*insert appropriate pithy epigram here*

Another great Teacher Intensive weekend has come and gone and, as all fruitful studies should, it answered some questions and then asked a whole host of others. One of the portions I found the most powerful was our round-table discussion on when and if political material should ever be included in class. As expected, the responses ran the gamut from “good Lord, no, are you kidding? that’s the most inappopriate soapboxing/proselytizing misuse of your teaching energy, ever” to “I love hearing it in class and it connects me to the higher purposes of practice”. And also as expected, the responses to teaching technique have a great deal to do with the context of the class and studentship. I mean, the C word is the one that just keeps deluging me lately: it’s like an even shorter of that excellent Facebook bit that started showing up and going viral a few years ago: “Everything is changing. Everything is connected. Pay attention”.

Since I seem to have garnered the reputation for being so political, even though my own political studies are ham-handed and infantile at best, I thought I’d use this post as a way of explaining why I’ve been drawn to political concepts in recent years and how, if at all, they might harmonize with practice.

I find it fascinating that we [Canada/Vancouver] have transitioned as a yoga community from “you can’t tell anybody what to do, ever” to “you should always clearly tell people what to do with their bodies, but for God’s sake don’t ever tell them to do anything else with their lives” and its more traditional counterpoint “if you’re not telling people how to live yogically off the mat, then you are not teaching the art of yoga”. Active language and commands were seen as an imposition; taking the seat of the teacher was unconscionably presumptuous. Now active language is more accepted, and the responsibility of the teacher encompasses and extends to the body and its health and safety. Or, conversely, the physical exploration is subjective and exploratory on the part of the student but lifestyle decisions are mandated. It’s like you have to choose, as a teacher and practitioner, where the “you have to” energy is going to go, and then once you put it there you run out of gas.

So since the Occupy Movements have been getting traction globally and therefore in the yoga community, little fits and starts of political awakening seem to be jumping like popcorn in the field of practitioners of all styles and levels, from the hardcore hemp-clad unreconstructed hippie activists to the sleek corporate donation projects. And the template of these popcorn-awakenings invariably follow the same rough shape:

“Sure, I love hearing about the environment/animals/poor people/brown people far away/anti-war measures/anti-gun measures/[insert fave issue here], but encouraging activism on [insert non-fave issue here: unions, feminism, voting, protests, revolutions, riots] is A BRIDGE TOO FAR, I tell you.” and then there’s usually a sidebar of why the non-fave issue is not yogic to address: it’s too partisan, it includes violence and violence is terrible, I knew a guy who knew a guy who sat around on his couch on welfare, I studied it in uni and those people were jerks, I needed to clear my own karma, etc. It reminds me of nothing more than students who would show up and do every advanced forward bend under the sun, including the most shin-mangling Janu III variations, and Lotusses all up in their grill, and a million vinyasae, and then refuse to try Handstand Prep.

Those were the days, eh?

Apart from my native fascination with political theory, bred into the bone by many late nights ranting with my dad, I found myself trying to address social and political problems through individual practice: that is, expunging the suffering caused by larger movements of human beings through meditation and asana practice. This method has a long and glorious tradition, that’s where we get stuff like “Occupy Yourself” and such cleverisms, and I buy its logic to the extent that in order to participate in any relationship including/especially groups, you’ve got to keep your individual energetic slate really clean, and that’s usually hard to do, so go to work.

However, I’ve since come to see a lack of practical effort on the part of the yogi when it comes to larger groups, including political groups, but also the organizations that arise from yoga and its business models [studios, styles, co-teaching, etc.] It’s like we can apply the model of practice to ourselves alone, and maybe our friends or beloved, and we can apply it to the whole world, but on the scale of groups, parties and companies, and countries, we can’t seem to effectively analyze or process that behaviour. We just give up. It gets complicated, and while we might critically read scriptural material, we won’t apply the same critical eye to e.g. the newspaper or political blogs. Which is funny, because as Shelley said so beautifully over the weekend, you cannot avoid politics: all of your choices from purchasing power to relationship interaction is political: and pretending that it is not is like avoiding the pain in your body for the glory of a pose. You are embodied as an individual, and we are embodied together. We are social animals, and as we see patterns in nature and on the scale of our individual experience, those patterns also repeat themselves in social, cultural and political movement.

