[This is the super-sized “missing” post related to Wednesday, May 19th. You can request an audio recording of Wednesday’s practice via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email me at myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.
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“A good puzzle, it’s a fair thing. Nobody is lying. It’s very clear, and the problem depends just on you.”
– Ernö Rubik
How is life like a puzzle? Or not like a puzzle?
Ernö Rubik, the Hungarian architect and architect professor who invented the Rubik’s Cube today in 1974, didn’t set out to be an inventor – let alone the inventor of one of the most popular toys of the 80’s. His original intention was to build a three dimensional model he could use to help his architecture students develop spatial awareness and solve design problems. The only problem was that he wanted to be able to move the parts around without taking the model apart and putting it back together. One day, while walking on a cobblestone bridge in Budapest, he looked down and realized if the core of his model resembled the cobblestones he could twist and turn the pieces accordingly.
Physically speaking, we humans have parts that are similar to the core of the Rubik’s cube – and even the Rubik’s snake. But, if you go a little deeper, you will find that we are not only connected in a physical (body) way, we also have mental, emotional, energetic, and spiritual connections that bind us to our current time and place and also provide support as we move through our practice and through our lives.
Obviously, Western science has a physical and energetic mapping system. As do the traditional sciences like the systems that come from China, Africa, and India. For example, yoga and Ayurveda, as they come to us from India, provide an energetic mapping system through which we can view and process our lives and experiences. This mapping system consists of nadis (energy “channels” or “rivers”) which house our vitality/spirit; chakras (energy “wheels”), which are the intersecting points of the three major nadis; and marma (“secret” or “vulnerable”) points. The nadis and chakras are part of the subtle body. The marma points are pressure points where the subtle/energetic body meets the physical/tangible body – and are typically found where tendons, bones, muscles, joints, veins, nerves, and other tissues come together. They can be healing points (because they are places where vital energy should flow, but can become stagnant); however, they are also “kill” points – which is why they are called secret.
In our yoga practice, I often mention how seven chakras are energetically and symbolically connected to the body and to our lived experiences. For example, the 1stchakra is associated with our lower bodies (toes, feet, ankles, knees, legs, and pelvic floor) and energetically and symbolically connected to our first family, tribe, and community of birth. I will often point out, as well, that just as we can be genetically connected to people we have never met and will never meet, we can be energetically connected to people we have never met and will never meet. Notice that this area, physically and energetically, provides our foundational support in life.
According to this same paradigm, the 2ndchakra (hips and lowest portion of the abdominal cavity) is connected to the friends we make outside of our early support system (and, I believe, the friendships we choose to make as adults with people who may be in that first group). Take a moment to consider how where you start in life plays a part in how you “cultivate a good heart” (i.e., make friends) with people who are perceived as being different from you. (Or not.) Take a moment to consider that, even with the proliferation of internet access, geography (again, where we come from) also plays a part in who is able to make up our close circle of friends. (Remember, Linda Brown had a diverse group of friends in her neighborhood, but did not go to school with them and, therefore, had different experiences from them – differences that shaped the course of her life.)
The 3rdchakra (solar plexus or middle and upper abdominal cavity) is energetically connected to our ego, of self, personality, self esteem, and how we see ourselves in the world. This area is even, to a certain degree, connected to how we think others perceive us. Take a moment to consider how where you come from and the friends you make along the way play a part in how you see and understand yourself.
Notice, for a moment, how all of these areas are related to our physical stability and how each area of experience builds on the other areas our lives – just as our body stacks up on itself. This building process continues through the heart chakra (which is connected to our capacity to love and extend ourselves and our gifts to others); the throat chakra (connected to will and determination); the third eye or 6thchakra (connected to our sense of Truth); and the crown or 7thchakra (connected to our sense of this present moment).
Considering these connections, as I suggested in the first three examples, can be a form of svādyāya (“self-study”). However, to really go deep, we might consider the lived experiences of other people and our physical-mental responses to those lived experiences. Take, for instance, the lived experiences of Johns Hopkins, Malcolm X, and Lorraine Hansberry – all of whom were born on May 19th in different parts of the United States of America.
While we could view their lives through the “lens” of each chakra, I am really just focusing here on the first three – which are related to foundational support and connection/bonding. If you were practicing with me (or reading the blog) over the last month and half, you will have noticed references to the Tree of Life and to how in Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), seven of the 10 sefirot (“emanations” of the Divine) can be overlapped with parts of the body. One of those parts being the pelvic and abdominal regions, which is associated with yesod (“foundation” and “bonding”). Notice, that if you are sitting (especially if you are sitting on the floor), there is a direct overlap between the first through third chakras and the area associated with yesod.
“[JOSEPH] ASAGAI: Just sit awhile and think… Never be afraid to sit awhile and think.”
– quoted from A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
Johns Hopkins was born May 19, 1795, on his family’s 500-acre tobacco plantation (White’s Hall, named after the originally owner of the land) in what is now Gambrills, Maryland. The Samuel Hopkins and Hannah Janney Hopkins had eleven children and were part of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). They also owned slaves, but in theory the family freed their slaves in 1807 – when Johns Hopkins was 12 years old – in accordance with their Quaker beliefs. According to the often repeated stories, Johns (and his siblings) worked in the field with indentured and freed Blacks from the time he was 12, until he left home at 17.
I hesitate to mention that last bit; first, because it may be more legend than truth. Second, because even if the stories are true, the Hopkins siblings and the Blacks had very different experiences. However, it’s a connection (a 3rd chakra connection) and it’s interesting to consider how the school-aged siblings – Johns, in particular, felt when they had to quit school in order to work in the fields. It would also be interesting to know what became of those indentured and freed Blacks (and their descendant)… but I don’t currently know that information.
