Confessions of a Yoga Cynic?

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Carl Sagan

Loneliness is not a problem. Loneliness is nothing to be solved.
Pema Chodron

...was briefly...(perusing the interweb news in a grouchy moment)...thinkin’ it might be time to start a new, less-yogic type o’ blog...specifically, one just to piss off people who piss me off....which I guess would be kinda like Cynicism for Cynics........whereas, here, I try more to simply acknowledge the negativity...give it its due, credit its often quite solid reasoning, rather than trying to dismiss it with empty feel-good sentiments...(that’s called repression, people—it only looks like positive thinking)...then, y'know, try to grow something reasonably funny out of it...(um, yeah...that is kinda like a lotus flower, now thatcha mention it)...

...I understand the ahimsa of biking- rather than driving-drunk...possess the self-awareness necessary to realize that running on a treadmill, loudest music I can find blasting through headphones, eyes wavering between magazine and TV screen, pushing myself to burn as many calories as humanly possible within the hour while doing everything imaginable to distract myself from the experience, is the complete antithesis of yoga, even if I sometimes do it anyway...just as I get that all these time-wasters I put so much energy into are merely flimsy, ultimately ephemeral, and ineffective bulwarks against a deep loneliness that’s always still there no matter how many empty distractions I throw at it, and yet, I love me some good distractions...

...at the same time, gotta admit my cynicism towards yoga tends to manifest itself more in theory than on the mat....teachers and others have, in fact, left me dumbfounded, remarking on my apparently prodigious energy...dedication...even the positive attitude they see manifested in my practice...like, seriously....sure, I might disagree with some, or a lot, or even most, of what they say...(see that totally snarky empty feel-good sentiments remark, above)...but, then, they mostly know that and don’t mind, so why should I?...(hell, the only real yoga arguments I ever get in are on-line...generally with people I've never seen up close, sitting in chairs and typing on computers)...and while, true, I don’t revere my teachers in any classic, Eastern hierarchical kind of sense, and don’t plan on starting any time soon, I do like them an awful lot...

Walking With Waves

...thinking, wondering, imagining...lust, love, loneliness...building, dissolving, receding...this, this, only this...*




*...was walking by myself along this beach in south Jersey, from populated areas to a somewhat wilder one by the wildlife sanctuary—sand above the surf line roped off to protect nesting areas for piping plovers, people allowed to walk through but not stop, sunbathe, or swim, since the shy little birds need to run to and from the water, and won’t if anybody’s in the way...seems reasonable enough, so keep up a steady pace—seeing no plovers...(sorry, that’s not one in the picture)...though can’t deny looking probably more than watchful boyfriends like at women in bathing suits...but, more than that, another, less superficial and piggish aspect of mind caught on someone...far inland...wondering if she thinks about me...imagining, hoping...that old song...tip-toeing a narrow course between solitude and loneliness, dipping precipitously, despite such gorgeous tranquil surroundings, seemingly made for peaceful reflection, toward the latter...trying once again to be mindful...and all that...observe thoughts floating by instead of getting caught up in them...gain that awesome sense of wonder found in pondering the infinite in one’s own breath, sun on skin, cold salt water on the toes, even a bit of pain in one hip from walking so much in the sand...for a sudden moment feeling somewhat jarring comfort in the knowledge that, really, I know nothing else...the rest only thinking, imagining, longing...speculation on reality that’s always something else...and not even that ten minutes later...gettin’ all Krishnamurti-like n’ shit....and then, of course, thinking about writing about it, maybe quoting that famous William Blake line, something like “to see infinity in a grain of sand, eternity in an hour”...( having to work by memory even once the walk is through, since there’s no Collected Poems of William Blake nor consistent internet access at the beach house)...though, by the time I got back, reduced it all to the few simple formulae above...wondering if the wave thing’s too clichéd...as well as whether a cliché’s always such a bad thing....or whether anybody’s gonna get what I’m talking about at all....anyway, it works a whole lot better than all this...doncha think?

Sunday Morning

Sunday morning, and I’m falling...
The Velvet Underground

...slept something like twelve or thirteen hours...making up for nights of staying up ’til eight in the morning writing blog posts while looking after people in rehab...woke up Sunday morning to find the cupboard was bare...so made a pot o’ coffee...(yes, you hardcore ayurvedic people out there, I know...)...and called some friends in South Philly to see if they were up for brunch...biked ten miles to their house and that hipster Mexican place on Passyunk for tortillas and salsa, along with a couple pitchers of blackberry margaritas...(I’m guessing the serious ayurvedic types have quit reading by this point)...starting out at a sidewalk table before having to move inside because of a sudden downpour...which, surprisingly enough, left things considerably hotter and more humid for the ride home...though, as it turns out, a picnic table by the river can be a perfect place for an impromptu savasana on a sweltering early summer afternoon...

