Yes, This Blog Still Exists...

A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it.
Don DeLillo

...some time ago decided I was gonna focus on practicing yoga and not think about it so much...read about it less...certainly stop arguing about it...and, for the most part, that's been a good thing...

...though, as a result, have also been writing about it a lot less....as readers may've noticed...but, then, I'm writing about other things less, too, as I try to work on a novel about dysfunctional superheroes...which I haven't been doing much in recent weeks, either...okay, let's fact it, I been slacking...

...anyway, more recently been practicing yoga a lot less, too, due to the injured arm...iced as I type...(was telling a friend about it, said it was getting better for a while, but then the recovery seemed to plateau....she asked if I was icing it...I said I was until it started feeling better....took me a couple minutes to make the connection between those two answers)...

...nonetheless, went on a yoga retreat with my friends and teachers John and Diana at a hilltop villa in the Umbria region of Italy...

...yes, that's actually the place...ancient stone buildings with modern infinity pool, hot tub, and yoga studio....before and after which, spent time in the magical city of Florence...

 



...as well as Barcelona (see also the lovely Antonio Gaudi doorway, at the top of the post),





and Madrid...



...after so much quality time with Miro, Picasso, Bosch, Botticelli, and ancient, storied rivers of red wine, wasn't easy to settle back into the autumn at home...been doing a lots of meditation and mindfulness mini-retreats, and, a few weekends ago, a Yin Yoga teacher training with the amazing Corina Benner in an area of South Philly not long ago infamous as the city's mafia battleground, now one of it major hipster neighborhoods...impermanence, y'know...

I heard the old, old men say,
'Everything alters,
And one by one we drop away.'
They had hands like claws, and their knees
Were twisted like the old thorn-trees
By the waters.
'All that's beautiful drifts away
Like the waters.'
William Butler Yeats, The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water

...but, anyway, told some fellow students about my semi-legendary blog...figured it might be a good time to post something...anything...for whatever it might be worth...

I had a discussion with a great master in Japan... and we were talking about the various people who are working to translate the Zen books into English, and he said, "That's a waste of time. If you really understand Zen... you can use any book. You could use the Bible. You could use Alice in Wonderland. You could use the dictionary, because... the sound of the rain needs no translation.

Alan Watts

This Is Not Yoga

The line between exploring and experimenting and simple and shameless self-indulgence can be difficult to see...but easy to ignore.
Ancient and Revered Yoga Cynic Sutra 111:895

...if there's one thing yoga bloggers like to talk about even more than yoga, it's...y'know...not yoga...as in [outraged yet self-consciously calm and mindful tone] this commercialized/sexualized/nothin'-but-asana/glorified-gymnastics/new-agey/unhealthy-body-image-based/generally westernized/low-grade-celebrity-infested/sexist/egocentric/generally-corrupted-from-its-pure-roots-in-pure-uncorrupted-and-always-totally-spiritual-magical-mystical-Indyaaaa-where-they've-certainly-never-been-patriarchal-or-had-a-brutal-caste-system-or-oppressed-religious-minorities-or-had-abusive-gurus-or-anything-else-that-I-know-of-but-if-they-did-I'll-blame-it-on-western-influence/let's-face-it-just-not-as-spiritual-as-I-am crap IS NOT YOGA...

...but that's not what I'm talking about here....like I always say, in order to be disillusioned about yoga...or anything else, for that matter...ya gotta be illusioned in the first place...so that, most likely, the sooner that illusion gets dissed, the better...

...no, I’m here to talk about non-yoga in its purest form...by which I mean not doing that asana practice with all those vinyasas and sun salutations and twists and bends and stuff that, for better for worse, we have come to define as yoga AT ALL...which, thanks to some badly strained muscle fibers in my upper left arm, is what I've been practicing lately....and this non-yoga, let me tell you, really, really sucks...

 

...I mean, really, if you are the kind of insane freak who feels the need for a serious hardcore daily yoga practice, and yet sometimes wonder, cynic that you are, if it’s really worth all the time, money, and effort, there’s simply no way to find a truer, deeper appreciation for the practice than to fuck up some part of your anatomy so that you have to take a thoroughly unplanned extended break...

...one thing that’s not said enough, except on yoga blogs, where it’s continually brought up like yet another revelation that nobody’s ever thought of before, is that you can get hurt practicing yoga....but, of course, it’s not yoga’s fault...and that’s true...in my case, as in most such, the problem is not practicing mindfully...continuing to push oneself in the practice even though the body is sending clear warning signs, until those warning signs get pronounced enough that they can no longer be ignored...