What I do know, is that Johns left home at 17, went to work for a paternal uncle who owned a wholesale grocery, fell in love with his first cousin (who he couldn’t marry), and eventually started a business with a fellow Quaker, Benjamin P. Moore (not to be confused with the Irish immigrant who started the paint company with his brothers). When Moore left the business, Johns and three of his brothers started building their own wholesale empire.
Eventually, Johns Hopkins became wealthy enough to provide for his extended family; bail out the City of Baltimore and a railroad company when they ran into financial difficulties, and retire at 52. The millionaire entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist died childless and unmarried (as did his first cousin, Elizabeth). However, he left bequests to provide for his extended family (including Elizabeth, for whom he provided a home) and his longest serving servant (James Jones). He is also left bequests that founded a number of organizations including Johns Hopkins Hospital (which was instructed to admit “the indigent poor – “without regard to sex, age or color”) and Johns Hopkins University (the country’s first research university), as well as a nursing school, an academic press, and an orphanage for African-American children that became a training school before it was closed. Those bequests, which went into effect when Johns Hopkins died on Christmas Eve 1873 at the age of 78, totaled about $7 million (which would be the equivalent of approximately $147.5 million today).
Johns Hopkins and the institutions that he founded with his bequests have a complicated legacy. Again, there is the whole origin story – which would explain some of his future actions… but, then again, there’s evidence that the story isn’t completely true. He is remembered as an abolitionist (which would be in keeping with his Quaker roots), who supported President Abraham Lincoln (even when it caused him some grief with other businessmen); however, there is evidence that he personally owned slaves at least 3 years after his retirement. Then there’s the legacy of the institutions that bear(ed) his name, including Johns Hopkins Hospital – which is where Henrietta Lacks was able to be treated for cancer and where cells were taken from her cervix (2ndchakra) for research purposes (without her knowledge or consent).
“I am a man!”
– a declaration of humanity that dates back to the abolitionists movement and was used as a slogan during the South African anti-apartheid and American Civil Rights movements, as well as being a legal point during the Dred Scott and Chief Standing Bear cases in the United States
“P. S. 153, Harlem School Teacher [portrayed by Mary Alice]: May 19th we celebrate Malcolm X’s birthday, because he was a great, great Afro-American. And Malcolm X is you. All of you. And you are Malcolm X.
[Students in P. S. 153, Harlem classroom and Soweto classroom [portrayed by John David Washington, Aaron Blackshear, Nilyne Fields, Rudi Bascomb, Muhammad Parks, Chinere Parry, Ian Quiles, Sharmeek Martinez, Ashanti (uncredited), and 1 uncredited actor]: I am Malcolm X!
Soweto Teacher [portrayed by Nelson Mandela]: As brother Malcolm said, We declare our right on this earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be given the rights of a human being, to be respected as a human being, in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intended to bring into existence…
Malcolm X: … by any means necessary.”
– quoted from the movie Malcolm X (or X) directed by Spike Lee, co-written by Spike Lee and Arnold Perl, based on The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley
Born Malcolm Little on March 19, 1925, in Omaha, NE, Malcolm X was the fourth of seven children born to Earl Little (who had three children from a previous marriage) and Louise Helen Little (who was an immigrant from the West Indies). Malcolm’s parents were active members of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL), a Black nationalist fraternal organization founded by Pan-African Marcus Garvey. By the time he was 2 years old, the family had been uprooted twice (moving to Milwaukee, Wisconsin and then Lansing, Michigan), because of threats from the Klu Klux Klan, in response to Earl Little’s speeches. Around the time he was 4, the family moved again after their home burned down under suspicious circumstances – circumstances that the Little patriarch directly connected to the Black Legion, a Midwestern offshoot of the KKK.
When Malcolm was 6, his father died in a streetcar incident that was officially declared an accident, that one insurance company called a suicide, and that the Little matriarch directly connected to the Black Legion. The family did benefit from a smaller life insurance policy; they received $18 a month for a little over four years. Strapped for cash, the family made ends meet by renting out a portion of their garden and hunting. By the time he was 12, Malcolm’s mother thought she would re-marry – only to have the man disappear after she became pregnant. She had a mental breakdown and was institutionalized when he was 13 years. The Little children were split up and sent into foster care.
“Education is an important element in the struggle for human rights. It is the means to help our children and our people rediscover their identity and thereby increase their self respect. Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.”
– quoted from a speech at the Audubon Ballroom on June 28, 1964, marking the founding of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), by Malcolm X
Malcolm X dropped out of school when a teacher told him he couldn’t be lawyer because of his race (only she used a racial slur when she said it) and he started working the odd jobs hustle. Eventually he moved to Roxbury (the African-American neighborhood which, centuries earlier, had been the starting place of William Dawes’s “Midnight Ride” for freedom) to live with one of his older half-sisters, Ella Little-Collins. But, he didn’t say long; eventually moving to Flint, Michigan and then to Harlem in New York City. It was in Harlem that people started calling him “Detroit Red” to distinguish him from the other redhead working at Jimmy’s Chicken Shack, “Chicago Red” (the aspiring comedian who became famous as Red Foxx).
And the hustle to survive and support himself (you know, 1stchakra stuff) continued – only by the time he reached Harlem (and his late teens / early twenties) the hustle had turned unquestionably illegal and violent. He celebrated his 21st birthday in prison and was transferred to a second prison by the time he was 23. It was in prison, where people initially called him “Satan,” that Malcolm X became associated with the Nation of Islam, publically spoke out against the Korean War – and in favor of communism – and got rid of the “white slavemaster name which… [had been] imposed upon my paternal forebearers.”
By the time he was 25 (and still in prison), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had started a file on him. After serving six of an eight-to-ten year sentence in prison, he was paroled and actively working (and recruiting) for the Nation of Islam. By the time he was 28, he was under surveillance by the FBI (which is, you know, 2ndchakra stuff).
