wet socks in cold streets,
computer programmer tan,
computer programmer tan,
blue snowy branches
Off for some yoga in Central America
See y'all in March
Namaste & all that 'til then
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Thoughts Almost Buried in the Snow
...a friend said she was feeling sluggish and overweight...I said it’s mid-February, everybody’s sluggish and overweight...she said thanks for the pep talk...but I don’t know if it actually helped much...
...my experience with yoga and meditation has had something...actually, I think, a lot...to do with gaining the ability to experience depression physically...locate it within my own small space rather than confusing it with life as a whole...more like a sinus headache that doesn’t physically hurt than an existential condition...a wet blanket that isn’t actually wet wrapped around the chest as opposed to a neverending river of tears...
I've developed a new philosophy....I only dread one day at a time.
Charlie Brown (Charles Schulz)
For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.
Alfred D'Souza
...I started to worry that the plan was going to crash...wrote a blogger friend...which seemed a perfect statement of my own dilemma...even though, given the context, she obviously meant to write plane....I worry a lot more about plans crashing than planes...
...getting ready to fly away from the ice and snow for a week....the trip’s paid for, the modern American way...deficit spending...woo-hoo!....and I’m far more concerned with losing luggage than mortality...
...my experience with yoga and meditation has had something...actually, I think, a lot...to do with gaining the ability to experience depression physically...locate it within my own small space rather than confusing it with life as a whole...more like a sinus headache that doesn’t physically hurt than an existential condition...a wet blanket that isn’t actually wet wrapped around the chest as opposed to a neverending river of tears...
I've developed a new philosophy....I only dread one day at a time.
Charlie Brown (Charles Schulz)
For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.
Alfred D'Souza
...I started to worry that the plan was going to crash...wrote a blogger friend...which seemed a perfect statement of my own dilemma...even though, given the context, she obviously meant to write plane....I worry a lot more about plans crashing than planes...
...getting ready to fly away from the ice and snow for a week....the trip’s paid for, the modern American way...deficit spending...woo-hoo!....and I’m far more concerned with losing luggage than mortality...
* stolen with permission from another blogger friend
Friday, February 12, 2010
Yoga Demystified...(Beyond Buns and Bhakti)
...one thing we’ve always tried to be clear about here at Yoga for Cynics is that this isn’t one of those elitist blogs...aimed at “highbrow” “educated” types who, y’know, “read” “books”...and, certainly, we wouldn’t think about posting anything as snooty as a “book review”...at least, not for any book longer than 87 pages...including pictures...with some pages that don’t have a whole lotta words on them...and which can be downloaded for free...like our friend* Bob Weisenberg’s Yoga Demystified...(which also has a sub-title, but, since Bob ignored our brilliant suggestion, From Hot Buns to Bhakti, it won’t be mentioned here)...
...Bob’s goal in this book is to demystify yoga........okay, that was lame...on the level of Britney Spears describing I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman as about not being a girl but not being a woman, either.....I’ll start again...
...Bob’s book unpacks yoga philosophy in a non-dogmatic way...pointing out that what really counts is not esoteric language, mythical symbology, religious trappings, one armed handstands, perfect abs, those really expensive Lululemon pants your friends all wear to the Saturday morning vinyasa class, or going to India and getting all ecstatic when some old dude in a sheet steps on your head....(so...maybe Beyond Hot Buns and Bhakti would be better...)...
... basically, Bob wants to get past the confounding and complicated details to the heart of things...which I couldn’t agree with more....but what's with the commas outside quotation marks?...or periods inside parentheses?!....where was I?....oh yeah, it’s all about the deeper essence....but fantastical?...what, exactly, does the al suffix add that we don’t already get from the word fantastic?!....ahem...like I said, essence...
...which is to be found as much in a paper clip as any sacred text...as much in sitting at your computer cringing at some blogger’s cheap attempts at humor as levitating in a cave in India five thousand years ago...though, at the same time, without romanticizing distant theres and thens, Yoga Demystified does a nice job of pointing out the value of those sacred texts from ancient India in getting at the value of yoga in the here and now...
...ultimately, Bob’s saying, with verve and humor, that what he's found in the yoga tradition has far more to do with opening to the wonder in everything than cramming one’s self and universe into some exotic set of definitions or beliefs...giving, along with its brevity and easy-going style, the crustiest of yoga cynics very little to get indignant about...(though, of course, any crusty yoga cynic worthy of the title can always find something to get indignant about)....as well as providing a lot to tickle the chakras of the more seasoned yogi, regardless of ability to read Sanskrit or perform hanumanasana****...