Conveniently [and intimidatingly] there is a HUGE BODY of scholarship and endeavour on this subject. This tends to make people exhausted or inspire distaste, but it need not. It’s a big ocean of study and awareness just like yoga is a big ocean of study and awareness, and I maintain that it is a misalignment to try to treat collective malaise on the level of the individual: particularly if the individual in question is oppressed, dispossessed or otherwise unprivileged. What you’re basically saying, if you say “Occupy Yourself” to a marginalized person, is “You are not only bound to work off the karma of your own birth in this marginalized form, but now you have to work off *mine*, because as a privileged person I don’t want to soil my beautiful mind by learning about activism or standing for any political vantage point, even temporarily, even if I find out I’ve been wrong and have to back down. My ego will not stand for that, so good luck”.

And the bugaboo of physical violence and death is where most peoples’ wheels come off the political cart because generally speaking we’d like to avoid suffering in this life, certainly not cause any more than is the bare minimum of our clutzy efforts to live and die as best we can. Oddly, though, this reticence on our part to cause violence allows the status quo all around the world to continue a death-in-life of those suffering not because we all must suffer, get ill and die: but because particular humans, corporations and governments have a vested interest in making sure that huge tracts of humanity remain placid, that they remain “peaceful”, that they remain silent, and yoga and meditation keeps us peaceful and silent, recoiling from violence with wrinkled noses: and so nothing changes. Which is doubly weird because we appear to be pretty attached to these bodies for people who “know” that they are just temporary. How much of this global suffering occurring today is part of the human experience, and how much of it is inertia on our part?

Okay. Wow. That’s maybe more heat than light, there. Thinking about generating change on the scale that I’d really like to quickly makes me tired, and then sad, so then I know I’ve gotten a bit too feisty and sjeisty. I benefit from privilege in so many ways that just enumerating them can make me very heavy, and I’m not too interested anymore in running the Suffering Simulator 2000 [NOW with Going Viral On Your Own Culture Update v5.01!] because that didn’t really seem to make anything better for anybody. However, I will continue to study, observe, and educate myself on these subjects because they are at the *correct scale* for so much of our global suffering. They are at the scale of humanity as a social animal, and as awkward and limited as many of the devices are [democracy, activism, etc] their technology will only improve by courageously facing them and refining them. The more we turn away from the history of political awareness in this country and continent [and have the privilege of pretending that this embodiment is a solo project, cf. my FURY at this Lululemon-John-Galt business, gaaaaaaah], the more we let the efforts of those who put thousands of man- and woman-hours into making sure we can have access even to these clutzy, awkward technologies to waste. Our romantic soft-focus pics of e.g. MLK avoid examining the relentless rhetorical and bureaucratic pursuit of the mechanics of his vision: how many meetings you think that guy went to? How many times was his issue moved down the agenda, or his staff backstabbed him over a tiny little doctrinal difference? He’s a hero because he did that work, people. The social contract has been dissolving and sadly the turning inward of the yoga student has not addressed that dissolution, as we feel uncomfortable even having conversations with those who disagree, and even after hundreds…thousands…of hours on the mat and on the cushion cannot even sufficiently regulate our emotional responses [see above!] to safely have a political conversation.

I don’t want anybody to agree with me on the specifics, as that would defeat the purpose of the inquiry, but I am a bit frustrated by not being able to talk about it, dig? I know it’s deeply personal and upsetting, but theoretically as yogis we are practicing not letting our reactions sully what would otherwise bring revelation and light. When people say “But what are we going to DO about it?” I always think well shoot, we can’t even TALK about it so there’s no way we can DO anything. And if you feel like you’ve already done your time in the trenches, or your focus is going somewhere else, believe me I get it [I have twins, remember?] there’s no need to take it personally: if this post is not about you it’s not about you: it is a lens through which we see each other and way to expand and continue our work. If nothing more than a focus for your attention similar to the breath or a pose or a mantra or yantra, concentrate, listen and learn. Then practice letting it go. Making talking about politics “unspiritual” or “impolite” allows misinformation to proliferate and prevents like-hearted souls from gathering. Yes, it is reactive in nature but so is a long hold Baddha Parsva Konasana or lying on a bed of nails: to what end are you avoiding the reaction? Transcendence, or inertia?