 
...(of course it should be noted that some yoga injuries are at least partially the fault of unskilled or unmindful teachers...but that's not my problem...my teachers are awesome...and I can hardly wait to practice with them again)...

...and so I ice my arm, bike, meditate every day, and generally work on being more mindful, of my health and other things...trying to use this time away from the practice as a necessary step back to heal and assess...which is a good thing...

...but that doesn’t mean I have to like it...

Not in any danger of realizing full enlightenment any time soon...

...such a drag to want something sometimes, one thing leads to another I know, sang Chrissie Hynde...distilling the first two noble truths of the Buddha, along with the law of causation, into one bouncy rock n' roll nugget....suffering caused by self-centered desire spiraling into only more desire and, hence, more suffering....I know all this shit, really...even if it doesn't seem to be doing me much good, at the moment...

...I'm as much a chemical hybrid as any GMO...hate to see my weight on the doctor's scale, and wouldn't want it anywhere near scales of justice...any tribe I'd be a member of is quite certainly lost, and yet my neuroses have their own zip codes and Wikipedia entries...so much water, but no place to piss...

...had a dream I was back in high school, and also back to teaching college...but refusing to leave the breakfast table, seeing no point in trying to learn or teach anything....even more miserable upon actually waking....by early afternoon decided to blow off both yoga class and the meditation sangha, do anything that absolutely had to be done, then get in the car, drive across the Walt Whitman Bridge...Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms, Strong and content I travel the open road...to the Jersey side, not stopping 'til the ocean...Surf City...[cue Beach Boys, Springsteen, Miley Cyrus, whatever the hell you like...]...just to get some sand between the toes...

...there's a lot to be said for some sand between the toes...

Haiku?

 

 



Notes From a Cold Spring...or, I Have Heard What the Talkers Were Talking: Silent Retreat, Yoga Blog Version

If we become too serious we will lose our way.
Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

...John Lennon sang I don’t believe in yoga, and, as I believe I’ve said before, I don’t believe in it, either...I practice it...make an inquiry into it...no beliefs involved...

...and I’ve been doing a lot of that, of late...really...you can ask the local Philly yoga teachers....even if my half moon continues to suck...

...as well as returning to a daily meditation practice....

...but I don’t have much to write about it...so haven’t been...in case anybody's noticed...

...and am increasingly irritated by what other people write...so haven’t been reading much...at least, not about yoga...and don’t really get the impression I’ve been missing much...though people sure do keep writing...

I have heard what the talkers were talking...

Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

...with all the incessant pontificating, marketing, and arguing going on, been thinking it might be a good idea if all the writers and talkers...from revered gurus to marketers of yoga pants to snarky yoga bloggers...continued to practice...if practice they do...and, really, it's fine if they don't...but tried checking the impulse to jabber on and argue about it...

...a lengthy collective silent retreat...

...starting with me...

...just an idea...

...namasmotherfuckin'te, folks...

More Dispatches from the Magic Mountain

...seems like it happens again and again with the meditation thing...every time I think I’m getting somewhere...or, y’know getting nowhere since there’s nowhere you need to go...opening things up, going DEEP, it goes haywire...seems all I can do is fidget...can’t get past the minor discomforts of the surface...as there’s some kind of hyper-vigilant sub-conscious life-guard blowing his whistle, yelling “come back in, there’s rocks out there, there’s sharks, go too deep and you could drown”...
 

...Jack Kornfield compares training the mind to training a puppy, but the mind’s a lot harder to train, and makes much bigger messes...

...two or three yoga classes a day, in between lengthy program sessions of intense meditation and discussion of compassion and mindfulness...sympathetic joy and trauma...loneliness and equanimity...kale and tempeh...peace and trauma...empathy and rage...

Show me that I’m everywhere and get me home for tea...

George Harrison
 

...didn’t even know it was officially contemplative week at Kripalu...so not only are we generally expected to be quiet within our group...with a suggestion to be totally silent for the week...but the dining hall is silent for all meals, and hallways are mostly filled with whispers...while I, of course, am committing what’s gotta be pretty much the ultimate in apostasy for a meditation retreat...multi-tasking...here both for the retreat and to reconnect with friends from the teacher training two years ago...so, y’know, I couldn’t, like, not talk to them....today, we were supposed to be practicing mindful eating at lunch, but I wanted to meet up with my friend for the noon vigorous vinyasa class, which left me really hungry and with less than fifteen minutes to eat...so I wolfed down a tray-full of stuff with great abandon, just mindful enough to have some consciousness of the fuller experience I was missing...

