Allegory of the Palms

According to yoga philosophy, one of the obstacles to peace is aversion to pain. In our attempts to keep sorrow, grief, anger, physical and psychic discomfort at a distance, to seek pleasure in all that we do, we paradoxically stay held in suffering. In running from the pain that arises in all human life we run from ourselves, the wounded parts that need the most love and connection. We forget our wholeness and the gifts of allowing life to unfold as it is.

To my mind, the story of Jesus' return to Jerusalem to throngs of palm waving worshipers and the captors who would crucify tells the same story as this yoga sutra. Rather than taking the easy way out, perhaps going into hiding or absconding to Syria, Jesus returns to Jerusalem to worshipers hungry for his love and teachings and also to captors who would torture and crucify him.

In my reading of this story, the worshipers are like the Soul calling out to us from deep within to return and return again to the eternal source of love and affection and wisdom. But the path to the soul is not always clear, easy, painfree. There are demons, those voices that detest us, judge, shame, crucify again and again. We must enter in relationship, deeply, profoundly, and with great attention to both our angels and devils. Only through crucifixion, death of all that is unreal, do we find eternal and everlasting life.

Loose Threads

In yoga we are taught that where the eyes gaze the mind wanders. Better to keep the eyes still during class than roaming the room, peering at this person's backbend and that person's headstand.

When the eyes and mind wander away from ourselves, we can be drawn into an infinite loop of comparisons; am I better or worse, tighter or looser, kinder or meaner, richer or poorer, loveable or detested compared to this one or that one. This mind game is not merely a distraction from the task at hand whether that be listening to the teacher (or outside of class focusing on a piece of writing, cutting carrots, changing a diaper, listening to a friend). Most importantly, in this distraction we loose contact with the deepest parts of ourselves, our knowing, our path, our soul.

In thinking about such things, I am reminded of the women weavers I met in Guatemala who through hours of nimble and focused finger work create beautiful and intricate cloth from thin strands of string. They kneel for many hours each day on the dirt floor of their homes, spools of thread wrapped around each finger, the waft and shuttle moving in a steady rhythm. If they were to forget their task, become distracted by their neighbor whose cloth looks so enticing, they might loose hold on the threads, their fragile cloth unraveling into air.

When we loose our inner gaze, our grip on the threads of our lives loosens, the fabric of our soul unravels, we no longer know where we are, where to go next. The only thing that each of us can do is weave the next row of our fabric whatever that maybe. If for me that means touching the shins rather than the floor like you can (and so effortlessly!) then I should touch the shins. Wanting what you have (I want to touch the floor!!) only means that I have lost the threads of my inner self, the precious and unique patters of my cloth, the web of my soul.

Philosphers of Death

When I visited Philly in the nursing home, I liked to sit next to her. She in her wheel chair, me in a hard backed wooden one. I told her I loved her. I liked to touch her, stroke her hands with cream, brush her hair, feel her cheeks still smooth even though she was so old. After a year or two there, she didn’t speak much anymore. We communicated through the osmosis of touch which she received like a flower opening to a forgotten Spring sun and sometime returned with a squeeze of my hand. She closed her eyes and smile when I combed her purposeful white hair, told her how beautiful her hands were. Her legs no longer ached from the diabetes which was under control. She had a peace about her that was very comforting like a warm stone on my back.

It was hard for the mind to wander far when in such place. The strong smells, surprising bursts of speech, the gaze which looked through walls. One woman who used to be a neighbor but now was deep into the throes and disorientation of Alzheimer disease was strapped to her chair. She might raise a hand to touch some invisible flower in front of her face. But there were no longer smiles.

The flock of Jamaican women who tended to patients bodily needs with calm and humor amazed. How could we even begin to thank them for what they did? (Surely, we can find ways to pay them more - we being society here who pays billions of dollars to men who make widgets but can afford no more than minimum wage to people who tend to the dying.) Afterall, these caregivers are shepherds of death, comforters in eye of that storm, artists and philosophers of the intimate realities of the body in decay.

What is the point of being here if not to care for each other? What other possible reason is there?

Long Slow Drink of My Daughter

I received an unexpected gift yesterday from an unexpected source.

