Yoga and Cigarettes

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.
Carl Rogers

...there’s a yoga teacher who comes to the rehab one morning a week...8:15...I’ve never met her...other mornings, a few of the women practice on their own, in an outbuilding...I see them heading out with yoga mats and packs of smokes...time for yoga and cigarettes? I ask...they smile, say we have coffee, too...

...been trying for a while to get my mom to do yoga...it’s kinda turned into a routine...

mom: god, am I stiff...
me: yoga could help with that...
mom: grumble grumble grumble...

...stress that I’m not even talking about going to a class...with somebody at the front of the room telling everybody what to do...she’s 83 and can afford private sessions...pointed out that I know a buncha really great yoga teachers who could sit down with her, ask what she needs help with, and make suggestions...grumble grumble grumble...

...then, being difficult kinda runs in the family...and, truth be told, there are lots of reasons I practice yoga, but because other people think I should ain’t one of ‘em...

...Tara Brach talks about something called the trance of unworthiness...seeing everything through a lens of something’s wrong with me....at one point in Radical Acceptance, there’s a list of thirty or so questions...do I think I’m not _______ enough? Do I judge myself for _______? Do I think I’m too _____?...that kinda stuff.. and I winced while answering yes to pretty much everything but do I think I’m too skinny?...fortunately, there wasn’t one that said do I think I’m a complete idiot for trying to remove ice from the freezer with a knife?...that’d hit too close to home...a home that doesn’t currently have a functioning refrigerator...

We can’t honestly accept an experience unless we see clearly what we are accepting.
Tara Brach

...what it comes down to, I think, isn’t that we can’t or shouldn’t try to change anything...the future is unknown...and, to some extent, ours to shape...but it’s awfully hard to do that if we can’t look clearly, calmly, and compassionately at what's happening in the present...whether self loathing and damaged appliances, loved ones not putting as much effort into raging against the dying of the light as we’d like, or yoga with cigarettes...

Springtime Ebbs and Flows...

April is the cruelest month...
T. S. Eliot

...or maybe it’s just me...
Ancient and Revered Yoga Cynic Sutra 126:97

...when spring first hit...felt an awful lot like summer...went out and overexerted myself, ending up exhausted, sore, and sunburned...banged up my knees after catching a bike wheel in an old trolley track that still exists, far as I can tell, for the sole purpose of catching bike wheels...

...more lately it’s been wetter and colder, if greener...been feeling uninspired...not writing much...apart from being virtually eco-conscious by revising, refurbishing and reincarnating old Yoga for Cynics posts*...

...do I understand your question man, is it hopeless and forlorn?
Bob Dylan (in as crappy a mood, apparently, as T. S. Eliot)

...then, perhaps it’s really all a matter of ebb & flow—old-school well-worn zen-like metaphor in progress—and the only trick is to realize it...meaning not just in the sense of hey, maybe it’s all just a matter of ebb & flow—think I’ll write something about that on my blog...but to really realize it...take it in...accept it...stop expecting the world to stand still long enough to make sense...

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.
Andre Gide

...but, maybe the not being able to believe in that...the suspecting it’s all bullshit...is simply part of that ebb...faith and doubt not pulling in a tug-o-war, but operating more smoothly in a kind of dialectic tide...unceasing movement avoiding the stagnation of self righteous surety, fanaticism and fundamentalism, as well as the dry sand of fatalism and despair...nothing definite...except that wherever ya end up, ya won’t be there for long...


*...like this one...about the haiku Allen Ginsberg wrote for me...which I then spilled something on...posted earlier today...

Recycled Blogging for Earth Day

...the staff here was gonna come up with some brand new material for Earth Day...before thinking about just how just many blog posts are wastefully manufactured every day, only to end up in virtual landfills...

...so, instead, decided to root through the blue crate on the curb in front of the Yoga for Cynics corporate offices and, using approximately 90% post-consumer recycled blog material, craft an Earth Day piece for Elephant Journal...which has gotta be worth at least a couple carbon credits...so check it out...and, y'know, try not to mess up the earth too much...

I Twitter, Therefore I Am?

We don't exist...
The Meat Puppets

...buncha people asked me to add them on twitter...so I did...or at least tried to...kept typing names in and then hitting follow...until twitter told me one of them didn’t exist...so I double-checked...tried different spellings...maybe a dash- instead of an underscore_...but, nope, the person still didn’t exist...according to twitter, at least...so then tried typing in the next person...turned out she didn’t exist either...and neither did the next....none were even close enough to existing for twitter to offer any suggestions...

...thinkin’ something might be screwy, tried to find myself...or, at least, my blogger/twitter self...YogaforCynics, in case anybody’s interested...turned out I didn’t exist, either...

...so emailed the people who’d asked me to add them...told them twitter told me they don’t exist...and that, apparently, I don't exist, either...

...one responded, telling me it was a little early in the day for an existential crisis...though it seemed more a technological crisis than an existential one....then, according to a lotta science writers these days...when they feel like getting philosophical...the line between the two gets finer everyday...

...anyway, the problem seems to have fixed itself...we all do, apparently, exist...or exist again...at least according to twitter...


ॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐ


...it’s never too early in the morning for an existential crisis...
Ancient and Revered Yoga Cynic Sutra 101:274


ॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐॐ


* ...put another post up at Elephant Journal...featuring Thich Nhat Hanh, Miles Davis, and mindfulness...check it out, and support Elephant if ya can...*

Pieces of Hate (the Other People, Part Two)

[note: The Other People, part one...a new, updated, improved edition, actually...kinda like a director’s cut...is at Elephant Journal...and reading this one without also reading that would be, y’know, like watching the Empire Strikes Back when ya haven’t seen Star Wars...or something...]


...self-hatred has been kind of an issue...made particularly difficult by the fact that, if you want outside support for self-hatred...that classic what other people think or would think if they knew kinda evidence for whatever might appear to be wrong with you...it’s never really hard to find...

...won’t you recognize us? We’re everything you hate...
Lou Reed

...some women hate men...and there are a whole lotta men who hate women...(have inscribed it into the belief systems of most cultures, no less)...then, whatever your gender, culture, race, nationality, religion and political views or lack thereof, there are, when ya get right down to it, a whole buncha people in the world who hate you for it...for what you have or don’t have...for what you believe or don’t believe...think or don’t think...who you love or don’t love...whatever you do or don’t do...for fitting certain definitions of ugly...though fitting too neatly into certain categories of beauty might make them hate you even more...

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
William James

...practicing yoga, it’s said, can make a person less hateful, more at peace with the world...but it doesn’t always work out that way...and certainly doesn’t stop some people from hating yogis for being self-righteous, pretentious, flaky, empty-headed, wishy-washy, uptight, stupid, new-agey, out there, nuts, irritating, shallow followers of popular trends, mindless guru-worshippers, or frickin’ dirty hippies...spiritual tourists, arrogant unthinking western imperialist appropriators and colonizers of indigenous traditions, freaks, religious fanatics, granola nazis, demonic pagans, or godless heathens...creepy horny dudes who go to yoga classes to pick up women*, yoga faggots**, people who’ve obviously done way too much acid*** and/or are headed straight for eternal damnation...

...they hated me, they will hate you...
Sinead O'Connor

...some people will hate you for hating...or for not hating...or for hating the wrong people...or, no doubt, for hating the right people, but in the wrong way...some people hate themselves so much it's nearly impossible not to hate everybody they see...and, even more, to hate those they don't see....perhaps it says something about human beings’ boundless creative capacity that we can come up with so many reasons to hate other people...and maybe even more to hate ourselves...(if only because we have so much inside information to work with)...(though, in the end, I suspect it’s all the same thing)...

...(not to say it isn't sometimes a good thing to listen to criticism, or to critically assess oneself)...(now and then, if somebody thinks you’re an asshole, it could be because you’ve provided a really good reason)...

...(but...if you’re waiting for the whole world to think you’re okay to feel okay about yourself, you probably shouldn’t hold your breath)...



* the author has been suspected of this...

** and called this...

*** no comment...

Inversions, Foundations, and a Slight Chance of Metaphor

Upside down, boy ya turn me...

Diana Ross

Foundation, foundation, foundation...

Justicia Friese DeClue

...went to this inversion workshop last weekend...two and a half hours of going upside down...headstands, forearm stands, handstands...what might be described as simultaneously the funnest yet most frightening part of the yoga asana thing....almost smell a metaphor there...

...our fearless teacher summed things up with an altered version of a real-estate motto: foundation, foundation, foundation....the idea being...I think...that, if you’re grounded, rooted, operating from a place of surety and strength, you’re basically there...whereas, if you're starting from a blob* of nervous, indecisive internal jello, you’re probably gonna struggle endlessly, flounder about, crash land backwards on a hardwood floor...

...could be a metaphor there, as well...but I'm just not sure...



* just before posting, noticed I'd accidentally written blog instead of blob...but it wasn't a Freudian slip...really...I'm almost positive...

Who the Hell You Callin' Spiritual?!

...been trying to be more ayurvedic...or something...in my sleep habits...more Ben Franklin, at least...early to bed, early to rise...all that...though a staffing crisis at the rehab where I tutor reading and writing on Tuesday nights led to their asking if I’d have any interest in taking some late night RA shifts...in charge, for the most part, of people who are asleep...pushing the envelope of even the most caffeinated yogi by brewing a pot of coffee at 11:00 PM...then spending the night reading...savoring the irony of listening to Amy Winehouse in such a setting...and writing this...

...read a post at Laura’s blog about awareness...left a comment to the effect that it probably said something about my (lack of) awareness that I’d just then realized the blog in question was sub-titled Creativity Is a Spiritual Practice when all this time I’d been reading it as Creativity As a Spiritual Practice....as it turned out, Laura recently changed the name...so, for noticing it first, she awarded me the beautiful tree-doing-vrkasana (tree pose) photo above, writing, all-too-kindly...strong of heart and mind, grounded, with deep spiritual awareness (whether you like to admit that or not). You remind me of this tree...

