benefit others. One way I frame this is to think of each of us is being like every hero in every culture’s hero’s journey. Accordingly, our work in the world will result in a boon that benefits the world. This is true whether we look at our life (and life purpose) through the lens of our occupation, vocation, and/or avocation. This is true whether we have all the advantages or all the disadvantages. This is true whether people expect us to succeed or whether we are viewed as the underdog. Either way, how we show up in the world matters, because we matter.

“That grain of salt
You talk about
Gets bigger and bigger each day
It’s making a pearl
Inside my heart
With layer and layers of tears
I’d give you this pearl
To save our hearts”

– quoted from the song “Grain of Salt” by John Doe

I have a lot of favorite metaphors about how we can deal with hardship and challenges. One of my favorites is what happens when an oyster, clam, or other shelled mollusks gets a bit of salt, sand, or debris inside of its shell. Since the mollusk doesn’t have fingers and opposable thumbs it can use to root around and remove the irritating object, it begins to lave the object with its natural secretion. Over and over again, the shell creature coats the object until it is smooth (and iridescent) and no longer irritating. The end result is something we humans often find valuable.

Of course, I’m going to discourage anyone from getting an actual pearl to remind them of this metaphor, because it is (in a practical sense) an imperfect metaphor. While the mollusk finds a non-violent way to end its suffering, the harvesting of the pearl (especially in a commercial sense) usually requires killing the shelled creature. In the case of cultured pearls, someone intentionally places the irritating object in the shell (hence causing suffering) and then kills the mollusk or, if it can be “irritated” again, places it back in the water to go through more suffering. Hence why, when I use the metaphor, I focus more on what the mollusk has to teach us than what we teach ourselves.

It is, however, important to remember that we are teaching ourselves. In other words, we are teaching each other. The way we think, speak, act, and live our lives is a lesson to others – and especially to the children around us. I know there are a lot of celebrities who consistently proclaim that they are not role models. Yet, each of us is a living example; each of us is modeling behavior – and the children around us are watching and learning. They are learning from their parents, grandparents, their teachers, their coaches, their neighbors, their world leaders, and the siblings of all of the above. They are also learning from each other. And what is more important than the words someone tells them is the lived example that they observe.

“Pighla de zanjeerein
[Melt the shackles]

Bana unki shamsheerein
[and make swords out of them]

Kar har maidaan fateh o bandeya
[Win every battlefield, overcome all your limitations/restrictions”]

– quoted from the song “Kar Har Maidaan Fateh” by Shreya Ghoshal and Sukhwinder Singh

The 2018 film Sanju is based on the real life story of a Bollywood actor, Sanjay Dutt (portrayed by Ranbir Kapoor). Called “Sanju” by his mother, the actor experienced a series of personal crises intertwined with political crises and a downward spiral that resulted in him dealing with his losses, challenges, and conflicts in the some of the most dysfunctional/afflicted ways possible. He turned to drugs and alcohol, and became addicted – which, of course, led to more suffering. In a song that is featured in the movie, and in the associated video, Manisha Koirala appears as a vision of Nargis, Sanju’s mother, encouraging him to live a better life.

In keeping with the language found in many sacred texts from Asia, the song, “Kar Har Maidaan Fateh” refers to one’s struggles, challenges, and suffering as “shackles” or “chains.” The song instructs one to turn the very things that could defeat us into something that can help us overcome our struggles and win our personal battles. It speaks of the power of determination so strong that it overcomes bad luck; climbing onto “clouds of adversity” and grabbing “the collar of the difficult tough times – all in order to become special and “separate from the ordinary crowd.” The song specifically refers to “swords” (and even what can be accomplished with a “broken sword”), but consider other tools that one can use to overcome adversity.

Remember, Edward Bulwer-Lytton said, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” Remember the power of a sharp mind and what happens when you make your mind up to do something. Remember, too, that once a lesson is learned it continues to serve.

“If all the world is a classroom and every day of life is a lesson, then certainly your profession and workplace are included.

After all, He has unlimited ways to provide your livelihood, but He chose to direct you to this way of life.

What sparks of divine wisdom await you here?”

**– quoted from Hayom Yom*, 9 Iyar**

(*lit. “From Day to Day”); an anthology of aphorisms and customs, arranged according to the days of the year, assembled from the talks and letters of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak of Lubavitch (1880-1950), sixth Lubavitch Rebbe; compiled by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, seventh Lubavitch Rebbe. “Iyar” is the eighth month of the civil year and the second month of the Jewish religious year, based on the Hebrew calendar.

