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...

Venomous Spiders, Handstands, Elephants, and Trying Yet Failing to Move With the Peculiar Grace of a Three-Legged Dog

...you’re the blessed, we’re the spiders from mars...
David Bowie

...bourgeois as this might sound, Yoga for Cynics will soon have a second home...as I’ve been asked to write for Elephant Journal...based in Boulder, Colorado...home to Tibetan Buddhists, organic vegan mountain oysters, and ludicrously expensive real estate inhabited by people who wear socks with sandals...(this blog is, as always, best read barefoot)...

...not sure yet how what ends up there’s gonna differ from what’s here...maybe written under my full name...possibly with proper sentences, without ellipses...perhaps a bit less self-indulgent...meaning you’ll still have to come here to find out why I spent all day Monday in bathrobe, fuzzy pajama-type pants, and the ratty t-shirt I’d had on since Saturday’s eleven o’clock yoga class...(featuring my first American handstand)...(as opposed to those laid-back Costa Rican yoga retreat handstands anybody can do)...after which, as rain continued to fall steadily for the second day in a row, decided there was no more optimal use for the day than sitting around drinking coffee...which I did....yeah, I know, there’s much disagreement about coffee amongst the yoga crowd...pure-living non-(as opposed to anti-, since they’re too positive to be against anything)caffeine types on the one hand, irredeemable bean junkies with their steaming mugs filled to the brim with tasty rationalizations on the other....but I’ve got a far more potent and dangerous issue to discuss...we’re talkin’ spiders, people...

...because, that evening, started feeling pain and noticed swelling in my upper foot/lower ankle...which I promptly blamed on yoga...though couldn’t actually think of exactly how, in this instance, yoga could’ve done it...(alright...can feel the eyes rolling from here....change that to how I could’ve done it by bringing a stupidly competitive attitude to yoga and not listening to my body...are ya happy now?)...or why it took all day for the damage to kick in....

...then, as the weekend wore on, pain and swelling steadily increased...compromising my ability to walk...leaving me staggering, limping, hopping, crawling...trying yet failing to move with the peculiar grace of a three legged dog...as well as feeling strange chills...fever...and noticing a little red mark right in the belly of the swollen area...dismissed, at first, as simply one of countless little red marks left over from the Nicoya Peninsula...but, then, remembered this nasty little spider hanging right by my comfortable-yet-stylish IKEA chair earlier in the day...which, out of a deep commitment to ahimsa...or extreme laziness...I left alone...and the realization dawned that this thoroughly non-ahimsa-practicing spider had, in fact, bitten me*...

...now, Tuesday afternoon, I’m on the mend...even changed out of that ratty t-shirt...went to the doctor...who prescribed antibiotics...without bringing up the word amputate even once...though still probably a few days away from doing any more handstands....anyone so inclined is more than welcome to send healing energies...or cash...

* not, actually, the gigantic Costa Rican banana spider in the photo...though thinking that made the story more interesting, didn't it?