...what I particularly like about Yoga Demystified, though, is its openness and generosity of spirit...freely and refreshingly acknowledging that what’s provided isn’t the last word or one true version but the branches of yoga that appeal to me*****...while playfully interweaving texts, techniques, jokes, science, music, poems, tennis, and hot dog vendors...emphasizing connections in a way that makes me think about just how much I could’ve used such a concise, good-humored introduction when first getting into the yoga thing.....thus, making it perfect for that friend or family member you think could benefit from yoga but who’s currently getting way too much enjoyment out of making fun of it...as if the two were mutually exclusive...
* Bob being our friend does not, of course, in any way shape or form, bias this review...nor has any money changed hands between him and the management, writing staff, or corporate partners of this blog**
** which is not to say we’d turn down a tax-deductible*** contribution to Dr. Jay's Totally Legit Non-profit Foundation for Enlightened Yoga Cynicism...just write out the check to Dr. Jay...he’ll make sure it gets to the right place...
*** okay, maybe not “tax deductible” in the “technical” sense of “the IRS considers it tax deductible”....at this blog, we’re poets...mystics...rebels...mavericks...and not about to let some materialistic government agency define our terms for us...
**** full disclosure: we at this blog couldn’t order lunch in Sanskrit, but we're doing our best to keep positive about managing something vaguely resembling hanumanasana at some point in the next decade or two...
***** unlike this blog post which, as it turns out, actually is the final and absolute word on its subject...we'd chisel it into a stone if they weren't all covered in snow just now...
...Bob’s goal in this book is to demystify yoga........okay, that was lame...on the level of Britney Spears describing I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman as about not being a girl but not being a woman, either.....I’ll start again...
...Bob’s book unpacks yoga philosophy in a non-dogmatic way...pointing out that what really counts is not esoteric language, mythical symbology, religious trappings, one armed handstands, perfect abs, those really expensive Lululemon pants your friends all wear to the Saturday morning vinyasa class, or going to India and getting all ecstatic when some old dude in a sheet steps on your head....(so...maybe Beyond Hot Buns and Bhakti would be better...)...
... basically, Bob wants to get past the confounding and complicated details to the heart of things...which I couldn’t agree with more....but what's with the commas outside quotation marks?...or periods inside parentheses?!....where was I?....oh yeah, it’s all about the deeper essence....but fantastical?...what, exactly, does the al suffix add that we don’t already get from the word fantastic?!....ahem...like I said, essence...
...which is to be found as much in a paper clip as any sacred text...as much in sitting at your computer cringing at some blogger’s cheap attempts at humor as levitating in a cave in India five thousand years ago...though, at the same time, without romanticizing distant theres and thens, Yoga Demystified does a nice job of pointing out the value of those sacred texts from ancient India in getting at the value of yoga in the here and now...
...ultimately, Bob’s saying, with verve and humor, that what he's found in the yoga tradition has far more to do with opening to the wonder in everything than cramming one’s self and universe into some exotic set of definitions or beliefs...giving, along with its brevity and easy-going style, the crustiest of yoga cynics very little to get indignant about...(though, of course, any crusty yoga cynic worthy of the title can always find something to get indignant about)....as well as providing a lot to tickle the chakras of the more seasoned yogi, regardless of ability to read Sanskrit or perform hanumanasana****...
...what I particularly like about Yoga Demystified, though, is its openness and generosity of spirit...freely and refreshingly acknowledging that what’s provided isn’t the last word or one true version but the branches of yoga that appeal to me*****...while playfully interweaving texts, techniques, jokes, science, music, poems, tennis, and hot dog vendors...emphasizing connections in a way that makes me think about just how much I could’ve used such a concise, good-humored introduction when first getting into the yoga thing.....thus, making it perfect for that friend or family member you think could benefit from yoga but who’s currently getting way too much enjoyment out of making fun of it...as if the two were mutually exclusive...
* Bob being our friend does not, of course, in any way shape or form, bias this review...nor has any money changed hands between him and the management, writing staff, or corporate partners of this blog**
** which is not to say we’d turn down a tax-deductible*** contribution to Dr. Jay's Totally Legit Non-profit Foundation for Enlightened Yoga Cynicism...just write out the check to Dr. Jay...he’ll make sure it gets to the right place...
*** okay, maybe not “tax deductible” in the “technical” sense of “the IRS considers it tax deductible”....at this blog, we’re poets...mystics...rebels...mavericks...and not about to let some materialistic government agency define our terms for us...
**** full disclosure: we at this blog couldn’t order lunch in Sanskrit, but we're doing our best to keep positive about managing something vaguely resembling hanumanasana at some point in the next decade or two...
***** unlike this blog post which, as it turns out, actually is the final and absolute word on its subject...we'd chisel it into a stone if they weren't all covered in snow just now...
