Disillusionment Gets Pointless and Boring (After a While)

...back in the summer of 1959, in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a bunch of kids were kicked out of a swim club on account of their skin color...a move defended by the club’s president, on the basis of concerns that they would “change the complexion” of the club...

...oh, wait...turns out that was the summer of 2009, in my home town of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...

...meanwhile, in India, consensual same-sex relationships have at last been decriminalized...but not without controversy...including some very vocal protests from an extremely popular and highly influential guru, Baba Ramdev...

...who, as it turns out, is one of the country’s leading proponents of...oh, good god...yoga...

Sittin’ in a park in Paris, France, reading the news and it’s all bad,
They won’t give peace a chance, that was just a dream some of us had...
Joni Mitchell

...West Mt. Airy (State of Gentle Inebriation, USA) is somewhat famous for how easily it integrated...it also happens to be in Philadelphia...the city where I was born and never wanted to live again...and wouldn’t have had it not appeared absolutely necessary two years ago....a friend said Mt. Airy seemed like it might be a cool neighborhood, so I found it on a map, took the infamously dangerous-though-lusciously-scenic Schuylkill Expressway to the even more dangerous-and-lusciously-scenic Lincoln Drive, then followed signs and parked in what appeared to be a deserted neighborhood...looked around a bit, feeling somewhat lost, before this young guy came along with sticks in his hands, drumming on air to music on his headphones...I asked him where I was...he asked where I was trying to go...I said I was thinking about moving to the area...he said I probably wanted to go a little further up the road, the way he was going...ending up having a lovely conversation with him for seven or eight blocks....a bit later, walked into a coffee shop called the High Point Cafe...the woman behind the counter asked what can I get ya?...I said I was more a prospective customer...thinking of moving to the area...she said you should definitely move here and started writing down names of apartment buildings and giving all kinds of advice until a long line of customers stretched out behind me...even though I wasn’t even buying a cup of coffee...and I thought wow...I do wanna move here...

...and, once I did, got back into the yoga thing...something I’d started and then stopped some years before...as many people do...but this time more seriously...started getting in with the serious yoga crowd...which made me nervous...suspecting they’d stop being so nice as soon as they found out I didn’t pretend to be happy all the time and wouldn’t use The Secret to wipe myself....as it turns out, though, that hasn’t happened....for that matter, when I started this blog, was actually kinda semi-looking forward to passive-aggressively nasty comments from self-righteous and dogmatic yogis disapproving of my attitude...and yet, the rare times the on-line yoga crowd criticizes me, it’s generally for being too hard on myself...

(...on top of that, in the past week, got blog awards from Tonya at When Life Gives Me Lemons, I Have to Take Prozac and a shout-out from Melinda, as well as a kind and badly needed reminder from Brooks that it's been five days since the last Yoga for Cynics post...)

...point being that, yeah, things are fucked up all over...including racist swimming pools and homophobic yogis...but, after a while, disillusionment gets pointless and boring...there’s really no need to choose between being a lobotomized Pollyanna and that guy dressed all in black and scowling at you over his dog-eared copy of L’Etranger on the subway...it’s possible to see, point out (in blog posts and elsewhere), and even act on things that suck without being dragged down by them....

...a special namaste to black kids in Philly who want to swim and all the gays and lesbians in India...

Is It Time?

...some time ago, when I decided to start doing the yoga thing everyday, was really gung-ho...impatient...so really started pushin’ it...and, in a couple weeks got myself to a point where I pretty much had to avoid anything involving knees or lower back, or twists...which, as it turned out, didn’t leave much...

...the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one...
Albert Einstein

To find our way, we will need to pay more attention to this moment. It is the only time that we have in which to live, grow, feel, and change. We will need to become more aware of and take precautions against the incredible pull of the Scylla and Charybdis of past and future, and the dreamworld they offer us in place of our lives.
Jon Kabat-Zinn

Time is making fools of us again.
J. K. Rowling

...more recently went to this class in West Philly with this teacher named Dhyana...getting a bit frustrated, as I tend to do...after all this time spent workin’ on this yoga shit...almost hurting my neck trying to force a tripod headstand...and the teacher started telling this old story....this guy goes to see a Zen master and asks him how long it’ll take to reach enlightenment...the Zen master says thirty years...the guy says I can’t wait that long...listen, I’ll do anything...just tell me how I can get it now...and the Zen master says okay then, seventy years...