Malcolm was making a name for himself within the Nation of Islam (and within the halls of the FBI), but he didn’t make it onto the general public’s radar until 1957, when he intervened after four African-American men were arrested. Three of the men were Nation of Islam members who had tried to verbally stop New York police officers who were beating the fourth man, Reese V. Poe, who was not a member of the Nation. One of the Nation of Islam members, Johnson X Hinton, was severely beaten and incarcerated without medical treatment – until Malcolm intervened. The police were alarmed by the way in which he spoke up, coordinated Johnson’s medical treatment, arranged for all four men to be bailed out, and seemed to control the angry crowd of several thousand (when he got them to peacefully, and relatively silently, disperse with a simple hand single gesture).
[Side Note: Johnson X Hinton was “released” the next morning. He immediately required more medical attention. While he survived his injuries, he needed multiple brain surgeries and lived the rest of his life with a metal plate in his head. An all-white jury would eventually award him $70,000, which (at the time) was the largest NYPD payout for a brutality case.]
At 32, Malcolm was under surveillance by the FBI and the NYPD (who had started running background checks with the prisons and in the cities where he had live). When Malcolm objected to the fact that none of the police officers involved in the assault were indicted, the NYPD sent undercover agents to join the Nation of Islam. That extra layer of conflict was also reflected within the Nation – as Malcolm’s prominence increased so too did the in-fighting. By his late 30’s, he was pulling away from the Nation, turning towards Sunni Islam, and softening his stance on some of his more militant opinions (like the role of white people in the movement for equality).
With financial assistance from his half-sister (Ella), he completed the hajj (spiritual “pilgrimage” to Mecca) in 1964. He also travelled to various parts of Africa (several times), France, and the United Kingdom – giving speeches and interviews throughout his travels and in the United States. Whereas he had called himself Malcom Shabazz when he first joined the Nation of Islam and publically used Malcolm X, after his hajj went by the name El Hajj Malik el-Shabazz. His wife, Betty X (née Sanders) also changed her last name Shabazz (and adopted a new first name after her hajj in 1965). Malcolm and Betty would have six daughters, including twins who were born about seven months after Malcolm was assassinated. His four oldest daughters witness his murder.
The assassination of Malcolm X, while the 39-year old was giving a speech in the Audubon Ballroom, came after a series of threats (some of which were recorded by the FBI) and an escalation in violence, including a fire that burned the Shabazz home down – just like his childhood home had been burned down. Only this time, the suspected culprits were Black nationalists instead of white nationalists. Three members of the Nation of Islam were arrested and convicted for his murder – although the one who admitted his guilt proclaimed the other two innocent and the other two maintained their innocence. Tens of thousands of people attended the public viewing and funeral, which was also broadcasted into the street and on live television.
Unlike with his father’s suspicious death, people are still investigating conspiracy theories surrounding the suspicious death of Malcolm X – including why NYPD officers reportedly entered the Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965, after shots were fired, without a single gun drawn.
“Tonight, during the few moments that we have, we’re going to have a little chat, like brothers and sisters and friends, and probably enemies too, about the prospects for peace – or the prospects for freedom in 1965. As you notice I almost slipped and said peace. Actually, you can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom. You can’t separate the two – and this is the thing that makes 1965 so explosive and dangerous.”
– quoted from the “Prospects for Freedom in 1965” speech at the Militant Labor Forum on January 7, 1965 by Malcolm X
In the case of Malcolm X, life replicated life. In the case Lorraine Vivian Hansberry, who was born in Chicago, Illinois on May 19, 1930, art imitated life. She was the youngest of four children born to Carl Augustus Hansberry (a successful real estate broker) and Nannie Louise (née Perry) Hansberry (a driving school teacher and member of the ward committee). The Hansberrys were supporters of the Urban League and the NAACP in Chicago, as well as active members of the Chicago Republican Party. Their home was frequently visited by prominent members of the African-American community, including known Civil Rights activists.
That home was the source of a lot of external (i.e., 2ndchakra) conflict as it was located in the Washington Park Subdivision on the South Side of Chicago, in what was originally an exclusively white neighborhood. There were restrictive covenants in place to enforce segregation, but occasionally a Black family could convince someone to sell them the house. Money talks and, not coincidentally, the first African-American to move into the neighborhood was a banker and realtor (Jesse Binga) whose wife (Eudora Johnson) inherited $200,000 from her notorious gambling kingpin brother (John “Mushmouth” Johnson). The Binga’s home was bombed at least five times – in what was an otherwise peaceful neighborhood.
The Great Depression caused a decrease in the number of white families who were financial able to purchase homes in the neighborhood, but there were relatively affluent Black families – like the Hansberrys – were in a better financial position and had the realtor knowledge to get around the covenants, which they did when Lorraine was 8 years old. The only problem was getting around the covenants didn’t get around racist and hostile neighbors. In addition to the physical, in-person, hostilities, some of the neighbors tried to take legal action to prevent the family from moving in. The family persisted. Eventually, the elder Hansberry sued the neighbors under the premise that the restrictive covenants (and the neighbors’ behavior) violated the 14th Amendment rights of born and naturalized Black citizens of the United States.
The case was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court (1940) in favor of Carl Hansberry. It would become the inspiration for Lorraine’s award-winning Broadway play, A Raisin in the Sun. The play made a 29-year old Lorraine the youngest playwright, the first Black playwright, and the fifth woman to win a New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award. It would be almost twenty years beforeanother play by a Black woman to be performed on Broadway and, unless I am missing something, it would be 22 years before another Black playwright (South African Athol Fugard) won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award.