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Hello Darkness, My Old Friend
...had to acknowledge, while snowbound at my mom’s house for the weekend...by the time I’d shoveled all the way to the road, was too tired to go anywhere...that an all too familiar and highly inconvenient wintertime guest had most definitely arrived, and was making itself at home...
...a good blogger friend made a request...
...if aaah leeeeave heeere tomooooorrrooowww,
wouldjoo stilllll rememmmber meee...
...actually, that wasn’t it...she suggested the titles and scattered themes of that previous post reflected the snowstorm outside...and might each be allowed to stop and grow...perhaps when the sky calmed down....but, as tends to be the case this time of year, my mind seems stuck in a different kind of weather pattern...more a persistent, turbulent mass of grey...occasionally letting loose a bit of sleet, hail, or drizzle in hopes of refreshing the landscape so something might take root...perhaps opening now and then to tantalizing glimmers of light...but not for long...making coherence difficult....though metaphors mix freely...maybe hoping for some hybrid vigor...
...then, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from all the yoga and mindfulness stuff, it’s to see all that more clearly...as not so much some mythical all-consuming force of darkness, but a lonely, wounded ghost...like Bruce Willis in that movie...and one perhaps I need to learn to talk to...
...using that Simon & Garfunkel lyric to title this post took about as much cleverness as I can muster at this point...really...but can’t look at it without the mind wandering off toward Dustin Hoffman walking through that barren airport at the beginning of The Graduate...homeward bound, to suffer endless questions about his future for which he has no answers...as well as to receive priceless advice...
...I just wanna say one word to you...just one word...are you listening? Plastics. There’s a great future in plastics. Think about it...
...forty-two years into that future, there’s an island of plastic trash the size of Texas floating somewhere in the north Pacific...countless gallons of a substance wars are fought over crafted into a near infinite variety of colorful, disposable items...making me wonder just how many plans were executed, how much human effort went into creating this incredible mass of worthless and increasingly toxic crap...
...in more lucid moments...the spaces between lengthy periods of utterly pointless web surfing...have been reading, for something like the fourth time, one of the best novels ever written...in which a whole lot happens, almost all of which, ultimately, turns out to be pointless....Before reaching the final line, however, he had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth...
...if there’s a point to all that...and I think there is...it’s that there are many paths from nowhere to nowhere...that striving and productivity have no inherent value...and what matters most...what forms the difference between cultivating abundant life and cranking out worthless crap...is from where, inside of us, our thoughts and actions grow...
Friday, February 5, 2010
Deep as My Backbends...from Hot Buns to Bhakti...in the Depths of Winter...Virtually and Otherwise...
...was reading this thing by famous dreadlocked virtual reality guru Jaron Lanier...I know quite a few people, most of them young adults, who are proud to say that they have accumulated thousands of friends on Facebook. Obviously, their statements can be true only if the idea of friendship is diminished....preach it, dreadlocked bro! speak that virtual truth to that virtual power!....nonetheless, can’t say I’ve actually had a whole lotta trouble telling the difference between the virtual multitudes I’ve virtually friended and that far more select group who drive me to the airport at five in the morning, indulge my sense of humor at its worst, or listen to my problems for hours on end...though there’s overlap...just like I doubt many of this blog’s followers live by my teachings, pray to my image, or refuse to vote for presidential candidates who fail to acknowledge me as their personal savior....though, if anybody is doing that, a bit of tithing wouldn’t kill ya...just sayin’...
Humor is the instinct for taking pain playfully.
Max Eastman
...helping addicts with their writing never fails to enrich my vocabulary...my new favorite word is abandominium...far more attractive than squat, I think...
If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.
Jack Handey
...once got called an asshole by a girlscout...because I said no thanks when asked if I wanted to buy cookies...
...take pride in your humility...
Ancient and Revered Yoga Cynic Sutra 435:18
...I'm deep as my backbends...spiritually, philosophically, and whateverwise....read lotsa books...lotsa blogs...attend lotsa classes...some workshops & retreats...seen a couple movies...written a good bit...had lotsa conversations...virtual & otherwise...exploring the meanings of that yoga thing...from hot buns to bhakti...
...gotta admit, though...here in the depths of winter...at the risk of sacrificing membership in the serious spiritual yogis club...that what gets me on the mat...most of the time...is that it gives me a buzz...when a buzz is something I have great difficulty doing without...(and, thankfully, unlike many varieties of buzz, it’s one that builds me up rather than tearing me down)...and namasmotherfuckingte to that...
Humor is the instinct for taking pain playfully.
Max Eastman
...helping addicts with their writing never fails to enrich my vocabulary...my new favorite word is abandominium...far more attractive than squat, I think...
If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.
