This is an idea that’s still a bit in embryo and it is important to me to be candid about it while at the same time not insulting any performers or putting them down, so we’ll see how artfully I dodge those perils. If I’ve been a jerk and seem to not notice, let me know in comments.

I have been plagued in recent years with a bit of a disconnect, one that has partially given rise to Big Fridays and one that I’m constantly trying to clear up and see with greater focus exactly where the split is: the disconnect between my tastes aesthetically which are passionate and sometimes straight-up vulgar and colourful and wild, [and FIRMLY in a North American framing viz. jazz, hip-hop, Southern fried rock, graffiti and similar] and my discipline which is yoga…

Number one with a bullet

…associated, among other things, with white pajamas and chanting and mantra and silence and stillness and quiet and the total opposite of everything above. And I don’t think I’m the only person that feels that way. I have always disliked having to become other than myself on the mat, and I’m so intensely grateful that I’ve found a style of yoga that encourages me to become MORE myself both on and off. Of course I love silent practice and deep meditation; I’ve actually even made my peace with kirtan which I never thought I would enjoy, thanks in part to excellent musicians like Shantala. I’m not all idiotic lyrics and drastic gestures. I just wish there was more room for the fire, colour and sound in our cultural perception of yoga.

Because then maybe artists would feel more comfortable embarking on a practice without fearing that they will lose their fire, colour and sound; and artists need yoga in a big way, since navigating the internal storms without some kind of stabilizing guide or influence has led to many tragic ends.

The problem is often when artists discover their practice, they do end up a bit: washed-out. Perhaps the calming comfort of the practice itself ends up dulling the edges a little bit. Okay, I’m just going to come out and say it: I’m thinking of Sting here. With all due respect for a musical elder statesman, I much prefer his earlier work to his post-yoga work. So I have some choices here:

1. I can pretend the shift in his sound is unrelated to his spiritual discipline which seems disingenuous [see the comment on the "Fragile" YouTube link where someone is intending to add this song to a disc to play during esthetics treatments...oh, man.]

2. I can refute my own tastes and make it a personal practice to see the merit in his later work, which seems forced and unnecessary

3. I can start to examine what specifically it is about this practice that makes it hard to fuse with the belly-fire of creative work, and then teach to that so that as many people who need the practice as possible are brought on board.

Well, that wasn’t much of a choice; I’ve obviously gone with #3, but I did wonder about the first two for a while when I was still singing regularly. Almost weekly I am asked whether or not I chant or lead kirtan and I say that I haven’t studied it, which is true, but it’s also true that I haven’t studied it because frankly when the iPod comes on I’m going for Wu-Tang. Is that terrible?

My friend and teacher Christine has always been honest about not enjoying the words “dispassion” or “non-attachment” that crop up so regularly in our little subculture; if I understand her correctly, she believes [and I agree] that it is our passion for growth and our hunger to be reunited with the divine that brings us on the mat or on the meditation cushion and we should in fact be attached, violently so, to this vision of our own light. I have had many vibrant, creative friends express to me that they feel a bit ambivalent about pursuing yoga because they are under the impression that it will reduce that passion, that attachment, that leads them to create.

Quite honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without this practice to help me live. Even just day to day, the most prosaic decisions about my lifestyle, health and emotional well-being are informed and cultivated through yoga. I see my life and the world through a yogic lens, and that seems to be much more suited to my biochemistry than seeing it through what might otherwise be termed my “artistic temperament”. Actually, “artistic temperament” is a nice way of putting it; “crazy as a mud-bug” is likely more accurate. I refuse to believe I am the only artist who has found solace in yoga. I feel it has saved my life.

Unfortunately my creative output has, as feared, been dwindling to a trickle over the years. This blog represents a triumph of my will over my tendencies [muscle energy hugging to the midline, if you like] since left to my own devices I would just save these up for epic rants and inflict them on friends and family. It is a matter of some speculation as to whether this trickling creative output is a function of my practice or completely unrelated and just a somewhat discouraging coincidence.

Maybe I am still just as creative as I ever was except my medium has shifted, and my teaching receives that energy more than singing. Yet we are taught that shakti is unlimited in its capacity to grow and produce; it’s not like it runs out like an RRSP or the oil sands or something.

Anyway, this is my call to myself and to all of my many artist/yogi friends: Show your audiences and viewers and readers how yoga is EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of bland neutrality or artifice, in the hopes that we can save more lives and generate more beauty for years to come.

4 Comments »

January 23rd, 2009 Natasha Says:

Oh, I love this post–I love that I’ve found your blog, because I’d forgotten how great your writing is (how could I have, considering the medium through which we met?)

Have you read the book “Open to Desire”? I think you’d really like it. It overlaps with a lot of the ideas you’ve put forth here.

January 23rd, 2009 einajs Says:

Hurray, Natasha’s here! I haven’t read that but I like desire, so opening to it is probably a good strategy. I’m back to Seattle soon..I shall Facebook you. Thanks for the support, especially knowing you are such an avid book-reader. Sometimes I feel like reading books is this insane throwback, like I ride a horse or something. Book readers of the world, unite!

January 26th, 2009 Natasha Says:

YES PLEASE FACEBOOK ME. I’ve been wondering if you were going to do the Scandinavian Museum this year.

Potential SAT question: book-reading is to horse-riding as tomato-canning is to ? Just call me Laura Ingalls Wilder. With a laptop.

February 6th, 2009 Jolie Says:

What a great post ~ I completely agree! As an artist myself, I’ve never even considered this but it makes complete sense as to why some artists who cultivate work through their deepest emotions are hesitant to dive into yoga. Anusara is the way people!!!

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