“Thus, twenty-five years ago, [my father] spent a small personal fortune, his considerable talents, and many years of his life fighting, in association with NAACP attorneys, Chicago’s ‘restrictive covenants’ in one of this nation’s ugliest ghettos. That fight also required our family to occupy disputed property in a hellishly hostile ‘white neighborhood’ in which literally howling mobs surrounded our house. One of their missiles almost took the life of the then eight-year old signer of this letter. My memories of this ‘correct’ way of fighting white supremacy in America include being spat at, cursed and pummeled in the daily trek to and from school. And I also remember my desperate and courageous mother, patrolling our household all night with a loaded German Luger [pistol], doggedly guarding her four children, while my father fought the respectable part of the battle in the Washington court.”
– quoted from To Be Young, Gifted, and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words by Lorraine Hansberry (adapted by Robert Nimroff, with an introduction by James Baldwin)
Unlike Johns and Malcolm, Lorraine was college educated. She attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she became active in the Communist Party (much to the chagrin of her mother – her father had died of a cerebral hemorrhage when she was 15) and desegregated a dormitory. After graduating from college, she moved to New York and started writing for the Black (and Pan-African) newspaper Freedom, under the tutelage of people who had frequented her childhood home, like W. E. B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, and Langston Hughes (whose poem “Harlem” provided the inspiration for the title of her award winning play). Her work at Freedom not only inspired her to write plays and poems, it also gave her exposure and opportunity.
Some of that exposure and opportunity resulted in an FBI security file being started when she was 22. A year later, she was put under surveillance because she started making plans to attend a 1953 peace conference in Montevideo. Three years later her “Italian” haircut was suspicious and a year before the Broadway premiere of A Raisin in the Sun, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover ordered New York’s Special Agent in charge to “[p]romptly conduct [a] necessary investigation in an effort to establish whether the play…is in any way controlled or influenced by the Communist Party and whether it in any way follows the Communist line” and a Philadelphia Special Agent (who was an “expert” in such things) was ordered to actually attend a touring (pre-Broadway) performance and write a report. Like the majority the white audience with whom they watched the Walnut Street Theatre performance, the special agent missed a lot of the nuance and Pan-African messages picked up by the New York audiences (not to mention modern audiences).
Still, when all was said and done, no less than five – count them, 5!!!!! – FBI offices were engaged in investigations and surveillance of a not yet 30-year old playwright. And for all that power and energy, they seemed to have missed more than just the Pan-African messages in Lorraine’s critically acclaimed play.
“What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore—”
– quoted from the poem “Harlem” by Langston Hughes
Lorraine was briefly married to Robert Nemiroff, a Jewish theatre producer, songwriter, book editor, publisher, and activist. They spent their wedding night protesting the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (who were accused of being spies for the Soviet Union) and she would often credit him as being one of her creative muses. Even after their divorce (and his second marriage), they maintained a professional relationship and he became her literary executor after her death of pancreatic cancer (3rdchakra) at the age of 34.
In addition to producing a variety of incarnations of A Raisin in the Sun (and some of her other finished works), Nemiroff compiled some of Lorraine’s writings into the autobiographical play To Be Young, Gifted, and Black and the book of (essentially) the same name. In 1964, he donated her personal and professional papers to the New York Public Library – but restricted access to all journals, letters, essays, and articles related to the fact that she was a (once closeted) lesbian who supported LGBTQIA+ civil rights. (Ironically, even though Lorraine lived the last few years of her life out, to some, she may not have been out to the FBI.) Over a decade after Nemiroff’s death, his daughter (Joi Gresham, from his second marriage) lifted the restrictions so that they could be included in research about Lorraine’s life and legacy.
That legacy not only included a commitment to encouraging young writers and supporting the civil rights of Blacks and LGBTQIA+ Americans, but also the basic human rights of all people in the world. She was a fan of the work of Simone de Beauvoir; believed that women who were “twice oppressed” needed to be “twice militant;” and publicly condemned the United States’ bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
“Write if you will: but write about the world as it is and as you think it ought to be and must be—if there is to be a world. Write about all the things that men have written about since the beginning of writing and talking—but write to a point. Work hard at it, care about it. Write about our people: tell their story. You have something glorious to draw on begging for attention. Don’t pass it up. You have something glorious to draw on begging for attention. Don’t pass it up. Use it. Good luck to you. The Nation needs your gifts.”
– quoted from the speech “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black” by Lorraine Hansberry (given to Readers Digest / United Negro College Fund creative writing contest winners, New York City, May 1, 1964)
At the beginning of the practice (and this blog post), I asked you how your life was like (or not like a puzzle) – which takes us back the cube* and its inventor. Ernö Rubik once said, “If you are curious, you’ll find the puzzles around you. If you are determined, you will solve them.”
All three of the people profiled above shared a problem, a problem we also share: How do we find create a society that lives up to its legendary origin story? We each have our experiences – which result in certain perspectives – and we each have certain gifts, which we can share with the world. To share our gifts, however, we sometimes have to understand what shapes our perspectives – and what shapes the perspectives of the people around us. To understand what shapes us, we have to go deeper into the core and how we’re all connected.*
Wednesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify.
“HOEDERER: …. I wasn’t the one who invented lying. It grew out of a society divided into classes, and each one of us has inherited it from birth. We shall not abolish lying by refusing to tell lies, but by using all means at hand to abolish classes.
HUGO: All means are not good.
HOEDERER: All means are good when they are effective.”
– quoted from Act 5 of the play Les Mains sales (Dirty Hands) by Jean-Paul Sartre, premiered in Paris on April 2, 1948 (by 1963, the American English translation of “Ce n´est pas en refusant de mentir que nous abolirons le mensonge : c´est en usant de tous les moyens pour supprimer les classes.” had become a mirror of Frantz Fanon’s 1960 declaration to end colonialism)
Errata: In going back through my notes, I realized that I made several mistakes during the Zoom classes. Those are corrected above, including any misstatement about Johns Hopkins birth year and any misquoting of my yoga-buddy and fellow teacher Sandra Razieli.