Jack Handey
...once got called an asshole by a girlscout...because I said no thanks when asked if I wanted to buy cookies...
...take pride in your humility...
Ancient and Revered Yoga Cynic Sutra 435:18
...I'm deep as my backbends...spiritually, philosophically, and whateverwise....read lotsa books...lotsa blogs...attend lotsa classes...some workshops & retreats...seen a couple movies...written a good bit...had lotsa conversations...virtual & otherwise...exploring the meanings of that yoga thing...from hot buns to bhakti...
...gotta admit, though...here in the depths of winter...at the risk of sacrificing membership in the serious spiritual yogis club...that what gets me on the mat...most of the time...is that it gives me a buzz...when a buzz is something I have great difficulty doing without...(and, thankfully, unlike many varieties of buzz, it’s one that builds me up rather than tearing me down)...and namasmotherfuckingte to that...
Monday, February 1, 2010
Bellying Up to the Bardo
There’s a new edition of Dante’s “Inferno” that’s recently begun appearing in bookstores. Same words. Different cover. It’s got a big picture of a muscular fellow in a spiky crown and an overline that says, “The literary classic that inspired the epic video game.”
David Itzikoff, New York Times January 30, 2010
...nearly got run over by Chubby Checker crossing the street in the outer suburbs this one time, maybe twenty years ago...a couple miles from where I’ve been told he lives...in the center turning lane, about to finish crossing, and this bright red sports car heading straight for me, braking a split second before I’d have ended up laid out like a broken hood ornament...and there, through the windshield glass, for just a moment, the unmistakable strangely smiling face of the guy who did The Twist...
The spiritual journey is not about heaven and finally getting to a place that's really swell.
Pema Chodron
...another time, kicked a rattlesnake...the year after hiking the Appalachian Trail...a difficult period...seemed like I’d found what I loved...walking through the woods all day...every day...but it wasn’t exactly sustainable...living with my folks for a while, working temp office jobs, delivering flowers, doing whatever was needed for a friend’s tie-dye business, getting baked and eating a lot...took a trip down south in the spring to meet up with trail people and get out in the mountains again...including this one afternoon, running along the A.T. just below Shenandoah National Park...at one point said hi to this lovely little family...mom and pop and two towheaded young boys...and moved on...saw a stick lying across the trail...not a big one...didn’t bother avoiding it with the toe of my boot....and whoosh it shot off into the underbrush...which appeared, to me, to lie somewhat outside the standard behavioral patterns of the average stick....stopping and turning around, saw the copperhead, coiled, tail shaking, just by the side of the trail....waited a couple minutes to let the adorable little family catch up so I could warn them away from it before moving on again...
There...will never be any more perfection than there is now,
David Itzikoff, New York Times January 30, 2010
...nearly got run over by Chubby Checker crossing the street in the outer suburbs this one time, maybe twenty years ago...a couple miles from where I’ve been told he lives...in the center turning lane, about to finish crossing, and this bright red sports car heading straight for me, braking a split second before I’d have ended up laid out like a broken hood ornament...and there, through the windshield glass, for just a moment, the unmistakable strangely smiling face of the guy who did The Twist...
The spiritual journey is not about heaven and finally getting to a place that's really swell.
Pema Chodron
...another time, kicked a rattlesnake...the year after hiking the Appalachian Trail...a difficult period...seemed like I’d found what I loved...walking through the woods all day...every day...but it wasn’t exactly sustainable...living with my folks for a while, working temp office jobs, delivering flowers, doing whatever was needed for a friend’s tie-dye business, getting baked and eating a lot...took a trip down south in the spring to meet up with trail people and get out in the mountains again...including this one afternoon, running along the A.T. just below Shenandoah National Park...at one point said hi to this lovely little family...mom and pop and two towheaded young boys...and moved on...saw a stick lying across the trail...not a big one...didn’t bother avoiding it with the toe of my boot....and whoosh it shot off into the underbrush...which appeared, to me, to lie somewhat outside the standard behavioral patterns of the average stick....stopping and turning around, saw the copperhead, coiled, tail shaking, just by the side of the trail....waited a couple minutes to let the adorable little family catch up so I could warn them away from it before moving on again...
There...will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
Walt Whitman
...meditation...formal or otherwise...can, at its best...or worst, depending on one’s perspective...be like walking through an inferno...dropping defenses...letting flames lick what they will, demons scream their threats of annihilation...facing all that, then seeing what emerges on the other side...
Walt Whitman
...meditation...formal or otherwise...can, at its best...or worst, depending on one’s perspective...be like walking through an inferno...dropping defenses...letting flames lick what they will, demons scream their threats of annihilation...facing all that, then seeing what emerges on the other side...
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