w00t w0000t

I also have this bit that I teach, especially to beginners, where I point out that they are just at the start of their journey and there’s no point getting all het up about not executing e.g. Bakasana to their satisfaction on the first attempt because life is long and keep coming to class &c, and Yoda sort of undermines that whole spiel, because if their options are at the point just “do not” i.e. there is no try, then they won’t come back to class again because “do not” is sort of a bummer [unnecessarily harsh and discouraging] and inaccurate besides, because the preparatory actions of a pose are very helpful and therapeutic even if you don’t get your feet off the ground in Bakasana as above, or whatever pose you’re sharpening yourself against…[ellipsis...]

And you know it’s kind of a bummer to try to do something and then not actually be able to do it, viz. certification [see below] because you’re all like, dude, if there’s no “try” then what in the world have I spent the last however-long doing?  I seem to remember some trying.  And some doing not, I suppose.  But mostly TRYING!  And the complex intersecting layers of how much one wants to try vs. how much benefit one might obtain from doing, or not doing, or trying…it’s all a rich tapestry…I explained about the nexus of tattvas, that is, experiential layers of the universe, where concept,will and execution intersect on an absolute level, and that this in fact is the generative power of the universe [icca, jnana and kriya], which appears to effectively demonstrate the UNIVERSE IS MADE OF TRY:  that every cell of your body is pure try:  that without “trying” there is no BEING, much less doing or not doing, and that the synthesis of spiritual endeavour consisted primarily of the essence of Try, in that no result was expected, demanded or desired and yet the path presents itself, over and tedious over again, pursuing Light in the most occluded and cystlike environments, attempting the impossible triple-axel Sight of Light in spaces where no light should by all rights be and simply by virtue of the pure-hearted attempt GENERATING light in this sclerotic places…By gum, trying makes the world go round, three cheers for try, how can this geriatric little Muppet even dare to sully the good name of Try with his tortured syntax and burlap robes, and I became quite aerated about the whole prospect; I even cultivated a slight bloom of rhetorical sweat on my upper lip.  I may also have been changing Hannah at the time, I can’t quite remember.

M said, “He’s referring to telekinesis”.

I thought for a second.

I said, “Oh, well, that’s true then.”

You can't balance what you can't see

My body is already being used in intense devotional service every single moment of every day.  The very cells I occupy are redolent with life’s purpose by way of estrogen, fat and sleep deprivation.  I am making food with my body instead of poses and directly serving those who cannot serve themselves.  I am remembering God as I do so.  So while I can appreciate that you are finding deep significance in e.g. Tibetan throat singing or Scorpion pose, it all seems PROFOUNDLY beside the point at this stage in my development.  *warning – gender essentialism ahead* Sometimes I think dudes came up with yoga cause they were all jealous of how much women’s bodies are in service by nature.  Regardless of their sexuality or procreative decisions, there is still a pulse that is always serving life.  Maybe dudes just wanted to keep themselves busy playing the sacred flute or some such s**t.  So just as the Vipassana gong rang at 4 am and I got up to sit whether I wanted to or not, so Robert’s fussing keeps me in touch with the relentless divine whether I want to or not.  That’s where my discipline is channelled.

Therefore I have run out of steam pursuing the Holy Grail of Certification, and not only steam, money.  The longer this process takes the more expensive it is and therefore only the comfortable or the very ascetic will attain the position without severe debt and stress.  I am fairly comfortable but not enough for additional $500 mentoring programs after already shelling out (mumble) benjamins at this late stage of the game, and I’m not ascetic at all.  Also, my whole thing with Certification was “I wasn’t doing anything more important” and now I am.  So I’m in the penalty box after my last video [submitted 2 weeks before giving birth btw] didn’t pass, and as my year in the dunce corner whiles away the whole thing is becoming ever more baroque and complicated, and costly, and frankly it’s all I can do to make sure everybody’s set up with some stewed pears and organic milled brown rice cereal if ya feels me.