The Real Downward Facing Dog—Revealed!

...one thing people look for in a blog with yoga in the title is...yoga...or, more particularly, instructions on how to do particular yoga poses...or asanas, for you Sanskrit nerds out there...which, until now, is something that this humble blog has not offered...as I’m still working on doing them on my own without hurting myself...and passin’ on the hurt isn’t exactly what that yoga thing’s supposed to be about...

...beginning with this post, however, I’m bringing in a series of experts...not only to provide practical yoga instruction, but to break new ground in giving far more authentic versions of asanas than are generally known...beginning with downward facing dog... adho mukha svanasana...featuring my canine yogini friend, Bella...pictured...

...one thing about canine yoga is that it just kinda occurs naturally...thus, I couldn’t get Bella to actually demonstrate the pose for the camera...instead, we have something that looks vaguely like a kind of slightly off center child’s pose...balasana...or, perhaps, puppy’s pose...anybody knows the Sanskrit for that, please leave it in a comment below..

...nonetheless, having studied Bella’s moves first thing in the morning, when I’m far too drowsy to get a decent picture...I can attest to a paradoxical aspect of the real downward facing dog...that is, one doesn’t actually face downward while doing it....you know how that eastern thought goes...paradoxes all over the place....instead, the nose goes forward, eyes slightly upward...looking at me....not sure where they are when there’s nobody watching...that's what's known as the observer's paradox, by the way...

...as importantly, the position of the legs is far different from that in what has traditionally been called downward facing dog...with both straight up, if not somewhat concave, butt sticking way back...

...it occurs to me at this point that, to do this pose properly, one needs to have pretty short legs and a very long spine...in fact, I think ya pretty much have to be a dog...

...so, guess that’s it for this lesson...namaste...or woof...or something...

...future posts in this series will provide instruction for authentic camel pose...ustrasana...and eagle pose...garudasana...soon as I find a camel and an eagle...

Dogsitting, the Universe, and Getting Lost in Suburban Neighborhoods

We live in an old chaos of the sun...
Wallace Stevens

...I’m dogsitting this week...which means I have no choice to go on long walks with my good friend Bella...and, sometimes, get lost...like last night...

...as an adolescent read practically nothing but science fiction and fantasy...certainly didn’t read much that was assigned as homework...kinda burned out on it midway through college, though...too many space wars...too many elves...barely touched the stuff since...then, just recently, visiting mom’s house, decided to dig out the Foundation Trilogy...which is probably more interesting now than back in eighth grade when my eyes likely drifted over pages, waiting for old Isaac A. to cut the philosophy and break out the laser beams...

....one thing occurred to me, though, in reading all that about planets and stars and galaxies...I hadn’t seen the night sky in quite some time...not really...couldn’t remember the last time I paid attention to the stars or moon....partly, no doubt, the result of living in the city for two years...so, late last night, hopelessly lost with Bella the dog in a suburban neighborhood, spent a good amount of time looking up...

...some people look at the vastness of the universe and see proof of the existence of God...since how else can you explain something so awesome...others see quite the opposite...since how else can you explain something large and yet so empty...

...all I know is that we were lost for hours late at night...but it didn’t seem to bother the dog...so I didn’t let it bother me, either...

From One Messed Up Dude To Another

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
Nietzsche

I can still hear momma say: “honey, don’t let it go to your head.”
Kim Gordon

...one thing I’ll say about Michael Jackson, he was one messed-up dude...and I say that without judgment, as a fellow messed-up dude...even if messed-up in very different ways...Tolstoy didn’t say that normal people are all alike but messed-up people are all messed-up in their own particular ways, but he might as well have...

...Michael Jackson’s problem, some say, was that he didn’t get to have an adolescence...my problem, it could be said, is that I did have one...and yet, like him, I suspect, I’ve sometimes felt that true happiness was lost with some important formative experiences I never had...

...I’ve certainly tried to remake myself...at least in terms of the ways I thought other people looked at me...more than once...even if I haven’t had any actual “work” done...nor have I managed to get obscenely wealthy...but, as with Michael Jackson, as has been made all too clear, I found the same problems remained right there where they were on the inside no matter what was done to hide them on the outside...

...to be honest, can’t say I was ever much of a fan of his...then, to the best of my knowledge, he was never much of a fan of mine...so we’re even....besides, if one thing’s clear about Michael Jackson, it’s that whatever stardom did for him, it wasn’t good...so, guess I can be glad I didn’t contribute to it, much...

