Glitter From The Dross

Themes seem to pop up occasionally and however random they may be, I usually recognize them once, twice, and then really start paying attention every time after that. This month’s theme is breathing! For those who practice – ever notice how each practitioner has his/her own way of breathing? The timbre of the breath, pace, length etc., and sometimes we hear it, sometimes we don’t. Similarly, sometimes we use our breath purposefully; to give energy, create heat, or to soothe and sometimes it’s used as a vehicle without much effort. My breathing is very deliberate when I practice; I use my breath to move and I like to hear it, but I try to keep it within my space unless I’m doing kapotasana; things get a little huff & puff with that one, all the more reason breathing is important.

I was gifted Gregor Maehle’s second book on the Intermediate Series for Christmas, so I’ve been reading it and, again, have really focused on the sections relating to breath. This strangely brought me back to my Master’s Thesis (2009), I was about to embark on the first enormous move of my life with the Peace Corps and needed to start writing it so that I could take my degree along with me. The result was, “Breaths of OM and Images of Gods: Allen Ginsberg’s Path to Awareness”; I was very young in my study of pranayam, but through this poetic examination, I sought to analyze the work Ginsberg produced while he was in India, revealing the ways in which he had abandoned (along with many others at the time) the use of LSD for the yogic practice of breathing, which looked something like this, on November 13th, 1962:

Sunset sitting crosslegged on the sand bank

overlooking the ocean below… Orange circle

inching below the horizon, green waters, facing

my eye, in my head—smoking & pranayam holding

breath 4: 16: 8 vaguely as the sky colors

sharpened and the liquid tip of edge light gold

sank, out there so small over the beach buildings

& palms and calm sky (4 inhale 16 hold 8 exhale

breath). (Indian Journals)

Obviously a pranyam practice, but eventually I made a somewhat decent attempt to prove that he had written breath marks into his poems, ultimately infusing them, literally, with him self. At the time I was just overjoyed that I could write my English Literature thesis on something that was really interesting to me and pranayam and Ginsberg was it! On a more serious note, I had no idea how much all of my studies of Ginsberg and his poetry would influence me on my sojourn to the East. Reading poems that looked like this:

Thus crosslegged on round pillow sat in Teton

Space—

I breathed upon the aluminum microphone-stand a

body’s length away

I breathed further, past the sake cup half

emptied by the breathing guru

Breathed upon the vast plateglass shining back

th’assembled sitting Sangha

my breath thru nostril floated out to the moth of

evening beating into

window’d illumination. (Collected Poems)

And then writing poems that, without intention, looked something very similar. Maybe it’s just what happens when one wakes up in a foreign country on the other side, explores temples in the jungles of Angkor Wat, and Giant Buddhas in China, or, maybe, Ginsberg breathed some of that inspiration, via his poetry or no, my way, I really can’t be sure, but I’m grateful either way.

Maehle writes, “The ancient vedic seers saw the universe as performing a pulsating movement of expansion and contraction very much like breathing” interestingly, when we inhale the sound emitted forms something like “sa”, and when we exhale, “ham”—“soham” (I am that). I immediately thought of my first Sunday led practice with Sharath in India after I read this; before things get really sweaty and folks fall out of the unified breath pattern, in those first 10 minutes, it is such a beautiful sound to hear – everyone breathing, inhale and exhale, and no sound (save Sharath) other than that.

Thanks Glitter From The Dross readers & friends!

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 3,800 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 3 trips to carry that many people.

On breathing through anger, and the energy of anger: “the energy of anger may be a source of energy, but when you use anger as energy there may be danger; when you are angry you are not lucid … use the energy of compassion, the energy of understanding.”

When I think of the way that technology has affected writing, as in “prose”, I think of sampling, and then I think of Girltalk. I love Greg Gillis, and when samples of favorite oldies such as Jackson Five’s “Back in Your Heart” meet the dynamics of the best climax in Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”, I totally love the experience and even more, I love that the music is free through Gillis’s Illegal Art label claiming “fair use” as its defense because, well, good music or no, there are copyright laws and though some might call me a hypocrite, this is where I choose my argument. When this “sampling” translates to the written technological world, I have a difficult time loving it all the same. Kevin Kelly, author of Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World writes in “Scan This Book!”:

In a regime of superabundant free copies, copies lose value. They are no longer the basis of wealth. Now relationships, links, connection and sharing are. Value has shifted away from a copy toward the many ways to recall, annotate, personalize, edit, authenticate, display, mark, transfer and engage a work. Authors and artists can make (and have made) their livings selling aspects of their works other than inexpensive copies of them.