Okay, so.  Anusara may fall away.  Asana may fall away.  Formal seated practice has been wobbly right out of the gate.  I don’t tend towards formal devotional practices, although I admire those who hold them down, as I’ve always associated the representative forms of God to be just that, tokens, the same way Monopoly money is associated with real money and then the way real money is associated with value and worth.  But I still feel God every day, and I actually kind of dig this new iconoclastic by-any-means-necessary practice, where spirit *has to* be tethered to every action.  The only real suffering I have in this new space is that of loneliness; I was craving companionship both through Anusara and through yoga in general and ironically my commitment to the former seems to have further disconnected and splintered me away from the latter.  It’s lonely to have failed, and it’s lonely to be the gelatinous pie-eyed chronic pain sufferer in the back of the room, but hell, at least it’s real.   Also, my babies are cute, which helps a lot.

Texas forever.

Unsurprising reasons why FNL is satisfying to watch: 1. the people are pretty, real damn pretty 2. It’s a solid vehicle for indie/pop songs, although I can dodge the phenomenon from the graf above cause the show’s already been out long enough for most of the songs to be car ads by now…heck, I used the soundtrack for my Power II classes before I even knew the show existed 3. The writers have one really basic thing down: how to wrap up stories while still leaving you dying, simply dying to find out what happens next, and that’s a tough gig (think Heroes as a counterexample) 4. The cast is remarkable. I’m now inserting a superfluous shout out to Taylor Kitsch, whose gratuitous and locally-grown hawtness adorns this post 5. FOOTBALL.

But none of this is why I’m writing the post and thank God because srsly this is an old show now and therefore SPOILERS. Surprising reasons why FNL is satisfying to watch: 1. I’ve been told that I occasionally speak with an American accent and somebody once speculated that it (the accent) is from Georgia. I now flatter myself that it is from West Texas. 2. The intensity of the drama is anchored and reinforced by how the characters have to constantly return to their core beliefs and integrity in order to survive their challenges, and it’s made real damn obvious for us as audience members since the stories literally play out as teams…I’m thinking particularly of how we can effortlessly switch allegiances between the Panther and the Lions once Coach Taylor loses his job to the Joe McCoy Rethuglican juggernaut. The team colours change, our fave players are in school or in jail (or courageously disappeared entirely, a trick I used to think was simply poor story telling until Mad Men), and we’re nostalgic for the simpleminded enthusiastic chuckleheadery of being on the State Champion’s side. Except that it turns out that we weren’t looking for that at all: we were lusting after Coach’s pure love of sport and faith in his players, that can change forms without any tarnishing, and in fact becomes even more pure

Oh, you're never gonna give up your pride, hon

and rarefied as he suffers the slings and arrows of McCoy-era douchitude. I like how the Taylor parents’ couch is a nonsense-free zone, where all the pressures of their admittedly bizarre subculture and the expected pressures of maintaining familial, social and economic life are distilled into a couple key phrases, usually including the words “hon”, “gonna”, and “damn”.

I also like how there are sharp distinctions between identities that only adolescence, and maybe only rural adolescence, can create. You either go to West Dillon or East Dillon; you’re either in college or you’re not. Generally, barring the deus ex machina, when a character leaves Dillon they LEAVE, and everybody knows it, which is what gave Street’s eventual departure such pathos: sure you can fly from Jersey to Austin, but that’s not the point: he’s not coming back even if he physically visits. The goodbye between Riggins and Street acknowledges the fragility of the adolescent and briefly post-adolescent state. There’s a bright line between what grew you and where you have to go.