*NOTE: Using the cube as an underlying metaphor for race and gender relations in the United States is a bit problematic, I know. And, before anybody suggests taking all the stickers off – so color doesn’t matter – let me just say, “Nope.” The metaphor doesn’t need to be perfect; especially when you consider that the critical element here is how things are working on the inside.
Some formatting updated, May 2025. The embedded video is currently private.
[Surprise! This is an expanded version of two more events I mention during classes on July 2nd: the anniversary of the birth of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. ]
“The issue in this case is not whether declaring a war on illegal drugs is good public policy. The importance of ridding our society of such drugs is, by now, apparent to all…. Precisely because the need for action against the drug scourge is manifest, the need for vigilance against unconstitutional excess is great. History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.”
– Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in the dissenting opinion on Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives Association, 489 U.S. 602 (1989)
Freedom. Liberty. Independence. We’ve already established that when Caesar Rodney cast his vote for independence, today in 1776, his vote did not extend freedom, liberty, or independence to all humans within his territory. But, that is not the end of today’s story. Exactly 132 years after Caesar Rodney’s famous ride to cast a vote for independence, a baby boy was born to a railroad porter named William and his wife Norma, a teacher. This son, a descendant of enslaved people on both sides, would spend his whole life working to extend those freedoms to all. Today in 1964, on his 56th birthday, he received a great “birthday present” in the form of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Let’s go back to Baltimore, Maryland on July 2, 1908.
William and Norma Marshall named their son Thoroughgood, which he would later shorten it to Thurgood. The Marshalls were a Black family, the descendants of enslaved people. William and Norma taught their sons about the Constitution and the rule of law. William Marshall even took his sons to listen to court cases, which the whole Marshall family would then debate. Thurgood Marshall would later say that those early debates with his father turned him into a lawyer. But he wasn’t just any lawyer: he was the “winning-est” attorney in the history of the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS), the first African-American United States Solicitor General, and the first African-American to Supreme Court Justice.
“If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
– quoted from The Gospel According to John (8:36) and motto for Lincoln University (Oxford, Pennsylvania)
“Veritas et Utilitas (‘Truth and Service’)”
– motto for Howard University (Washington, D. C.)
By all accounts, Thurgood Marshall was an excellent student throughout high school (graduating third in his class); however, he started college as a bit of a prankster. He attended Lincoln University in Oxford, Pennsylvania (halfway between Philadelphia and Baltimore) and graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in American literature and philosophy. His peers included Langston Hughes and Cab Calloway, who would both become internationally renowned artists. Thurgood Marshall would become just as celebrated as Hughes and Calloway, but rather than pursuing literature, he earned a law degree from Howard University School of Law, graduating first in his class, and proceeded to change the world.
During the Civil Rights Movement, he argued and won more cases (29 out of 32) before the country’s highest court than any other attorney. His career as an appeals court judge was also notable – notable in part because Senators from the southern states held up his appointment, causing him to serve the first few months in recess, and also notable because once he was able to serve none of his cases were overturned. After Thurgood Marshall served as United States Solicitor General (winning 14 out of 19 cases), he returned to the Supreme Court – this time as its first African-American Justice; the first in 178 years.
Both of Thurgood Marshall’s alma maters (Lincoln University and Howard University) are historically black universities (HBCUs). It wasn’t as if he never considered attending a school that was not an HBCU; he didn’t have a choice – segregation prevented him from attending institutions of higher education like the University of Maryland School of Law. In what some might consider an interesting twist of fate, in addition to becoming known for arguing Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), a school segregation case he argued in his mid-forties, his first major victory working with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was also a school segregation case: against the University of Maryland School of Law.
At the age of 26, Thurgood Marshall joined his mentor Charles Hamilton Houston in representing Donald Gaines Murray in Murray v. Pearson, 169 Md. 478, 182 A. 590 (1936). Murray had been denied acceptance to the University of Maryland because of his race. In both Murray v. Pearson and Brown v. Board, Thurgood Marshall challenged Plessy v. Ferguson, 3 U.S. 537 (1896), and the doctrine of “separate but equal.” He won both cases, but only the later case completely overturned the legality of school segregation.
“What’s at stake here is more than the rights of my client. It’s the moral commitment stated in our country’s creed.”
– Thurgood Marshall, NAACP attorney for plaintiff in Murray v. Pearson, 169 Md. 478, 182 A. 590 (1936)
As I referenced before, the Civil Rights Act was signed into law today in 1964, by President Lyndon B. Johnson. It prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It would also outlaw unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, work environments, and public accommodations. It also expanded the definition of “all men” (as written in the second sentence of the “Declaration of Independence”) to include all people.
Over the years, there would be several landmark cases that impacted the application of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. One of those cases was decided almost exactly 56 years later (on June 15, 2020), when SCOTUS upheld a portion of the Civil Rights Act (Title VII) as it relates to sexual orientation and gender identity. In a 6 -3 decision, the highest court in the country affirmed that it is unconstitutional for an employer to fire someone for being gay or transgender. Clarence Thomas, Thurgood Marshall’s successor in that he was the only other African-American to serve on the Supreme Court at the time, was one of the 3 dissenters.
“None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody – a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony or a few nuns – bent down and helped us pick up our boots.”
– Supreme Court Justice (and former NAACP chief counsel) Thurgood Marshall referencing his SCOTUS successor in a Newsweek interview (dated October 28, 1991)
Thurgood Marshall believed the death penalty was unconstitutional (Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972)) and supported a woman’s right to choose (Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)). In addition to being remembered as a champion of Civil Rights, his name and his work are often mentioned in the same breath as the names and efforts of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. The three men had different backgrounds and so worked in different ways, even in different spheres. Yet, they had the same aim: to expand those “unalienable Rights” detailed in the “Declaration of Independence” and ratified by the Constitution of the United States of America.
