Three Women Walk into a Cafe

They came in together, burst through the door with a blast of cold air. Three, friends, that is what they looked like, together out for coffee and breakfast muffins. There was a young woman with a German accent and a white haired one with a tired look in her eyes. Young and Whitey peeled a plaid scarf off of the third woman who had brown dyed hair, high cheeck bones, large brown eyes, a smile.

“There is a couch over there, we can sit,” Young said. Young and Whitey led the third friend over to the couch, by the hand since she was shaky on her feet and looked lost.

Whitey sat next to Shaky, close, thigh touching thigh, like long time companions would. She clasped a paper cup filled with coffee and warmed her hands. Then she took Shaky’s hands in hers to warm them as well.

“Feels good doesn’t it Irene,” Whitey asked Shaky.

“Yes, feels good,” Shaky said back.

Young brought a mug of hot chocolate over along with a thick slice of freshly made coffee cake. There were three forks.

Whitey fed Shaky small pieces from a fork. One for herself, one for Irene.

“Buttery,” Irene said licking her lips.

Young blew on the skin of hot chocolate and tested it with her tongue. When it was cooled she held the mug to Shaky's lips.

"Very nice," Shaky told Young politely.

They didn’t stay long. Shaky had slippers on and didn't take her long purple down coat off. She had forgotten where she was.

“Is it cold out?” she asked.

“Yes, we had that scarf on you when you came in.” Whitey said.

“Oh,” Irene replied.

“I don’t like it on, though,” Irene frowned.

“We won’t put it on tightly, not too tightly,” Young said. “Up we go,” Young helped Shaky to her feet.

“Wo, Wo,” Irene wobbled but there was a soft blue couch behind her to catch her if she fell But she didn't fall. She held tight to Young's hands and Whitey had her back.

“I don’t know where I am going,” Shaky told Whitey and Young.

“It’s okay,” Young said, “We will follow the leader.”

“Okay,” Shakey said. She was laughing and laughing now. The scarf had fallen off her neck and was hanging down towards the floor.

“What is this? What is this?” she asked when Whitey pulled the scarf up from the floor and wrapped it back around Irene's head.

“I won’t do it too tight,” Whitey told her.

Little Deaths

"Equanimity allows for the mystery of things: the unknowable, uncontrollable nature of things to 
be just as they are." Frank Jude Bocco

When the ego (the small I) in desperate need of purpose, of permanence, asserts control, we die, just a little. In these little deaths, silence creeps into the body; there is less tenderness in the heart space, more stiffness in the spine, numbing of the tailbone. In these silences, we loose our connection to God (Soul, Self) which can only be experienced in the body and turn outside of our anesthetized selves for feeling, for the unconditional love we long for. But nothing outside is permanent so anxiety and ambiguity erupts. Still, we can continue to grip even tighter the reins of the wild horse which can't be tamed.

Yoga shows us a different way, to come more fully alive (our birthright afterall). Through the practice of asana (poses), devotedly, steadfastly, with vigor and great compassion, the threads binding the ego to the Soul loosen. We get glimpses of a divine spark deep in the bones, an experience of completeness that remains even as everything we love leaves us. In asana practice, after a long time, there can come (I am told, I am hoping) an effortless effort; movement for the pure experience of movement towards the soul's embrace and guidance that we long for.

Once when I felt quite lost in life a yoga teacher told me, "Just keep doing yoga." How could that possibly help me to figure out where to live, who to love, what kind of work would satisfy? I continued my practice because it felt good to be less anxious and stiff. I noticed, over time, that my body became noisy, louder, more awake. I began to listen, naturally, to my body about what it needed in each moment (for the body, the soul, god speaks to us only in the moment); a nap, a friend, a walk in the woods. Because it hurt not to, I began to follow my body's wishes and make choices that felt deeply nourishing. My life unfolded without so much effort. Not without pain, sadness, loss, and regret, but with less fear, anxiety, anticipation, little deaths.

As yoga guru BKS Iyengar tells it, with a devoted yoga practice we may be able to tie our shoes when we are 85; and more importantly live fully until we die.