So this is particularly resonant with me cause I’m composing this post listening to two six-week-old humans snort, fart and flutter in their sleep. There was a bright line between when they were in and out, and no patient planning or graceful conceptual architecture can prepare for that change in state. I hope to write more about this once I get over this first phase of parenting which consists of WHAT IS THIS I DON’T EVEN WHAARGARRBL, but that’s the short version of the deal, if you’re curious. Matter and energy must move, they must change state, and trying to hold onto a structure or organization past the point of sustainability just isn’t going to work, no matter how nostalgically we bite our lip or cling to its hemlines. I’ll tell you now, good reader, I miss being pregnant. But it’s deeply cool that they[the twins]‘re here. And FNL’s depiction of a couple who can withstand some of the most venal behavior of small-town political shenanigans while dealing with profound family transitions of a more pedestrian sort is inspirational to me. The Taylors are characters who know how to weather change without a lot of ten-dollar words and high-falutin theoretical nonsense. They manage to stay close to the heart and close to each other without a word of Sanskrit. If you have to change jobs, lose a lover, get somebody born, say goodbye to anybody, or be born yourself, I recommend this show. Just set aside some serious blocks of time

*note:  the movie’s OK but not as good

**additional note:  I should probably read the book I’m sure it’s great OMG THERE GOES MORE TIME

***additional additional note:  MOAR LANDRY

…and when you get home you realize you have no *actual memory* of your holiday apart from camera cabling and digital fluff? My love of the Internet is legendary, and I generally avoid taking neo-Luddite pot shots at people actually using their phones or being really proud of not having a TV. However, I’ve been keeping a really low electronic profile since the twins were born, partly because I’m way too busy feeding them and/or cleaning up after them, and partly because most baby-related material is not exactly riveting journalism to me, and partly because I felt like once I started diving into the avalanche of needed e-communication I’d never dig myself out again. But mostly, just because I don’t want to miss any moment of this, no matter how hallucinatory or hormonally amplified. However, the longer I wait to surface the more it seems like I’m potentially unwell or something disastrous has happened, and I want to be clear that both they and I are in good health and the delivery was a success, if by no other metric than they used to be inside me and now they’re not

Hannah (back) and Robert (front) were born on April 19 at 2:38 and 2:48 pm respectively. Hannah had the cord wrapped around her neck, which if local anecdata can be trusted is true of pretty much half the people I know, and was therefore delivered by forceps (as was I); Robert was helped down the road via vacuum, which gave him a little yarmulke of bruise that we used to differentiate him from his sister while they were still so wrinkly and generic newborns that we had trouble remembering which was which. They don’t actually look anything like each other, but let’s face it: we weren’t the brightest logs on the Yuletide fire in that little postpartum room.

I kept thinking to myself during labour: I haven’t ruled anything out, I am not attached to any one method of getting these guys out, I am “ready” at least on the conceptual level for different levels of pain and different interventions. I did, however, realize that whatever it took to get the first one out I was then going to have to duplicate or intensify to get the second out, and so I elected to have an epidural, which ended up being a great mercy once we knew that Hannah was having trouble. I am about 15-25% guilty that I could not deliver them without intervention, mostly due to some bullshit-fueled narrative about Womyn Goddess Power or some such crap, but I’m pretty much over it (amazing how pernicious that meme is).

,

Hannah (back), Robert (front)

They are as well-put together as we can ascertain with the battery of tests that they launch at neonates these days, like they’re studying for the LSATS or something. I’m recovering well although understandably still pudgy and slow. So! Healthy babies, healthy mom, and a healthy (if stubbly) dad.

Weirdly, the experience of raising these guys so far is more like a meditation retreat than any other experience of mine, but not for any of the poetic fluffy reasons you might expect. Ways In Which Newborn Twins Are Like A Meditation Retreat:

1. Your existence is ruled by time: gongs, beeps, arbitrary chunks of time by which you measure the repeated menial tasks which are your due.

2. Mealtimes and excretions are the most exciting parts of your day.

3. You wear pajamas 24/7. (to be fair, I pretty much did this anyway)

4. Even if you could somehow access an adult to whom you might express some insight arising from the experience, through fatigue and energetic confusion you couldn’t form accurate words anyway.