...thing is I’m not at all sure what spiritual means...though pretty confident I don’t want anything to do with the more popular definitions...neither that old time religion nor the new age....don’t get me started...

When one loses the deep intimate relationship with nature then temples, mosques and churches become important.
J. Krishnamurti

Remember, the only time Christ ever got angry was when he went to church.
Father Thomas Doyle

...recently, though, used the word once or twice when no other seemed to fit...not, actually, to describe my near-fanatical yoga practice...nor meditation...nor sitting watching the sun set, legs hanging down over the north rim of the Grand Canyon, listening to Coltrane’s Love Supreme through headphones....not to say those aren’t all really good...

...actually, tongue loosened by a half pitcher of margaritas, was talking about some of the work I’ve been doing...teaching creative writing to homeless men...not long ago, college English for maximum security prisoners, and working with them to start a sadly-now-defunct on-line magazine...as well as tutoring women in recovery, most of whom have been in prison, too...labeled incest survivors, crack whores and unfit mothers...dispossessed...despised...

....basically, if you think about the worst case scenario for your life...the kind of shit that scares you so much you won’t be able to sleep or do much else if you think about it too much...people and things you count on tumbling like dominoes...comfort, security, any sense of worth or belonging turning to a handful of dust along with faith and hope and any attempt at maintaining a positive attitude...leaving a misery and emptiness you’d rather die a thousand times than have to face....they’ve already been there...and now are working on finding a way back....and generally speaking, I’d rather hang with people like that than some officially holy type who talks humility while eating off a golden platter...

...sure, to work with these folks involves empathy...compassion...all that lovely yogic shit...but it also helps to have a dark sense of humor...see the sublime cosmic absurdity in all of it...and to see no conflict between the two...

*cross posted at Elephant Journal*

Homeless Words

...somebody left a comment here a while ago complaining about my use of ellipses instead of standard punctuation...to which I say..........................wha?......................................

...recently started teaching creative writing at a homeless shelter...(a couple blocks from the mural above)...a gig which is turning out to be loaded with challenges...like getting people to show up...and to write once they’re there...though, as with addicts and prisoners I’ve worked with* before, the biggest issue seems not so much an unwillingness to use the written word to express themselves as a deep-seated sense that they can’t...because they lack sufficient vocabulary, can’t spell, don’t know the rules...or aren’t good at following the rules they do know...

...most of us, in learning to read and write, are presented, right from the start, with rules and lists of words...language in the abstract...with little smiley faces for following the rules correctly and red marks for not following the rules correctly...long before we have so much as a chance to think about writing love letters or protest songs...

...rules and vocabulary come to be seen as valuable in themselves...inherently more important than whatever they might be used to express...locked gates guarded by language fundamentalists....sometimes built intentionally, to exclude and look down on the masses who lack our particular language skills...but, as often, built around ourselves...college students so proud they’ve mastered standard essay forms, like lions or eagles unable to move beyond their gilded cages...

...though these rules, like the vast lexicon of the English language...(lacking the musicality of Spanish or Italian, precision and logic of German or Latin, or inherent poetry of Chinese or Arabic, an unruly lingo which contains more words than any other)...should exist only to help us express ourselves more effectively...to serve as tools...open doorways to creation and possibility...

...to put ideas down so we can look at them, play with them...make them travel far beyond where we physically are...

...Yoga for Cynics is on the mike!...hello, Cleveland!...is Brooklyn in the house?...Chicago in the house?...Mumbai in the house?...

...ahem...even live on beyond us...though that’s exactly when they start getting dangerous...

...Paul of Tarsus wrote the letter killeth...and a number of letters he wrote...like those written by just about every other major religious and spiritual leader... have been be implicated in killething and oppressething quite a few people...precisely because the words themselves came to be carved in stone...and those stones used to build walls**...

...then, stones can also be thrown at walls...and would you really want all your words to be harmless and impotent?...Dylan Thomas...using a poetic form with rules like you wouldn’t believe...said...

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

...and, really, what I’d most like to get across to the guys at the homeless shelter is this...make your words catch fire and glow across the night sky and nobody’s gonna care if they’re spelled correctly***...


* which sounds a lot better than "with whom I’ve worked"...believe me...I tried both...

** this and other parts of the post partially inspired by Brenda’s blog...

*** Ancient and Revered Yoga Cynic Sutra 323:11

Fools Rush In (Semi-Obligatory April Fool's Day Post 2010)

He’s as blind as he can be, just sees what he wants to see...
John Lennon

‘Tis the times’ plague, when madmen lead the blind...
William Shakespeare

...this old king had three daughters....two of them...one with a name like a venereal disease, the other a dead president...filled his eager ears with empty flattery...stroked his vanity with ridiculous lies...fed his ego with pretty crap...which, as it turned out, was exactly what he wanted to hear...so he split his kingdom between them...

...the other daughter...named, apparently, after a character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer...told him the truth...unvarnished...a bit harsh, perhaps...and got nothing...was banished...disowned...

...and they don’t call this stuff tragedy for nothin’....suffice to say the story turns out very VERY badly for everybody involved...particularly that foolish old king...

...but isn’t he a bit like you and me?