“Like many anniversary celebrations, the plan for 1987 takes particular events and holds them up as the source of all the very best that has followed. Patriotic feelings will surely swell, prompting proud proclamations of the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice shared by the Framers and reflected in a written document now yellowed with age. This is unfortunate. Not the patriotism itself, but the tendency for the celebration to oversimplify, and overlook the many other events that have been instrumental to our achievements as a nation. The focus of this celebration invites a complacent belief that the vision of those who debated and compromised in Philadelphia yielded the ‘more perfect Union’ it is said we now enjoy.
I cannot accept this invitation, for I do not believe that the meaning of the Constitution was forever ‘fixed’ at the Philadelphia Convention. Nor do I find the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice exhibited by the Framers particularly profound. To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today. When contemporary Americans cite ‘The Constitution,’ they invoke a concept that is vastly different from what the Framers barely began to construct two centuries ago.”
– quoted from the speech given by Supreme Court Justice (and former NAACP chief counsel) Thurgood Marshall at The Annual Seminar of the San Francisco Patent and Trademark Law Association, Maui, Hawaii May 6, 1987
“And so we must be careful, when focusing on the events which took place in Philadelphia two centuries ago, that we not overlook the momentous events which followed, and thereby lose our proper sense of perspective. Otherwise, the odds are that for many Americans the bicentennial celebration will be little more than a blind pilgrimage to the shrine of the original document now stored in a vault in the National Archives. If we seek, instead, a sensitive understanding of the Constitution’s inherent defects, and its promising evolution through 200 years of history, the celebration of the “Miracle at Philadelphia” Bowen, Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention May to September 1787 (Boston 1966), will, in my view, be a far more meaningful and humbling experience. We will see that the true miracle was not the birth of the Constitution, but its life, a life nurtured through two turbulent centuries of our own making, and a life embodying much good fortune that was not.
Thus, in this bicentennial year, we may not all participate in the festivities with flag-waving fervor. Some may more quietly commemorate the suffering, struggle, and sacrifice that has triumphed over much of what was wrong with the original document, and observe the anniversary with hopes not realized and promises not fulfilled. I plan to celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution as a living document, including the Bill of Rights and the other amendments protecting individual freedoms and human rights.”
– quoted from the conclusion to the speech given by Supreme Court Justice (and former NAACP chief counsel) Thurgood Marshall at The Annual Seminar of the San Francisco Patent and Trademark Law Association, Maui, Hawaii May 6, 1987
Don’t you set down on the steps ’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard. Don’t you fall now— For I’se still goin’, honey, I’se still climbin’, And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
My early yoga teachers often said, “How you do yoga is how you do life.” I sometimes repeat this statement to myself and to people who come to my class, because I find it’s true. We humans only have so many reactions and responses. Our reactions on the mat are pretty consistent with our reactions off the mat, whether we are dealing with things we enjoy, things we dislike, things that challenge us, things we do well, things we fear, and/or things we don’t understand. (Substitute the word “people” for the word “things” and you see how we end up with some of our current problems.)
We delay gratification or we rush in to quickly experience the things we enjoy. We procrastinate or we push through that which we do not enjoy. We appreciate what we have or we focus on what we don’t have.
When something blocks our progression, we stop and turn back – or, as Marcus Aurelius encouraged, we pause and figure out a way to keep going. When we fall down, we either pick ourselves up – rising above the challenge – or we fall down and stay down. We either, as Thomas Edison did when his warehouse caught fire, learn from past mistakes and enjoy the unexpected – even when it seems catastrophic – or we curl up in a fetal position and watch the world go by. We pick up the pieces and re-build (again, like Edison) or we sweep the debris under the rug and step over the bulge, pretending it’s not there.
We are capable of putting blame behind us and focusing on what is, but (more often than not) blame occupies our minds when something goes wrong. We blame ourselves, we blame others, and/or we blame God and the fates. We live in the past (which is no longer), the future (which is not yet), or we live the present to its fullest.
The details change, but the overall responses are the same: We fight, we flee, or we freeze/collapse. Note that in this case, fighting is not always arguing or coming to fisticuffs; fighting is engaging, which in life can sometimes bring us to a compromise. This all happens in the present moment and, if we experience trauma, we can experience it in the present even after the original situation is in the past.
Benjamin Franklin said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” In life, as in yoga, there are challenges. Some challenges are expected and we mindfully prepare for them. On the flip side, some challenges are expected, but we don’t prepare for them. Finally, there are those challenges we didn’t see coming. When life (or a yoga teacher) throws us a curve ball, we swing or we don’t. In this analogy, it’s not whether or not we hit the ball that matters. What matters is that we are prepared to swing.
This brings us back to Marcus Aurelius, Thomas Edison, and those Navy Seals.
Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph, highlights successful people at their most resilient moments. One of the things that stood out to me when I read Holiday’s book, was that many of the people he referenced spent their whole lives preparing for what became a defining moment. It wasn’t that they anticipated the challenge; instead, they lived life to the fullest and it turned out the causes and conditions that caused them to “fall down” also gave them the tools to get back up.
Consider the Navy Seals. An elite combat unit, the Seals only accepts the best of the best. To determine who makes the cut, qualified applicants must successfully complete one of the hardest and toughest 10-day training programs in the world. Because there is no telling what a Navy Seal might encounter in real life, the training is a way to practice scenarios which test their mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual endurance. They are taught to Survive, Evade, Resist, and Escape if confronted with capture. The skills tests become more challenging in and of themselves, but they also become more challenging because applicants are moving closer and closer to their personal edge. Each second, each minute, each hour, each day creates an opportunity for growth. Seals get better, so that the challenges of yesterday seem easier once mastered. Ultimately, though, basic training pushes Navy Seals to engage, escape, evade – or get the heck out of the way for someone who is willing to swing when the curve ball is thrown.