The time that used to be spent by the masses working through an idea, pen to paper style, that often would transform into a published work, a letter, a journal, etc., is often now reduced to an update on Facebook or Twitter. It then goes through the motions of “Likes” comments, and shares and becomes many times removed from the place in which it first began – your mind. All a result of our “burning need to share”; a viral instinct we all now have in common. Think about it, when you find something note worthy, or have something to say what do you do? I’ll be honest, I feel like updating my Facebook status because it satisfies the urge to express my idea faster than a well thought out and produced… who knows what? I think of the writers I like to read and what resulted from the times when they had something to say, and then I think, if I could just let some of these impulsive “updates” take shape, I’m not suggesting they would evolve to the works of Tolstoy, but perhaps they might have a longer life than that of my Facebook status. As these engineered snippets of ideas and information, mashed-up and looped together by and through the interweb library grow, it will only continue to change both the quality of the information and the way we receive it. “[it is] is going to change the way we learn and the way we share, and the profits that are made for original ideas, in a e-text future comprised of mash-ups.” I guess the thought of this shifts my “Illegal Art” paradigm, to one that is pretty bleak rather than radical and “cool.”

The cure is care. Caring for others is the practice of peace. Caring becomes as important as curing. Caring produces the cure, not the reverse. Caring about nuclear war and its victims is the beginning of a cure for our obsession with war. Peace does not come through strength. Quite the opposite: Strength comes through peace. The practices of peace strengthens us for every vicissitude… The task is immense! - Sargent Shriver

I have had Sargent Shriver’s address to Peace Corps volunteers in my head recently, considering a concept of service that I hadn’t thought of before. As an RPCV I still “volunteer” in areas that I feel I can be useful and where those I am serving can benefit from me, but I do “pick” and “choose” where I volunteer based on the direction of my career path. I’m not saying this is wrong in any way, I used to think it was somehow less authentic, giving to receive, but thinking about this quote over the past few days has changed what service is for me, and broadened it in a new way.

First, let me say, I’m well aware of the meaning of Slacktivism and I do not believe in causes that require a click of my Facebook self, or a viral status update, to be supportive–what else are we doing? And if we’re not doing anything else, does a simple click just make us feel better about not having the time to do anything? How much ‘awareness’ do a bunch of ‘Likes’ really create? How many organizations do we attach to our social media selves thinking that it is going to conjure change? Even if we’re doing it for our own benefit, to be “involved” with these organizations, the easier it is to be involved the less weight it holds when all is said and done. If the goal is peace, there are things we can do in our every day lives to cultivate this, adjustments of the ways in which we respond to situations, that may or may not require a paradigm shift, and a moment of counting to 10, but will do more to create peace than the ‘Like’ button.

I think about the times I have felt unappreciated in my day to day life, because I do work that others do not recognize, or I  will feel I should be paid more (I’m an adjunct, we should just take a vow of poverty and call it a day), or that the volunteering I do should be paid, because it requires more time than free work should, I have those days, and I know others who do too. Then I think, if I didn’t do this, who would and would he or she do it as well? Would anyone do it at all?

I have discussed this with friends of mine who are married or in relationships, a place where Resentment also crashes occasionally. I hear things like, I do everything and he or she doesn’t understand; she doesn’t know what it’s like, he doesn’t know what it’s like; I spend more time with the kids, etc. Hey, to each her and his own, I am no one to talk to about relationships – but – to whoever is doing the work, especially for a family, it’s getting done beautifully because you are doing it and, maybe, that’s your service. Don’t get me wrong, this certainly does not mean, roll out the carpet and start walking over everyone. I am just highlighting the element of selflessness in service that is challenging in the same way that it is to remove oneself from the resentful martyrdom of giving and not getting back, and you have to be intelligent enough to draw the line where that line needs to be drawn, but it does not lessen the impact of the work you do, if no one ever gives you credit for it.

This is slightly off subject, but I want to write about driving now, because the patience I have had to endure on the road has been monumental, no one needs to give me anything for it, I’m not asking, I just want to express how bad it has been (an aside, Carmageddon is not over, the driving in Buffalo is still apocalyptic) and really, the way people respond to others on the road, with their vehicles, is insane. I get it, I find myself behind people driving astonishingly slow sometimes, this has been happening for months, I’m certainly being tested for something, but that aside,  it is all I can focus on, wondering, “why the ___ are you driving so slow?” And it tries my patience. Still, the person in front of me isn’t doing it on purpose! They don’t deserve the negative juju radiating from my suddenly possessed car self; it’s probably someone’s grandpa going to buy cookies and I’m writhing in a fit of road rage, his own personal demon, all the way down the road, why? I just think that when we’re faced with these situations in our day to day lives, it might just take a deep breath and a reminder to maintain a Positive Mental Attitude (PMA), a mantra that should go on for lifetimes, but that is “the work”, we may not always get credit for it, no one may even know we did it, but that is what is authentic about it. Shriver ended the address encouraging to ” serve, serve, serve, … and shatter your mirrors.” Oh the difficulty of that in our age.