Where Art and Science Meet

I find it intriguing to think how we rely on metaphors to describe chemical, physical, biological processes. Metaphors allow us to “see” and come to understand processes that are otherwise unknowable by our senses. We come to knowing through our imagination, using math, poetry, pictures, stories as metaphors. Metaphors, precisely because they come from our imagination and are fed by our subconscious selves, pack a powerful punch to both the brain and the heart.

Metaphors are sticky because they allow us to build new knowledge from what is already known and, in this way, allow us to make new neural connections or ways of knowing. Since they come to us unbidden, metaphors are necessarily subjective; the images that move us do so because they resonate with (in harmony or dissonance) our deep selves. Does the sperm penetrate the egg or does the egg receive the sperm? Is gravity bent by planets or curved from its own weight/forces? Does the protein merge with the cell or is the cell destroyed by the protein? There is no right or wrong metaphor but only a different perspectives or pathways into the cell, into space.

New animation technology makes this intersection of art and science more apparent. A recent NYT article on the subject highlights the new science animation taking hold in the field of cell biology. “The ability to animate gives biologists a chance to think about things in a whole new way,” says Janet Iwasa, a cell biologist who now works as a molecular animator at Harvard Medical School. “Just listening to scientists describe how the molecule moved in words wasn’t enough for me,” she said. “What brought it to life was really seeing it in motion.” At the “Inner Life of the Cell” (http://multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/media.html) you can see animation of how, for example, “cells internalize molecules on its surface; the three-legged white protein, clathrin triskelions forms a latticelike cage that causes the membrane to deform and form a vesicle.” Someone should put in music and other sound effects!

Here science is revealed through art; metaphor, images, stories and shown to be the imaginative practice that it is.

My devotion

Devotion: (v) 1. feelings of ardent love;
2. commitment to some purpose;

This morning I was thinking "to what I am devoted". This question did not come out of the blue. E, my yoga teacher, asked us all to consider this in the coming week. Patanjali's Sutra 1.23 states that devotion to god can lead to enlightenment, which in the yoga tradition, is a freedom from the fluctuations of an unruly mind.

I can tell you what I have ardent love for; my daughter's small soft hands, Red's fur, my grandmother's cheeks. I love the cold darkness of the mornings, catching a heron in flight, seeing the wild geese, bellies flecked with morning sun, flying low overhead. I can hear their wings beating the air. While surely love is part of devotion, love does not always come easily. So devotion can require hard work, repetition, daily practice.

I practice yoga, cultivating a writing life, being kind to bring me back to that ardent love space or compassion. These practices feel devotional not solely because they offer me so many gifts but because I practice even when it feels hard to do so, when I am faithless. In this way, perhaps, devotion entails a certain kind of hopelessness and surrender, letting go of things turning out this way or that way.

Practicing yoga when I feel very tired, heavy, anxious teaches me how such feelings change and move, are of my body but not my body. Writing when I hear voices that tell me "This is a waste of time, not very good, presumptuous of you," shows me compassion, humility, and courage. Being kind when I am angry, tired, afraid shows me that I am always connected to my heart even when the lines are frayed.

Devotion to something more than myself brings me gratitude and compassion for my body, mind, life just as it is and a greater acceptance of another's struggle. Where is god in all of this? For me, god resides in that restful, quiet, infinite space right beneath my breast bone, waiting to greet me whenever I return from straying; my devotional practices helping to bring me back, bring me back, bring me back to this home.

The Subtle Body

I spent the weekend studying yoga with Matthew Sanford. At 13, Matthew was in a car accident which killed his father and sister and left him with a broken spine. In learning how to embody, move, breath in his body - and after many many years of yoga practice and training (along with failure, giving up, pain, anger, love, and surrender) - Matthew has cultivated a remarkably sensitive, engaging, and profound connection to the body, the self, the soul and an amazing ability to show us all how to connect more deeply to ourselves.

Learning from Matthew was transformative. That there is an energy in the body that transcends muscles, bones, the hard wiring of nerves became apparent. Awareness of this energy offers great ease in the body, the psyche, the emotions, offers us a place to rest deeply and find comfort even for the most hard to love and dark inner places.

That this energy is the bodily experience of the divine which inspires us is something our culture or way of life can keep us from knowing; pushing us as it does relentlessly to look outside of ourselves, to the material world, for sustenance.