Please join me today (Monday, May 16^th) at 5:30 PM for a 75-minute virtual yoga practice on Zoom. Use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. Give yourself extra time to log in if you have not upgraded to Zoom 5.0. You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below.

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

The playlist for Sunday (05/16/2021) is available on YouTube and Spotify.

“Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia, y si no la salvo a ella no me salvo yo.”

[“I am I and my circumstance, and if I don’t save it I don’t save myself.”]

— quoted from Meditaciones del Quijote [Don Quixote Mediations] by José Ortega y Gasset

Thank you to everyone who supported the 9^th annual Kiss My Asana yogathon. Both Mind Body Solutions and I surpassed our goals (Woohooo!!!) thanks to everyone’s generosity. As always, I am grateful for everyone that did yoga, shared yoga, and helped others.

“Dikhla de zinda hai tu
[Show to everyone that you are still alive]

Baaqi hai tujhme hausla
[and there is courage left in you…]”

“Tooti shamsheerein toh kya
[So what if your sword is broken]

Tooti shamsheeron se hee
[Even with this broken sword]

Kar har maidan fateh
[Win all the battlefields…]”

“Teri koshishein hee kaamyaab hongi
[your attempts, efforts will be successful]

Jab teri ye zidd aag hogi
[when your insistence, attempts would turn into a burning desire]

Phoonk de na-umeediyan, na-umeediyan
[Burn down all the hopeless, negativeness…]”

– quoted from the song “Kar Har Maidaan Fateh” by Shreya Ghoshal and Sukhwinder Singh (with English translations)

Victory in every situation

### ¡Jai Jai Guru Dev! Victory to the Big Mind! ###

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A Joyful Practice

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

*

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

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

*

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

*

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

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

*

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

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

*

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

*

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

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

FTWMI: Do You See What I See? & Your Presence Is Requested January 6, 2023

“Said the shepherd boy to the mighty kingDo you know what I know (Know what I know)In your palace warm, mighty kingDo you know what I know (Know what I know)A child, a child, shivers in the coldLet us bring him silver and goldLet us bring him silver and gold, oh yeah, oh”

– 2nd verse of “Do You Hear What I Hear” by Whitney Houston

Yoga Sutra 2.20: draşțā dŗśimātrah śuddho’pi pratyayānupaśyah

– “The sheer power of seeing is the seer. It is pure, and yet it sees only what the mind [brain] shows it.”

“1. ChorusThey will all come forth out of Sheba,bringing gold and incenseand proclaiming the price of the Lord.

2. ChoraleThe kings came out of Sheba,they brought gold, incense, myrrh along,Hallelujah!”

– quoted from “Sie werden aus saba alle kommen” (“They will all come forth out of Sheba”), BWV 65 by Johann Sebastian Bach (translation from Pamela Dellal for Emmanuel Music, Artistic Director: Ryan Turner)

“‘Its final cause,’ [Bach] wrote, ‘is none other than this, that it ministers solely to the honor of God and refreshment of the spirit, whereof, if one take not heed, it is no proper music, but devilish din and discord.’”

– quoted from God and Music by John Harrington Edwards (published 1903)

– quoted from “Sie werden aus saba alle kommen” (“They will all come forth out of Sheba”), BWV 65 by Johann Sebastian Bach (translation from Pamela Dellal for Emmanuel Music, Artistic Director: Ryan Turner)

“But what do I bring, you King of Heaven?If my heart is not too little for you, thenaccept it graciously,Because I cannot bring anything noble.”

– quoted from the 3rd movement (Recitative B), of “Sie werden aus saba alle kommen” (“They will all come forth out of Sheba”), BWV 65 by Johann Sebastian Bach (translation from Pamela Dellal for Emmanuel Music, Artistic Director: Ryan Turner)

– quoted from “Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord,” Papal Mass, Homily of Pope Francis (Vatican Basilica, Saturday, 6, January 2018)

– quoted from “Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord,” Papal Mass, Homily of Pope Francis (Vatican Basilica, Sunday, 6, January 2019)**

### SEEING IS BELIEVING, BUT ONLY WHEN YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE SEEING ###

“What I really want to get to today is why the Magi came. What was it that brought them to Bethlehem? What was it that brought them to find Jesus and his family?”