5. There’s no way to record your insights, either because journals are prohibited or because you don’t have any time and even if you did you don’t make any sense (see #4)

6.  At least for as long as they are 12 days old [yesterday], both experiences last for 12 days.

My love for them, and everything else that I really feel, is too sacred and quiet to write about.

Reasons why it is contentious to use Christian narrative as a theme in a public class:  Christianity dominates the dialogue, even as it loses adherents.  I never care for that itchy-ass feeling of expressing the privilege of the very, very dominant culture.  I think this may be in part why middle-class white kids of my vintage are such spiritual tourists:  they’ll explore any mythology, any culture, as long as it’s the underdog.  Fair enough.  Strays perilously close to Orientalism, but that’s a post for another day, or perhaps an unfleshed-out theme of many other posts that I haven’t really explored fully.  Plus which I’d venture to say that people come to yoga class, in these trying post-millenial times, to “get away from it all”:  to release the stranglehold of culture and consciousness, to trip out however temporarily on pure body sensation, to get distracted either by novelty or discomfort from what the usual monologue/dialogue/multilogue [!?] in their heads.  Part of “it all” is the tedium of watching the Dominant North

Why can't we all just get along?

American Culture [DNAC] chew at its own ambivalence about being dominant like a bear in a leg hold trap:  happy holidays!  I’m spiritual, not religious!  I definitely fell into this pit of discomfort during the class that Gail describes.  The whole time I’m wondering:  Is this like the douchiest thing I’ve ever said [which would put it in some admirable company]?  The white chick with the iPod full of Wu-Tang and the dreadlocks [!!!] and the, sadly, discouragingly, abysmally pronounced Sanskrit [!!!!!!] is gonna sit here and talk about the Christian God like there’s some sort of rebellious novelty here?  Cripes.  What am I, Glenn Beck?

Trouble is, I really do believe in the ecumenical power of the Christian nativity story.  The DNAC can shuffle its feet and grind its toe into the ground, but I actually see some *there* there:  the seed of the unseen and inexplicable Divine made limited, suffering flesh.  Of course it is only one of many stories that tell of this transition, from sky to earth, and so it definitely can’t make any claims to uniqueness.  But if it’s how I cut my spiritual teeth, how much should I pretend not to explore it, at least as philosophical or narrative content?  What I actually know about Biblical scholarship you could inscribe with a blunt crayon around the inside of a shot-glass, but I’m not a King James literalist or anything embarrassing like that.

My take in the class was that this story, along with many others from many faiths, expressed the maha mantra, the first lines of the Anusara Invocation, very elegantly.   Om namah Shivaya gurave, satchitananda murtaye:  There’s this force, see? that is beyond our limited perception? and it takes on different forms and in these forms it expands its own self awareness.  Dig it.  Amen.  The Word is made flesh.  This concept is a universal concept [not the story itself, but the conceptual essence of the story] because that process is EXACTLY how everything in our known world comes to be.  An idea, a dream, a relationship, a plant, a zygote, a blueprint, a Post-It note goal on the fridge…they all start out as ephemeral, unseen, unformed, transcendental, and then they step down their energy [a la the tattvas] to the most dense forms of manifestation:  a project, an embrace, a fruit, an infant, a building, a goal achieved.  How are you liking these commas, by the way?  Here are some more if you run out ,,,,,,

And as I ballsily claimed the above in class I took the ball and ran it in for a pick six:  The unapologetic universal essence of the story has *more in common* with other stories, other faiths and beliefs, than the watered-down Benetton-ad apologetics of Happy Holidays.  Yikes.  Yet again, I must unfortunately confess that I believe that more strongly than I do the corporatist faux-bashful Starbucks fairy lights and red mugs with generic slogans.  I feel like I’d have a better time getting across to the True Believers™, generating a cross-current of conversation that could remedy resentment, anger and fundamentalism, if I went right for The Light instead of dicking around on the edges.  Because it’s the Light that’s shared, not the calendar date or the names of the key players in the narrative or the traditional food items &c.