...and, anyway, this is really only meant as a salute from one messed-up dude to another...and to all the other messed-up people out there struggling to love their messed-up selves...

If you're going through hell, keep going.
Winston Churchill*

*stolen from Yogadork

The Other People

We are the other people, we are the other people, you’re the other people, too...
Frank Zappa

...had some friends in Arizona...mix of college students and drop-outs...some planning on dropping back in, some not so much...living in this ramshackle house next to a scuzzy bar...narrow front porch butting up to the sidewalk...cool place to sit and watch people pass by...two real bedrooms, as I remember, and a kind of walk-in closet just big enough for a bed...often a person or two sleeping on the couch or living room floor, as well...a likely place to find weed, beer, and loud music at any hour...

...one day there was this new guy sitting on the porch...turned out he’d moved in with the girl in the walk-in closet room...which meant he wouldn’t be there long...but that’s another story...longish hair, dark sunglasses, big smile...into Kerouac and Vonnegut, Nirvana and P. J. Harvey, hiking and dogs...got us tickets to see Johnny Cash in Phoenix, just before he got sick and stopped touring...we became friends immediately...

...a couple weeks later, were walking down the sidewalk and ran into a friend of his, who had a dog...said he’d gotten kicked out of a pizza place because he took the dog in with him...my friend, grinning, snorted, I’m sure the dog’s cleaner than the Mexicans they got working in the kitchen...

...which, I told myself, must’ve been meant ironically...or something...though it didn’t really sound like it...and, soon, started hearing more...about blacks, gays, women, Jews, people who didn't respect his right to smoke cigarettes wherever he wanted, and, most of all, as this was northern Arizona, Indians...ended up in a big ugly argument with him every time we met...and, as gradually became clear, he liked it that way...fed off of the reactions his hateful words elicited...and I decided our friendship had to end...

All we need is a voluntary, free-spirited, open-ended program of procreative racial deconstruction. Everybody just gotta keep fuckin' everybody 'til they're all the same color.
Warren Beatty, Bulworth

I support gay marriage because I believe they have a right to be just as miserable as the rest of us.
Kinky Friedman

...saw that new Star Trek movie...younger, hipper, less boring...I liked it...and was reminded that the first...or, at least, most famous...interracial kiss on American TV was between Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura, in 1968...though, in order for it to happen, they had to go way into the future...and to another planet...and fall under some kinda alien mind control....strange as it may seem now, in 1967, when anti-miscegenation laws were struck down as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, in the appropriately named Loving vs. Virginia decision, Gallup polls showed that 70% of the population was opposed to interracial marriage...a considerably higher figure than current...or recent...levels of opposition to gay marriage....

Of all dangers to our nation that exist in our day, there can be no greater one than having certain portions of the people set off from the rest by a line drawn—they not privileged as others, but degraded, humiliated, made of no account.
Walt Whitman

Weather Report Suite

Winter rain, now tell me why summers fade and roses die.
The answer came: the wind and rain.
Eric Andersen/Bob Weir

...sunshine outside...day before the summer solstice...just moments after acknowledging to friends behind the counter: it’s now official—the weather’s made me depressed...paid, picked up the coffee mug, walked to a window table...and there it was...felt it before I saw it...a warmth and brightness coming in through the glass...

...could only hope it’s shining on my friends at the Clearwater Folk Festival, singing along with Pete Seeger...to everything, turn turn turn, there is a season, turn, turn, turn...

...woke this morning half an hour after Saturday morning yoga class started...heard the rain beating down on the roof before even opening my eyes...decided to go back to sleep...

...wouldn’t’ve been so bad if it hadn’t been for the teasing un-wet summerlike yesterday...walking in the early evening, I saw fireflies...fireflies...for the first time this year...

...ended up going downtown for a different yoga class in the afternoon...was sitting around feeling miserable thinking jesuschristIdon’tfeellikedoin’anyfuckin’yogatoday...but know from experience that there’s no better time to do yoga than when you’re sitting around feeling miserable thinking jesuschristIdon’tfeellikedoin’anyfuckin’yogatoday...and it’s true...

...started out by bike, then turned around and got the car...don’t mind getting wet on the way home...just keep peddling to keep warm then jump in the shower and into dry clothes...but getting soaked on the way to somewhere else is different...