Profound Thoughts on Yoga Blogging? (for April Fools...)

Those who know do not speak,
those who speak do not know.
Tao Te Ching 56

...and those who really really don't know
write blog posts about it...
Ancient and Revered Yoga Cynic Sutra 4.1

The Slow and Gradual Path to Minor Fame as a Yoga Blogger

...time to say farewell to October, month o' major amounts of yoga...including the Philly yoga festival, trip to Kripalu, and only three days in which I didn’t attend at least one yoga class...including this past Saturday, when I went to the Rally to Restore Sanity...which, I think, was all about walking a line between humor and seriousness, accepting others, toning down the rage, and trying to be mindful rather than reacting out of instinctual fear...and, as such, kinda like a really big yoga class...

...but not requiring a mat...which is good since I've had a tendency to leave my mat at yoga studios lately...like yesterday...and last Tuesday....and the week before that, left my shorts...leaving little doubt that my subconscious mind wants yet more yoga...

...which it’s getting...as I ended up marking the first day of the relatively low-key yoga month of November feeling both mellow and energized...and, first and foremost, concerned with going to get my mat first thing in the morning and, though planning on my usual kundalini class in the evening (which I did end up going to, as well...work? what's that?), staying for a most excellent vinyasa class...in which, for the very first time, I dropped back from wild thing...camatkarasana...to wheel...urdhva dhanurasana...on both sides...even if I couldn’t manage to reverse it...(note to non-yogi readers: this is, like, really really impressive...)...(not that impressively performing advanced transitions between asanas is the point, or anything)...

...(...seriously, like, one thing I've come to realize is that, while a vigorous yoga practice while badly out of shape isn't much fun....trust me, I know...sometimes being in shape is even more of a problem...)...(like, a couple different teachers have told me they can tell runners and cyclists...that's me...by their inability to touch the floor with their heels in downward facing dog...)...(...and then there was the time I was struggling to get into a bind and the teacher explained that the trouble came from my arms and legs being so muscular...and I thought hmmmm...she's saying I'm just too buff and studly for this pose....that's gotta be the best reason not to be able to do something I've ever heard.....I think I can live with it...)...

...anyway, along with the practice, this yoga cynic's fame continues...slowly, very slowly...to grow...even as weird, existential stuff is fed to the masses....people meet me and then send really impressed e-mails saying stuff like whoa, dude! I can’t believe you’re the guy who writes yoga for cynics!!!...seriously...there’s talk of a Yoga for Cynics workshop some time in the new year (or, at least, there's been a brief chat after yoga class a couple weeks ago about meeting for coffee at some unspecified time in the future to talk about the possibility of a Yoga Cynics workshop maybe some time next year)...(...then, that's how democracy got its start, too...)...a couple weeks ago, got my latest blog award from the legendary Laura...and Brooks wrote an article at Elephant Journal featuring not only a picture of myself with herself and the uber-famous Seane Corn, but wrote such lovely stuff about me, I’m almost too embarrassed to link to it...but will...check it out...

...so, now, I sit contemplating possible layouts for the Yoga for Cynics ashram...thinkin’ recycled building materials, floppy-eared dogs roaming the grounds, inspiring inscriptions from the Tao Te Ching, Leaves of Grass, and Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, and a totally laissez faire attitude toward sex...somewhere where the ocean meets the sea and dolphins frolic in the waves...and it occurs to me that I really oughtta be getting back to work...

A handful of nothin’

Thirty spokes converge on a single hub,
but it is in the space where there is nothing
that the usefulness of the cart lies.
Lao Tzu

So, there are these two prisoners—Dragline, kind of a leader, and a bully, and Luke, a perpetual wiseass locked up for cutting the heads off of parking meters. Quickly running afoul of Dragline, Luke gets challenged to a fight, and the two face off in a makeshift ring of their fellow prisoners. Luke is knocked down almost immediately, but quickly regains his feet, only to be knocked down again, and again, and again. Each time, he rises, painfully, only to be knocked down yet again. Over and over, as he's mercilessly battered and the other men plead with him to stay down, Luke hits the dirt only to lift himself back up. After a while, a distressed Dragline himself says “stay down. You're beat.” To which Luke, coated in blood and dirt, mutters “you're gonna have to kill me...” and gets up yet again. In time, frustrated and amazed, Dragline walks out of the ring, leaving a staggering Luke on his feet, worse for wear and tear but victorious, simply because, no matter how many times he was hit, or how hard, he refused to stay down.

Dragline (played by George Kennedy): Nothin'. A handful of nothin'....He beat you with nothin'. Just like today when he kept comin' back at me—with nothin'.
Luke (played by Paul Newman, January 26, 1925—September 26, 2008): Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Cool Hand Luke (1967)