“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”
– from The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth by M. Scott Peck
Life, for some, is like basic training in that it can be dangerous, full of pitfalls, and something that must be survived. But, for all of us, life is full of the causes and conditions that result in people to falling down and also full of the tools that help people get back up.
Yoga isn’t intended to be as hard (or as dangerous) as life or basic training. However, the yoga mat is a safe place to notice how you engage challenges, setbacks, and desires. It’s a safe place to explore different ways of being in the world. Every moment, every breath, every pose, every sequence prepares us for the next moment, the next breath, the next pose, and the next sequence. Sometimes we are very aware of how things are put together “in a special way.” Sometimes we are full engaged in the moment and are surprised when we meet a challenge with grace, wisdom, courage, and strength. Other times, we fall flat. Either way, the process starts all over again every time we inhale, every time we exhale.
MOTHER TO SON – by Langston Hughes
Very deliberately, move into Child’s Pose (Balasana). Notice the extension of the spine. Notice the softness of the belly. Notice the deep breath in and the deeper breath out. Allow your breath to move through the spine. Allow your soft belly to rise and fall with the breath. Allow your mind to follow the breath and the body’s reaction the breath. Start to engage your locks (bandhas) on the exhale: spread the toes and press the feet down (in this case tops of the feet down) for the Foot Lock (Pada Bandha); squeeze the perineum muscles together, lifting the pelvic floor for the Root Lock (Mula Bandha) – which engages your lower abdominal cavity; belly button up and back for abdominal core lock (Uddiyana Bandha) – which engages your upper abdominal cavity; draw the chin towards the throat and chest, lengthening the neck, for the Throat Lock (Jalandhara Bandha).
Once you’ve engaged your mind-body-spirit, move into Table Top: stack shoulders over elbows, elbows over wrists, hips over knees. Press down to lift up, activating the arms, the legs, and the lower three (3) locks. Notice the length of the spine, and how you support it. Move through Cat/Cow or the “Un-Cat” sequence precisely matching the movement to the breath. Move from your core so that the gaze is the last thing to come up and the last thing to turn down.
Find the place where your movements are strong, but not forced, and then curl your toes under and exhale into Downward Facing Dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana). Double check your engagement of the pose. Make sure all your fingers are spread wide, with the majority of the weight/pressure in your hands moving into the thumb and first finger. (So that, there is less weight/pressure applied to your outer wrists.) When you relax your head and shoulders, make sure your big toes are parallel to each other and at least a foot apart. Big toes can be behind the thumbs or behind the middle fingers. Hips are high, heels are low (reaching, but not necessarily touching the mat); and neck is long. Even if you have to bend your knees, find Cow Pose in this position (so that you have a straight line from your middle fingers all the way up to your hips and then a second straight line from your hips to the back of your knees). Eyes are on your nose, your belly button, or the space between your toes. Engage your locks (bandhas) as you are able. Notice the length of the spine and how you support it.
Remember your can skip the arm balancing, by moving into Staff Pose (Dandasana) and positioning the arms accordingly or using “Dolphin Dog.” Another modification would be to do the pose on the wall. Either way, strongly engage your legs and your core.
Stretch back (meaning, push your spine towards your thighs) and on an exhale walk your hands to your feet or bring your hands and feet together. Once hands are in line with the toes and heels are flat to the mat, inhale to a Half Lift/Flat Back or Extended Forward Bend. (This pose may be called Ardha Uttanasana or Urdhva Uttanasana.) Place your hands on your thighs and press the shoulders into the metaphorical back pockets. Remember, you want to engage in a similar fashion to Cow Pose, Staff Pose, and Downward Facing Dog. In fact, inhale and find a little bit of Cow Pose (even if you have to bend your knees). Now, press the heels down and – as much as you are able without losing the extension of the spine – engage the quadriceps to extend through the knees and press the thigh bones into the wall behind you. Engage your locks (bandhas) as you are able.
If you have unregulated blood pressure, low back issues, eye issues like glaucoma, or if this is already challenging, remember to stay here with knees bent. Otherwise, if it is not contraindicated, bend the knees and flex from the hips to prep Forward Bend (Uttanasana). Keeping the upper back extended, place the hands on the floor or a block and begin to extend through the legs while pressing the thigh bones into the backs of your legs. Do not force the extension. Use the exhales to settle the heart on the thighs (as much as you are able without losing the extension of the spine.) If your legs are completely straight, make sure the knee caps are lifted and that you are not hyper-extending the knees. Also double check to ensure that if the knees are straight the hips are over the knees, not behind the ankles. Remember to engage your locks (bandhas). Notice the length of the spine. Soften into yourself and into the stillness of the moment.
Inhale to Half Lift / Flat Back and use the exhale to engage your core. With hands on the hips, maintain the length of the spine and lift up to standing. Relax your arms by your sides. Balance the weight between all four corners of both feet. Feel free to move side-to-side or back and forth on the feet until you feel you are centered. Spread the toes, press big toes and little toes down, as well as both sides of the heels. (This establishes “all four corners of both feet.”) Engage the quadriceps in order to lift the knee caps and firm up the thighs. Sit bones point down so that the pelvic bones lift up. Engage your locks (bandhas). As you press down in order to lift the sternum up, use the core abdominal to draw the lower rib cage down. Relax the shoulders and gaze straight ahead. This is Equal Standing / Mountain Pose (Samasthiti/Tadasana). Notice the length of your spine.
Changing as little as possible, stretch the arms out like the letter T. Once your arms are wide, extend out of the center of your chest. Make sure shoulders, lower rib cage, and sits bones are reaching down. Now, turn the palms up and inhale your arms overhead. (Many traditions refer to this as Arms Reaching Overhead (Urdhva Hastasana), but I tend to call this Tadasana.) Double check to ensure you have maintained balance and alignment. Notice the length of your spine. After several breaths, lower the arms to your sides on an exhale.