So I taught the class and hopefully didn’t piss too many people off, also there were some postures, then Gail wrote her rad article and I had to read it 3 or 4 times to make sure I even sorta got it [=baby brain].  I often wonder how my fave dyed-in-the-wool atheist political bloggers would interpret what I do:  soft-headed nonsense?  measurably empirical physical transformation by way of stretching and breathing and strengthening but no more?  potentially pleasant but ultimately useless in the face of the sea-change needed to generate a truly safe and egalitarian society?  Some combination of the above, likely.  They’re none of them rude enough to tell me to my face I’m a chump cause they’re good people but I know I couldn’t *intellectually* articulate the mechanism behind yoga, behind any spiritual practice that posits this unseen larger consciousness.  And frankly I find arguing about God really frustrating and tedious.  But these cats are super smart and they’re doing great good in the world, and they are very candid about the fact that their LACK of belief gives them the ability, the clarity, to do this great good.  Why?  Because to make governmental policies function as the world gets smaller, angrier and hungrier, “the Big Guy in the Sky told me so” is NOT a good reason to generate legislation.  Turns out the Sky is full of various Big Guys, differentiated by name and myth and quality, and if for whatever reason you are hapless enough to find yourself unable to slice through the differentiated forms and get to the Light at the centre, bad trouble can occur.  My friend Paul in the post below has some groovy comments about “putting your money [actions] where your mouth [faith] is”, and expressed the misgivings that I think we’ve all known in some corner of our hearts:  Because this grand Consciousness cannot, by any known metric, be measured or otherwise verified, what if you find yourself behaving in a measurably poor manner at its behest?  How can you verify these truth claims, if your God told you to go out and kill people, or just generally be an ass, particularly if the textual support for your actions [scripture &c.] is made out of conflicting advice and mistranslation?

This happens in yoga All.  The.  Time.  The mythology is so rich, so embroidered and lavish, and the practices so occult, that lives both past and present are used as gauges for current behaviour, yielding predictably mixed results.  Over a Camembert and asparagus sandwich I was ranting to M that I would probably find the whole karma theory more compelling if somebody could actually show me a karmic scorecard, either going up or down depending on my actions, but as it is I either have to discard the whole theory in favour of measurable, pragmatic results, or trust some guy in beads and robes to tell me whether it’s going up or down, or assume it’s constantly going down, get up on the cross [if you'll pardon the mashed-up imagery] and stay there self-flagellating.  My friend Kristen used to always ask back in the old Toronto Ashtanga days:  Is yoga working?  If the accoutrements of your practice are actually making you MORE of a jerk in the here and now, but you are no longer gauging your behaviour in the here or now, in what way can we assess the benefits or drawbacks of faith?   Same goes for the ostensibly more logical Buddhists, but it’s even more stealthy:  the embodied state ITSELF is the problem, the engine of desire that drives all action is stigmatized.  Even desiring a better world is sowing seeds of desperation and hunger, so no wonder it’s so hard to get hippies to vote.

As I am a meathead of long standing, and of very pragmatic Ontarian stock, I decided a long way back not to take any of this unseen immeasurable Divine stuff very seriously as a way to get out of behaving badly.  Using tax monies to fund faith-based schools, anti-vaccination propoganda, reducing women’s health care services because abortion is yucky:  all of these and many more are where the fist of faith should stop because my face is in the way.  We all have to live on this rock together somehow and having to hash out which Guy in the Sky holds a fistful of aces is no longer serving us.  Paradoxically, it is BECAUSE I have such a strong faith in the essential Light that I believe in egalitarian, practical, empirical social measures.  I try to put my money where my mouth is, and if my mouth says Om namah Shivaya gurave, satchitananda murtaye, then I should be looking for and finding God in ALL forms, to name a few already explored on this blog:  the pleasures of the material, current music as opposed to another faith’s sacred music, the body and its delights, pop culture, and more.  Anything else reeks of an invisible scorecard, being judged by rules that nobody else can see.

