It's Always Something...

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Mary Oliver

It's been rough and rocky travelin', but I'm finally standin' upright on the ground.

After takin' several readings, I'm surprised to find my mind`s still fairly sound...
Willie Nelson

...the bike had been feeling a little strange...I figured something must be loose, but couldn't tell exactly what it was, so thought I’d take it to the bike shop the next day....then, suddenly, while crossing Broad Street, everything kinda lurched...I stopped and saw the frame looked like it had been run over by a truck...broken nearly in half...

...a week and a half later, was riding a different bike...borrowed from a kind and generous friend...through the park, and my wallet fell out of my pocket...though I didn't realize that 'til a couple miles later...turned around to ride up and down that stretch searching under every leaf, but couldn't find it anywhere...

...as if that wasn't enough, the very next day, a car sideswiped me from behind as I rode along the Spruce Street bike lane...

...the frame, as it turned out, was covered by a manufacturer’s warranty...and, since the company didn’t have that model, or an equivalent one, in stock...and, though I rode that bike hard for two years...(seriously...I’m the kinda person bikes’ parents warn them about)...the always helpful guy who runs my local bike shop got them to send me a brand new one...

...and, after riding up and down that two mile stretch of dirt road three or four times, my cell phone rang...I thought please be an unfamiliar number...and it was...turned out the caller was biking along and saw cash all over the ground...picking everything up, he tried to give it to a cop nearby, who said he’d have to put it into evidence and most likely it’d never be seen again...so, the guy went home and googled me for my number...even returned my change...

...the next day, I was pissed off but unhurt picking myself up from the sidewalk...but the woman in the car was crying, saying I’m so sorry over and over to the point that I ended up consoling her....I got a couple scratches, she’s probably gonna need therapy...(though, considering she hit a cyclist in a bike lane, she can be thankful no cops or personal injury lawyers got involved)...

It’s always something—if it’s not one thing, it’s another...
Roseanne Roseannadanna

You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.

attributed to Swami Satchidinanda

...in a blog with yoga in the title, this is where you might expect words like karma, grace, or blessings...and wouldn’cha know it, there they are....but I believe in the great mystery of the universe in a very literal sense...i.e. have no idea what’s going on, and try not to pretend otherwise...(though, in the end, suspect it's best to try to be honest and kind)...

...hope you’re doin’ okay, too...

Doors Going Through Doors

...we never really know what’s on the other side of a door...

...we tell ourselves we do...armed with speculations, memories, plans, wishes, and peeking through keyholes...but, even if a door’s open, or transparent, we see only what’s visible within a thin frame...the tiniest sub-section of an ineffable everything...not to mention that ladies can turn out to be tigers, and tigers, ladies...that the simplest decisions turn out, almost invariably, to be the most complicated...

...trust in beliefs, gods, attitudes...come up with what seem to be a likely few out of infinite contingencies...endless facets of the great unknown invariably to be found on that infinitely mysterious other side.....though, let’s face it, that's true of this side, as well...

...so that, sometimes, there’s simply nothing to do but open ourselves and go on through...

Hello, Cleveland?

...I’m thinking about reading some blog stuff at this open mike at a local coffee shop this Saturday*...............................you heard it right...that's:

*****YOGA FOR CYNICS—ABSOLUTELY LIVE!!!!*****

...which means, yes, the cozy anonymity and serene dignity of the yogi blogger’s staid, quiet life, typing away and silently meditating like an aesthetically sensitive urban anchorite, a mystic radical subsisting on prana, stale bread, and the sad solemn songs of the heart in his dusty, book-lined, cheap incense-scented garret...lost, forsaken, repudiated for the tantalizing allure of footlights...the empty glare and ever elusive satiety of fame and glory...

...and who knows where things could go from there...

...screaming fans, endorsement deals, and giant bowls of M&M's...(minus the brown ones)...promoters, bodyguards, and ostentatious sunglasses worn indoors...a life of outrageous, excess, tired tour buses, trashed hotel rooms, jaded groupies, and absurd quantities of booze and dangerous drugs...the hopelessly compromised artist's desperation in trying, at first, to hold on to lofty ideals and integrity in a crazed whirlwind of contracts, parties, frenzied dissipation, and increasingly expensive habits...squandered talents, supermodels, private jets, and paranoia...teenage angst has paid off well, now I’m bored and old...fulfilling an endless round of contractual obligations, only now and then wistfully remembering the days when it meant something more than than a vain struggle to maintain a decadent lifestyle worthy of a Viking chieftain or Borgia pope...

...sounds cool...in a way.................maybe I’ll skip it...



* the High Point at Allen’s Lane, West Mt. Airy, State of Caffeinated Samadhi, USA, sometime between 2:00 and 4:00 PM

That last post was pretty good, I think...

...it's been well over a week, with 103 degree temperatures, pouring rain, and multiple itchy summertime skin rashes since that last Yoga for Cynics post...but, it was pretty good, I think...and still pretty nicely sums up what's happening on my end....so, for now, it works...




...nonetheless, if you want, check out this and this at Elephant Journal...as well as Lindsay's blog, where I recently got an award...namaste until I think of something more to say...