I am back to teaching again and I am so thankful and grateful to have been given this opportunity that at times I wonder: did I cultivate this on my own? Did it really take working a 9 to 5 outside of my degree, and mental capacity, to arrive here? Did it compel my journey back to the East, and not prior to a puja, mantra, and moment in that magical room in Akshardham? I suppose I have always had a difficult time making decisions.  In the midst of my profuse thanks to the universe, God, and to anyone involved in allowing me to make this job I love become a reality, I have found myself considering the parallels of being a writer, and having a dedicated practice in, well, anything really, but for obvious reasons I will proceed to explain why my mornings on the mat have been followed by similar musings and discussions of the pen.

It begins with an essay by Annie Dillard, who I love for her Transcendentalist-like similarities.  She wrote a descriptive essay about a moth that is from a larger work entitled, Holy the Firm and appears as an excerpt in the anthology I chose for my students. She follows it with an additional essay, which explains why and how she wrote the essay. I was instantly drawn to this (yes, like a moth to a flame, lets just get the bad jokes out now), because I had a pet moth back in China days, and though Dillard seems to have paid more attention to her moth friend, I am almost sure Mothra does make a cameo somewhere in my archives.  After explaining at length where she was both geographically and personally during the time that she produced this work, and the strong impression left by the French philosopher and political activist, Simone Weil (crazy, but inspiring) whose journals she was reading at the time, three words emerged of necessity in her quest to find meaning as a writer: dedication, purity, and sacrifice.

I listened to my students discuss the essays they read, each of them adding in their commentary:

It’s really hard to be a writer; I had no idea what it was like to be a writer, but I realized that it is a really difficult thing to do; to be a writer you have to make a lot of sacrifices; a lot of time went into her essay; some writing is better than not writing at all, even if you don’t use it you’ll have it for later; I couldn’t understand why she wrote so much about that moth and then I realized it wasn’t just about a moth.

Dillard concludes asking her students if they really want to be writers, warning, “the choice must mean you can’t be anything else. You must go at your life with a broadax.” Sound familiar? Well if you have any kind of dream you are pursuing or practice you partake of regularly, it should. It all did to me, and after my second full week of before day light practice, everything began to look and feel quite different and similar at the same time.

My students write journal responses after each of the scheduled reading assignments, in addition to the required essays and the final research paper. I know it is a pain for them, but it is a vehicle for me to respond to their writing and allows them to be in a good practice of developing a natural tendency towards the questions we ask when we read—this doesn’t always come naturally. They often get frustrated with having to write so much because if they know their writing isn’t good, they don’t want to do it until it’s better, but it obviously takes time and practice to get there. I find myself advising students to keep writing no matter what it looks like, I will give feedback, and they will learn; keep practicing and it will come etc., and yes it works for both yoga and writers workshop. The sticking point for students is in the mind (for both types of students) and I am no stranger to this: I have had both writers block, and drop backs block and neither is fun. What is so fascinating is to be a student by morning and have my teacher give me advice in a discipline, and then find myself giving almost the same advice to my students hours later in a very different discipline, both of which I absolutely adore.

I take for granted that I live in an area where, all nuances of global warming considered, has four distinct seasons. Living here my entire life, save a year and some travel time spent abroad, I have observed myself within these seasons, conditioned to rhythms at times as instinctive as the response to the stroke of a clock at the end of a school day. I don’t plan it or foresee it, but sure enough the seasons change and somehow the calendar of last year plunges into the present day. It’s fascinating to me because I know that it is something beyond my conscious control: I go about my day, begin to smell the scents of familiarity, recognize the eerie qualities of this seasonal déjà vu, put them out of mind and then just when I least expect it, bam! The “I’ve been here before” feeling ensues.

Richard Freeman writes that as yogis our job is to observe these patterns of conditioning, whether mental or physical; practice, and notice the freedom that unfolds from it.  As shocking as these experiences at times can be, they are also comforting because they are familiar; it’s when new experiences occur that I usually need a moment to except the fact that “I’ve never been here before, and what’s going on?” It is those very experiences that free up the space for more just like them. Patterned existence is a tough pill to swallow, yet it is one that provides comfort to the fearful and annually minded I suppose, but, like, I’m not talking about holidays and sometimes the proverbial “Wheel of Samsara” seems more like the wheel of a lab rat.

This is also mirrored on a physical level: when I travel and practice with other teachers for extended periods of time, for example, I am extremely impatient with myself through the adjustment period of new climates, new assists, new practices; I get frustrated, sore, agitated, annoyed etc. but once I pull myself through it the growth curve is huge. The way I see it, it is the new experiences, both mindful and physical, that are the ones that always produce the growth.

In Indian philosophy, some of the most brilliant I’ve ever read, the most difficult and important challenge is to conquer (as best we can) our mind. We live on memories, we live on thoughts, we live on past experiences, but the present place is always changing and cannot produce the same effects again and again, even those déjà vu moments of the present—their roots are in memory and the attachment we hold in keeping them in the present, experiencing them or fearing to experience them in the same way we did before—seeking out these moments with expectations of past results is where we find dissatisfaction.