Allowing for this possibility of an embodied spirit can change the entire fabric of your life including the way you sit, eat, see the sky, touch your child, contemplate literature and death, make love, pray. From this perspective, God, cannot be conjured in the mind but is a lived and ever changing experience of the body, the skin, organs, bones, muscles, arteries, and blood.

Matthew has found the divine in his body (as his body) - even as it is broken, paralyzed, disfigured. Since all of us have "paralyzed" or "silent" parts in our bodies, along with pain, disfigurement, shame, and weakness, his experience and teaching can help us to find a way back to all those places we have abandoned and retreated from and in this way know our "unseparateness" from God (or wholeness, soul, truth, love, you put in your word for this).

Altar for Grandmother

This week at E's school, the older kids displayed their Day of the Dead Altars; Tombstone sized collections of artifacts representing a dead love ones life. There were many pictures of WWII veterans along with hand made hats, playing cards, scratch tickets, menorah's and crosses, Oreos and snickers (favorite foods). It was hard to pass by these alters without remembering our own losses and the detritus which remind us of them

Altar for Grandmother: For my grandmother's alter, there would be plastic curlers and bobby pins, a large can of hair spray, the girdles she wore for most of her life, washed each night, and then hung to dry on the shower curtain rod. I would place a large black pocket book right in the middle of the display; the suitcase sized one filled with lipstick, sen sen, gum, tissues, scissors and nail cutters, change and bills, pens, paper and ruler, perfume, nail polish, an extra pair of underwear and nylons, address book, rosary beads (two pair), wooden and silver crosses, pears, apples, rolls from the diner that went uneaten, sugar packets, as well, and ketchup in packages. There would also be three deck's of cards, poker chips and bingo chips, coupons, newspaper circulars, a wrench, a knife or two, a screw driver, and three bottles of orange soda.

The pocket book, which weighed at least 20 pounds, would enable two adults and a child to survive a flood, snow storm, typhoon or a fortnight lost in an urban jungle. Grandmother was well prepared if anything.

On her alter, I would also include a package of white flour and sugar, olive oil, garlic and eggplants, a can of tomato past, and onions for the cooking she did every day and a picture of my grandfather with whom she spent a lifetime Also, I would put the two wrist watches she wore - one on each wrist - during her ten year stint in the nursing home. There would be the dentures she abhorred but kept in the house dress pocket in case they were needed for a particularly tough piece of meat or unexpected company and the witch hazel, vinegar, aspirin, and aloe which could cure all but the most persistent of viruses, aches and sprains. All of these things I would sit on the orange and brown afghan she crocheted each evening while watching the 11 O'clock news.

Prayers for Angel Baby

What part of your body do you despise? Is it the back of the eyes during a migraine, the thick belly than hangs over the belt, the scar that runs the length of the torso? What would it take for you to love each limb, organ, twitching ligament in its imperfect entirety? What would it mean to be so beloved and appreciated by yourself?

Angel Baby undergoes brain surgery tomorrow. The skull, not quite large enough, needs rebuilding to make room for her growing brain. Angel Baby has blue eyes that shine with laughter and halo of golden hair to frame a soft face. She can be sensitive and cares very much what others think of her, whether or not she is beloved, good enough, deserving, beautiful (And who of us do not have such cares?)

Yes, I want to tell her as if my words could make her know her worth, you are quite beautiful. Tomorrow, mother and father will sit in the waiting room at Children's Hospital with all the others waiting for children to emerge intact from procedures that no child should have to endure. It is Angel Baby's second surgery. The first was before she could walk. Back then, Mother sat in the chair meditating as she waited a lifetime for the surgery to be over. In the waiting and meditation, mother entered the river of fear but was not swept away. After the current tore at her heart and pulled her thrashing underneath, she emerged gasping for breath no longer alone but connected all those who had sat before her in that same chair.

I imagine the wildest of geese will hold Angel Baby while she sleeps, transporting her to a soft sweet place and then back again into mother and father's arms. She will know her beauty (my prayer for her), even as her face swells and aches and bandages cover her shaved head, through our love.

What compassion can you find in your own heart to know your beauty, wholeness, connection to all who have sat in this chair before you?