Cèlèbrer Une Vie & FTWMI: Recuerda Todas Almas November 2, 2022

Many blessings to those observing All Souls y Día de (los) Muertos!

“That was what the living did: they died.”

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– quoted from The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier

On Sunday (10/30/2022), I was shocked to hear that one of my Minneapolis yoga buddies was terminally ill. Just a few hours later, I was shocked and saddened to hear that he had passed. His family hosted a celebration of life so that he could spend his final hours surrounded by people who loved and respected him. It was hard; but I heard the opportunity gave him and them some comfort.

For years, AB practiced yoga at the old Downtown Minneapolis YMCA. He was partially responsible for me meeting one of my favorite people on the planet and, additionally, his mother once joined us for a class during one of her visits to the Twin Cities. (I have a vague idea that she might have taught yoga at one time; however, since I never read her autobiography, don’t quote me on this point. Either way, she definitely started practicing long before I ever did!)

AB loved the music and especially appreciated my Christmas-story playlist. For many years, he gave me an Amazon gift card so I could purchase more music for class! In addition to swapping music, we swapped a few books – including Kevin Brockmeier’s The Brief History of the Dead, which I mention at this time every year. We also shared an occasional meal. For better or for worse, I got to watch his life change.

I also got to see his practice change.  (NOTE: For those who knew whom as an esteemed attorney and French academic editor, here I am talking about his yoga practice.) At one point, while we were still at the old Y, he asked me what would make certain aspects of the practice more accessible to him. Later, he decided he was getting enough cardio and strength from boot camp (and other cardio classes) and that what he needed/wanted from his yoga practice was the meditation and deep tissue work he experienced when he dropped into one of my Yin Yoga classes. Unfortunately, the Yin Yoga classes didn’t always fit into his schedule. So, we talked about how he could add a little Yin to the very yang vinyasa practices that worked for his schedule. Eventually, when the Y moved to it’s fancier digs and more classes overlapped, he made the decision (as so many did) to take classes that were more active than yoga. We still caught up in the lobby and, occasionally, outside of the Y; but…. Time marches on.

As reports and tributes come in from all over the world, I can’t help but notice how “one of those random people who came to yoga and became a friend,” meant so much to so many different people and for so many different reasons. AB’s life and death are a reminder that a person can affect the lives of a lot of different people in a lot of different ways.

Today’s sequence reflects the yin/yang that AB appreciated. It’s also an opportunity to celebrate a life that touched so many. Repose en paix, mon ami. Nous nous souviendrons de toi. Nous nous souviendrons de toi.

For Those Who Missed It: The following was originally posted November 2, 2020. Class details and links have also been updated or added.

“i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

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my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)“

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– quoted from “[i carry your heart with me(I carry it in)]” by e e cummings

Take a moment to bring your awareness to your hearts. Not just your physical heart, or even just your emotional heart – take a moment to bring your awareness to your energetic heart and all of its connections. You can even think of that energetic heart as a spiritual heart and all of its connections. Either way, when I talk about the various ways we can map out our energy – and especially when I specifically refer to the energy system of nadis (“rivers”) and chakras (“wheels”) as outlined by Yoga and Ayurveda, as they come to us from India, I often mention that we can be genetically and energetically (even spiritually) connected to people we have never met and will never meet. Similarly, we are connected, genetically and energetically (even spiritually), to people we will never meet again… people who have passed from the physical world (back) into the energetic and spiritual world.

Throughout history, people from various cultures around the world have had (and continue to have) different ways of honoring these connections – especially the spiritual and energetic connections we have with those who passed on into another realm of existence. Yes, I said, “another realm of existence;” because, while someone ceases to exist in the material and physical sense, they can continue to exist in an emotional, energetic, and spiritual sense – as long as we remember them.

“No two reports were ever the same. And yet always there was the drumlike thumping noise.

Some people insisted that it never went away, that if you concentrated and did not turn your ear from the sound, you could hear it faintly behind everything in the city….”

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– quoted from The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier

Today, November 2^nd, is All Souls’ Day, also known as the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed – the last day of Allhallowtide in the Western Christian tradition and the final Día de (los) Muertos in Mexico and the Mexican diaspora. Like All Saints’ Day (which was yesterday), there was a time when this holy time was celebrated in the Spring – and, in fact, there are still traditions, like the Eastern Orthodox Churches, which remember the dead around Easter. However, the fifth Benedictine Abbot of Cluny, St. Odilon of Cluny, established this Western observation in the 10^th century and the practice has endured. Unlike All Saints, today is a day dedicated to all departed souls and, in particular, to those who may or may not have lived a “faithful” life according to the Church.

While it is not a national holiday in Catholic countries, nor is it one of the five days of holy obligation within the Catholic Church, it is a day of prayer (and, for some, quite a few masses). Here, the prayers are not so much as for the living as for the dead, because Christians who have a “fundamental belief that there is a prayerful spiritual bond between those in heaven (Christian triumphant) and the living (the Christian militant)” may also believe that those who die without being baptized and/or living a faithful life (the Church penitent, also known as “the Church suffering” and “the Church expectant”) will languish in Purgatory without God’s grace.

So, today people pray for that grace so their dearly departed loved ones will no longer suffer. In addition to the vibrant Día de (los) Muertos traditions I mentioned yesterday, as well as the traditions of guising, souling, and the exchange of soul cakes (that I mentioned on Halloween), All Souls’ Day is known for bell tolling and candle lighting, which both represent the cleansing of souls and power of light overcoming darkness.

“If he had not believed that the dead would be raised, it would have been foolish and useless to pray for them. In his firm and devout conviction that all of God’s faithful people would receive a wonderful reward, Judas made provision for a sin offering to set free from their sin those who had died. It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.”

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– 2 Maccabees (12:44 – 46)

Please join me today (Wednesday, November 2^nd) 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 (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 “11022021 All Souls / Dia de los”]

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.)

“One particular issue of the L. Sims News & Speculation Sheet—the Sims Sheet, people called it—addressed the matter of this sound. Fewer than twenty per cent of the people Luka interviewed claimed that they could still hear it after the crossing, but almost everyone agreed that it resembled nothing so much as—could be nothing other than—the pounding of a heart. The question, then, was where did it come from? It could not be their own hearts, for their hearts no longer beat. The old man Mahmoud Qassim believed that it was not the actual sound of his heart but the remembered sound, which, because he had both heard and failed to notice it for so long, still resounded in his ears. The woman who sold bracelets by the river thought that it was the heartbeat at the center of the world, that bright, boiling place she had fallen through on her way to the city. ‘As for this reporter,’ the article concluded, ‘I hold with the majority. I have always suspected that the thumping sound we hear is the pulse of those who are still alive. The living carry us inside them like pearls. We survive only so long as they remember us.”’

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– quoted from The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier

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