Now, use the whole inhale to lift the arms overhead and the whole exhale to press the hands together through heart center. On the exhale of the third centering breath, walk to the front of the mat with hands through heart center.
Equal Standing is like a soldier in the “Ready” position. Moving through half of a Sun Salutation (Surya Namaskar), inhale arms over head into Arms Reaching Overhead; exhale and stretch the arms out wide as you dive between the hands into a Forward Bend; inhale to a Half Lift / Flat Back; exhale back to Forward Bend. Keeping the knees bent and the core engaged, inhale to reverse swan dive and then exhale hands back to your sides. Repeat the sequence until you feel you are alignment is strong and your mind is focused (on the breath), and your movement is fluid.
After the final exhale into Forward Bend, inhale into a Half Lift/ Flat Back and then step your left leg way back into a low lunge. Make sure the feet are in two separate lanes. Inhale to lengthen the spine and then exhale the back knee to the mat. Give yourself cushion under the back knee, as needed. Pressing down evenly into both feet, lift your torso up and place hands on your right thigh for a variation of Crescent Lunge (Anjaneyasana).
Use an exhale to slide the hips over the back knee and then place the back of the right hand on your sacrum (the flat part of your bum/hips) and place your left hand on the front of your pelvic bones. Your hands are now bracketing your hips. Slide the back hand down in order to direct the sit bones down. You may feel the front hand lifting as the pelvic bones lift. Notice the length of your spine, especially your low back. You may also feel engagement in your left hip and thigh. Stay here or bend the front knee deeper into the lunge – remembering to maintain the space in your low back. Hands can come to your front thigh or reach the hands over head. Again, engage your locks (bandhas). If you have Hot Half Moon (Ardha Chandrasana) in your practice, feel free to add it by lifting the left arm up and reaching it towards the right.
When you are ready to move on, place the hands on the mat and step back to Child’s Pose. From Child’s Pose, inhale to Cow Pose and exhale to Downward Facing Dog. Repeat the sequence of standing poses (starting with the first Forward Bend after Downward Facing Dog, substituting left for right).
After the second side of standing poses, move into Staff Pose (Dandasana). Remember, this pose is not disposable. Consider the length of your spine and how you use your locks (bandhas) to maintain it.
Keep the left leg extended and bend the right knee in order to set up the Sage Twist. Remember to keep the left heel and the right foot flat on the floor. You can place the right foot next to the inside or the outside of the left leg, as long as the knees are comfortable and the right foot is flat on the floor.
On an inhale, lift your right arm up and, as you watch it, reach the right arm back to the floor behind your hips. As you settle into the twist, adjust your left arm to provide additional support wherever you need it. You can always sit on a block and/or place a block under your hand if you’re hips and low back are really tight. If you don’t have a block, substitute a book.
Watch how you engage your base, your core, and your breath in order to lengthen your spine. Remember to start the twist in your base (not in your neck). Do not allow your body to collapse or untwist until you complete 3 – 5 complete breaths. After the third or fifth exhale, inhale to center, give the lifted knee a squeeze, and return to Staff Pose. Repeat the Sage Twist instructions for the Sage Twist (replacing right with left).
After the third or fifth exhale on the left, inhale to center and give the lifted knee a squeeze. Bend both knees, placing the feet flat on the floor. (NOTE: If you’d rather not balance on your sits bones, lie down on your back and follow the cues.)
Reach the arms forward with elbows next to the knees. Press down as if you are going to jump forward. Spread your toes, squeeze your perineum muscles together, belly button is up and back, press your shoulders down, and draw the chin towards the neck. Look up and press down to lift the ribs up on the inhale. As you exhale, lean back until the feet are off the ground and you are balancing on your tail bone. Bring legs up parallel to the ground. Check in with your locks (bandhas) – maybe even lifting the corners of your mouth up towards your ears for a smiling bandha. Begin to extend the legs by engaging the quadriceps and pushing through the heels. Keep your nose up and your eyes on your nose.
Find your edge, making sure your core works harder than your jaw or your arms. And then, lower down onto your back for Corpse Pose (Savasana). Find a place where your body and mind are still. Let the breath natural ebb and flow. Notice the strength of the body, all it is capable of doing. Give thanks. Notice the strength of the spirit, all it endures. Give thanks. Breathe peace in, breathe peace out. Give thanks.
In addition to being National Poetry Month and the month of when I ask you to Kiss My Asana, April is also Parkinson’s Awareness Month, National Child Abuse Prevention Month, Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month, and the Month of the Military Child. The people whose stories are behind these awareness-building observations are some of the same people benefiting from the programs supported by Mind Body Solutions via your Kiss My Asana donation.
This opportunity to explore a poem on the mat is part of my offering for the 2018 Kiss My Asana yogathon. I encourage you to set aside at least 5 minutes a day during April, to practice with the poem as inspiration. You can practice in a class or on your own, but since the Kiss My Asana yogathon raises resources as well as awareness, I invite you to join me at the donation-based classes on April 28th.
I also challenge you to set aside a certain amount every day that you practice with a poem in mind. It doesn’t matter if you set aside one dollar per practice or $25 – set aside that amount each time you practice and donate it by April 30th.
Founded by Matthew Sanford, Mind Body Solutions helps those who have experienced trauma, loss, and disability find new ways to live by integrating both mind and body. They provide classes, workshops, and outreach programs. They also train yoga teachers and offer highly specialized training for health care professionals. By participating in the Kiss My Asana yogathon you join a global movement, but in a personal way. In other words, you practice yoga. Or, as this year’s tag line states….
A Joyful Practice 