The woman who cleans at the gym where I work out some mornings is remarkably cheerful and kind. She smiles at passersby and always has time to ask how we are doing, if we are very tired of winter, that she is glad to see us. I am grateful for all that she does to make our gym clean. Her kindness puts me at ease, makes me feel welcome and part of a community.

Yesterday, as I was slathering oil on my body and she was mopping, we got to chatting about our children - we both have 12 year olds. "My son keeps me busy. He is going to G this summer to stay with my relatives there. I will miss him but enjoy more time for myself." she said.

"E is almost 12. Such an interesting age!" I responded.

We continued with our ablutions in silence then she spoke again, "I had a daughter too," she told me softly, "She died when she was 16."

The locker room became very still after she told me this. I saw only her, her sparkling eyes, wide smile, heard the swish of the mop. She looked down. "I am very sorry," I told her. "Yes, it was ten years ago now."

The space between us shrank as the impact of her words settled right behind my breast bone. In that moment, I was M, she was me, with no distance between us. Two small vulnerable mothers.

I thought of E's soft cheeks and wide eyes and how unimaginable it would be to not be able to touch her or look into her eyes again. To loose my dreams of her future.

I felt all the little worries, doubts, small angry thinking drain out my brain and body. I looked at E that morning, really looked, at the rosy flush in her cheeks, those impossibly long eyelashes, the pug nose I like to squeeze. I drank her down like a cold glass of water after a long hot hike. I thanked M for giving me the gift of presence, gratitude, and humility; the long slow drink of my daughter on that early spring day.

"Red Thread of Desire"

Adyashanti speaks of the "Red Thread of Desire" to help us understand the source of our longings.

We all long for many things; health, money, friends, candy, a lover's touch. The mind attaches itself to these longings telling us, "Once we get this, that, the other thing, then we shall truly be happy." We spend months, years, lifetimes grasping for things that once obtained do not stop the longings. When we get what we want, we inevitably want something else.

The problem is one of (mis)orientation. The source of the longings, the tugs at our hearts, comes not from the outside, where we seek first and foremost, but from the inside. These longings come from our Soul that is reaching for us like a happy grandmother calling us to her soft lap. "Come to me and here you can rest, find ease, the never ending river of love."

Turn inward, then, towards the source of the Red Thread that tugs at your heart strings to find yourself again, and again.

Paradoxes of Spring

Warm snow

Quiet river cracking

A search for solitude and

A lover's touch

Spring,

Father's strokes,

Daughter's birth,

Grandmother's mistep

All color except one

(a flash of Robin red)

bled from the landscape

My Ego Myself

Our ego is an identifier. We need to identify with a certain particularity in order to maintain biological and mental integrity. All this is to the good, so how is it that the words ego and egoistic carry such negative connotations? It is because the surface of our ego is covered with super glue. Memories, possessions, desires, experiences, attachments, achievements, opinions, and prejudices stick to the ego like barnacles to the hull of a ship. "This is the totality of me," the ego thinks, "I am my success, my wife, my car, my job, my woes, my wants, my, my, my." And the pure single identity succumbs to the disease of elephantiasis, in which our self becomes grossly enlarged, coarsened, and thickened. From Light on Life by BKS Iyengar


What thins the ego, the sages tell us, keeps it supple, flexible, properly sized, is the Soul. The senses entice the ego with promises of colorful candy, baskets full of fresh bread, forever love. "Look at this, smell that, feel me," our senses turned out towards the world are excited. It wouldn't be so bad but, as any Mad Man would tell you, the ego is easily manipulated, tempted, endless. The ego is easily convinced that it is you, you are it and all the things you possess.

The constant fear and anxiety that we can feel comes from the ego who so identifies with things that perish that death is always near.

Tether your ego to Soul, the sages tell us, for in the Soul there is no wanting, no impermanence, no death. My soul, your soul, which resides right underneath the breastbone, is linked to the universal Soul which I imagine is like a forever flowing river, without ending, without beginning. I draw energy, breath, life itself from this fast flowing pristine source from which I am never disconnected.

I am not without wants in this place. I still want food for my hunger, rest for my fatigue, outlets for my creativity, balm for my pain. But, in turning to my Soul for guidance, am better able meet my needs, wants, and desires, with wisdom, equanimity, and enough.