Language has created the word "loneliness" to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word "solitude" to express the glory of being alone.

Paul Tillich

...had a dream somewhere in there in which someone was trying to convince me it was time to get some more therapy...and, in the dream, at least, I agreed...

*thanks to Brandon for the coffee art*

Morning Haze

been thinking about
thinking about thinking, and
winter’s coming soon

...Massachusetts was a lot colder than Philly’s been so far this fall...saw some white on the mountaintops driving in, as well as remains of a snowman...or snowperson...snowbeing...on Kripalu’s back deck....still, had to get out and take a brisk hike down through that chilly air to the lake as soon as I arrived...causing already irritated early November sinus passages to just about scream...

...was surprised the next day to hear somebody mention his head had been hurting all morning...somehow, it never occurred to me that I might not be the only person in the entire place with a headache...

...y’know...when yer in a totally mellow spiritual holistic type setting like that, ya just tend to assume that everybody else is positively blanketed in wellness and good feeling...at least I do....then, I also tend to think I’m the only person in the yoga class thinking about lunch instead of fully inhabiting whatever asana experience we’re supposed to be having...the only person at the party feeling lonely and out of place...the only person on the sidewalk lost in worry instead of striding purposefully toward success success success...

...of course the irony is that I’m anything but alone in feeling that way...and the same goes for all of our headaches, our awkwardness, our doubts....and, certainly, if there's one thing we're never, ever truly alone in, it's our loneliness...

Kind of a Movie Review #1: The 400 Blows (1959)

I watch a lotta movies by myself...that’s the kinda guy I am, like Pee-Wee Herman said, a loner, a rebel...or, like Van Gogh said,

One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way.

Yes, I started out a mere couple of sentence fragments ago talking about watching movies by myself and here I am, already having drifted on to Vincent Van Gogh who, lonely as he was, never watched any movies...bear with me....what ties it all together is Truffaut’s 400 Blows, or, and the reasons I was glad I watched it alone, and therefore didn’t have to talk to anybody afterwards—no, not one of those socially awkward situations like where you see a movie about an alcoholic destroying himself with a friend who is himself an unacknowledged alcoholic who is also, in an unacknowledged way, destroying himself—though I’ve been there, too—no, it’s more a matter of...let me start at the beginning....

It's one of those movies I’d always heard about, one of those Euro-classics that are supposed to be so sublime, that, often as not, leave me cold...with some exceptions...the Bicycle Thief...or My Life to Live...or Un Chien Andalou...anyway, I started watching it and, while finding it pretty good, was also thinking...how the hell did this just pretty good movie get on all those critics’ top ten of all times lists?...which of course brought me into the usual orgy of egotism and self-loathing as the movie kept playing and I debated internally whether they were all wrong or I was...and then...that teardrop...gotta admit that was moving...though it still didn't seem to...oh, wait a second...the ending...that one overpowering final shot....

I’m not gonna say how it ended. Or what that shot was. You'll have to see it yourself. That's why I'm writing this: so you'll see it yourself. But I am gonna say it hit me deeper than I really expected any movie to at this point in my life...brought me into some of the loneliest, most wounded, most helpless places, with everything that’s been lost and everything that never was...kinda like that Neil Young song says...

in my mind I still need a place to go...and yet...chains are locked and tied across the door.....

I don’t know if it had that effect on any of those film critics...if they did I really doubt they’d admit it...hell, critical theory was invented so nobody’d have to admit to feelings like that...but I had work I need to do before I went to bed...and there was just no way...though there’d been a rash of muggings in my neighborhood including gun shots, I had to go for a late night walk...wasn't fully recovered for days, though I certainly can’t say it’ll have that effect on anybody else, either. But, then, that’s kinda the point...that profound sense of isolation...which, paradoxically, creates a strange connection...between Francois Truffaut, Vincent Van Gogh, Neil Young and me...and, yeah, I guess those film critics, too....

The enchanting, and sometimes terrifying, thing is that the world can be so many different things to so many different souls. That it can be, and is, all these things at one and the same time.
Henry Miller