*

– quoted from “The Epiphany Light: Another Reflection” by Reverend Ed Trevors (dated Jan 6, 2022)

*

### OHR ###

FTWMI: What You Will See January 5, 2023

“I’ll do my best”

– Viola (a twin in disguise) in Act I, scene iv of Twelfth Night, or What You Will by William Shakespeare

“O time, thou must untangle this, not I. It is too hard a knot for me t’untie.”

– Viola (a twin in disguise) in Act II, scene ii of Twelfth Night, or What You Will by William Shakespeare

“If music be the food of love, play on.”

– Orsino (Duke of Illyria) in Act I, scene i of Twelfth Night, or What You Will by William Shakespeare

“Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun, it shines everywhere.”

– Feste (the Countess Olivia’s servant, a jester) in Act III, scene i of Twelfth Night, or What You Will by William Shakespeare

“Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?”

– Sir Toby Belch (Olivia’s uncle) to Malvolio (Viola’s steward) in Act II, scene iii of Twelfth Night, or What You Will by William Shakespeare

“If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.”

– Fabian (a servant for the Countess Olivia) in Act III, scene iv of Twelfth Night, or What You Will by William Shakespeare

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.”

– Malvolio (a steward for the shipwrecked twins) in Act II, scene v of Twelfth Night, or What You Will by William Shakespeare

### BE GREAT, BE GRATEFUL, & BE NICE ###

FTWMI: Sailing Into New Beginnings January 3, 2023

– quoted from “Chapter LVIII. Brit” in Moby Dick, or The Whale by Herman Melville

– 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

“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

“‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo.

– quoted from “Book 1, Chapter 2: The Shadow of the Past” in The Fellowship of the Ring (Volume 1 of the Lord of the Rings) by J. R. R. Tolkien

“I try all things; I achieve what I can.”

– quoted from “Chapter LXXIX. The Prairie” in Moby Dick, or The Whale by Herman Melville

“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.”

– quoted from “Chapter XXXIX. First Night-Watch: Fore-Top (Stubb solus, and mending a brace)” in Moby Dick, or The Whale by Herman Melville

“‘No!” said Thorin. ‘There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. But sad or merry, I must leave it now. Farewell!’”

– quoted from “Chapter XVIII: The Return” in The Hobbit, Or There and Back Again by J. R. R. Tolkien

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

– The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Galatians (2:22 – 5:23, NIV)

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

“Not all those who wander are lost.”

– quoted from a letter dated “Midyear’s Day, Shire Year 1418” from Gandalf to Frodo, delivered by Strider/Aragon/Elessar in “Book 1, Chapter 10: Strider” in The Fellowship of the Ring (Volume 1 of the Lord of the Rings) by J. R. R. Tolkien

### Grace (Enuf) ###

FTWMI: Appreciate the Power by Using the Power, Wisely December 28, 2022

“…aware at last that in this world, with great power there must also come — great responsibility!”

– quoted from Amazing Fantasy #15 by Stan Lee, et al (August 1962)

“‘Nevermore shall men make slaves of others! Not in Asgard — not on Earth — not any place where the hammer of Thor can be swung — or where men of good faith hold freedom dear!’”

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

“Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king
Do you know what I know (Know what I know)
In your palace warm, mighty king
Do you know what I know (Know what I know)
A child, a child, shivers in the cold
Let us bring him silver and gold
Let us bring him silver and gold, oh yeah, oh”

– 2^nd verse of “Do You Hear What I Hear” by Whitney Houston

“1. Chorus
They will all come forth out of Sheba,
bringing gold and incense
and proclaiming the price of the Lord.

2. Chorale
The kings came out of Sheba,
they brought gold, incense, myrrh along,
Hallelujah!”

“But what do I bring, you King of Heaven?
If my heart is not too little for you, then
accept it graciously,
Because I cannot bring anything noble.”

– quoted from the 3^rd movement (Recitative B), of “Sie werden aus saba alle kommen” (“They will all come forth out of Sheba”), BWV 65 by Johann Sebastian Bach (translation from Pamela Dellal for Emmanuel Music, Artistic Director: Ryan Turner)

“O time, thou must untangle this, not I.
It is too hard a knot for me t’untie.”