Late, by myself, in the boat of myself,
no light and no land anywhere,
cloud cover thick. I try to stay
just above the surface, yet I’m already under
and living within the ocean.
Rumi (Coleman Barks, trans.)

...Wednesday morning...not feeling my best...(though, admittedly, it’s kinda like that bumper sticker about the worst day fishing vs. the best day at work)...woken by the alarm...6:15...best not to remind myself I don’t actually have to go to yoga class...gentle yoga...not gentle enough for the stiff, sleepy curmudgeon...then breakfast...pretty good, but disappointing after the French toast yesterday...then on to the first session...incessant sitting makes my knees hurt more every day...and I’m even sleepier than I was in yoga class...and who the hell cares what Thomas Merton said?....then walking meditation...I hate walking meditation and he’s telling us to go outside where it’s snowing, and I didn’t even bring shoes...they’re back in the room with my jacket and hat...at least it’s better than more sitting...go to the room, then outside...walk mindfully, matching footsteps to the in-breath and out-breath...across the grass and down the hill...to the spontaneous realization that everything I see, everything that exists, is infinitely, unspeakably beautiful....notice after a while that everybody else has gone back inside...guess I missed the bell, again...make my way back up the hill...

...cloud hidden, whereabouts unknown...

Van Morrison, Alan Watts Blues

...Friday morning, now...major snow storm blowing in...no way I’m driving home in that...guess I’m trapped at Kripalu ’til it’s over...nothin’ to do but sign up for a weekend vinyasa workshop...stay ’til Sunday...as misfortunes go, it’s not bad...

Return to Hogwarts

...January hit like a giant hunk of ice in the forehead...days of severe lassitude...not much work but that little bit took all day...endlessly seeking minor forms of stimulation, trying and often failing to avoid the ones that make things worse in the long run...

...this morning, dragged myself out early through a brushing of snow, drove five hours north to Kripalu, for the first time since the yoga teacher training two years ago...where I'm gonna spend the week in a meditation retreat with Jack Kornfield...Meditation for Freedom and Compassion Everywhere...(should definitely work better than meditating to right-wing talk radio to teach myself to be less compassionate...in line with my reverse-Boddhisattva vow not to attain full enlightenment until all sentient beings in the universe are as miserable as I am)...(just kidding)...

...hugged some old friends, mindfully chowed down the healthiest lunch I've had in a long time, took a walk in the woods, went to yoga class, had the healthiest dinner I've had in a long time, went to the first meditation retreat session...where they urged me to turn off the electronic devices and be silent for the week...oops...felt like I had a minor yet satisfying psychedelic experience, took a walk down to the beach in the dark to look at the stars while listening to Miles Davis In a Silent Way on the purple ipod...oops, again...maybe gotta wean myself a bit...

...now, it's almost 11:00 and I got yoga class to go to at 6:15 in the morning...oh yeah...

Seasonal Affective Disorder

...bleah.........................

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You Better Do As You Are Told, You Better Listen To The Radio

So you had better do as you are told.

You better listen to the radio...

Elvis Costello

 

...so here's the deal...I think I got into writing because I've never been so good at spoken communication...have a tendency to stumble and say things that are, y'know, impolitic....so, thanks to my growing fame as a yoga blogger, I've been asked to go on the radio...

 

You turn me on, I'm a radio...

Joni Mitchell

 

...seriously...from 1-2:30 Pacific Time...that's 4-5:30 for us more urbane, sophisticated, non-surgically-enhanced East Coasters...I think...the accidental yogist will be interviewing yoga bloggers...yes, yoga bloggers...who are gonna tell the people all the things their mama shoulda...or something...at Kill Radio...which operates out of L.A., but, thanks to the wonder of the interwebs, you can listen to it anywhere by hitting on this handy-dandy link....apparently you can even download it later as an mp3 and listen to it at your leisure, in your car, while having sex, or even make it part of your yoga class playlist, right in between Snatam Kaur and Rage Against the Machine....anyway, the Yoga for Cynics portion of the show should start around 2:00/5:00, preceded by the likes of It's All Yoga, Baby and Daily Downward Dog....I'm gonna set a sincere intention not to use any foul language...check it out...