How to mash up the practical details of life with [to use a great word that I wish I remembered more] the praxis of any faith is basically the work itself.  Does it float?  Does it work?  Are you forsaking your fellow humans to get a cookie from the Sky Guy?  Those of you familiar with Anusara Yoga understand the concept of “physicalizing a theme”, that is, using philosophical and conceptual material and linking it to the human body as a way of traversing this vast gulf on a pose-by-pose, class-by-class basis.  Funnily enough, Anusara gets gouged both for being “too physical” and having too much emphasis on poses, and also being “too preachy”, for daring to try to incorporate the essential Light into a yoga class.  All I can say about that is of course our attempts at making this relationship will begin awkward and stumbling, as with any new venture.  The first steps of all new infants are wobbly and feeble, because it’s a long road from sky to earth and back again.  Along the way are many measurable stops where you can say:  The Light at the heart of this doctrine is currently being interpreted in a way that causes greater suffering, and I refute it thus.  To me, this is post-secular spirituality.

1.  Finally shelled out for the iPad.  I’m still figuring out how it hooks up with the WordPress app and am so far having minimal luck with my style of blog posting [i.e.:  irregular, dilettantish, and when finally prepared, overcomplicated] but it’s perfect for everything else I want to do…primarily having access to the Internet as close to my frontal lobe as possible.  It’s durable, cuddly, shiny and small.  Definitely looking forward to travelling with it, although I haven’t had as many travel opportunities in ’10 as in ’09.

2.  Christine and I will be teaching an advanced workshop at Yoga For The People on Sunday January 30 2011 from 12:30 to 3:30.  Watch this space for details.

3.  I get to teach at the stunning Inner Space on Thursday nights from 5:30 to 6:45.  It makes me feel so good just being there.  If you’ve never been, check it out.

4.  Yaletown Yoga will be closed for renovations from Dec. 10 through Dec. 20.  Until its new gorgeousness is unveiled, catch me at Inner Space above or Big Rock Friday.

Just one; I am full of babies. Whattaya need?

5a).  Being pregnant with twins is way more awesome than I had been led to believe.  Thank Everything for Anusara yoga, without which I am really not sure how I would cope with this new body in the context of yoga or at least what I previously thought yoga was about.  For front body softness, thigh loop, muscular energy in the legs to alleviate SI pain…but mostly front body softness and trusting the divine…thanks John.  Srsly.  It’s so sweet to be able to continue with an active practice and not be treated like a fragile delicate flower just because OMG THE CORE.  Handstands and forearm balance feel the best, with backbends a close second.  Oh, and eating whatever I want.  [Side rant:  Why is this only permissible when in the ostensibly self-sacrificial mode of gestating humans?  Whoops, I forgot this is supposed to be a non-grumpy post.]

5b) This is why I haven’t posted too much:  because while of course this is a big deal in my world I haven’t wanted to write about it.  It’s like very quiet music that only I can hear, and while I could conceivably gas on and on about the subjective inner experience, it can be alienating and/or tedious.  It’s also a very sensitive topic.  Now that they are getting a bit bigger, and hopefully more stable, and people are getting out of my way when I go to the mall, I suppose it’s more public-domain.  I am terribly pleased, though

6.  It’s the most wonderful time of the year.  I wish it was snowing more, mostly because I got the first proper winter coat I’ve had since university, and also because I enjoy the State of Emergency snow provides here on the West Coast…or, well, to be perfectly clear, I enjoy not SUCCUMBING to the State of Emergency that seems to prevail because it makes me feel tough, and you all know how much I like to feel tough.  Stay warm, everyone.  Happy Hanukkwanzmas.

Let’s take an aspect of human experience, you can pick your favourite:

One for each deadly

- hunger
- thought [viz. the dreaded "monkey mind" or other pejorative]
- sexuality
- sleep
- anger
- (there are more but let’s start there)

And here are some questions for your contemplation:

- are these aspects of the human experience going away anytime soon?
- what would the world look like if they were gone?
- if you believe any of these aspects of human experience to be undesirable, is that they are INTRINSICALLY and inescapably wrong, or are there some situations in which they might be desirable?

I chose those ones, the five deadlies, cause those are the ones that catch the most knee-jerk unexamined flack from various spiritual technologies. Sometimes a modality will be bold enough to censure all five and then some; sometimes they will stigmatize only a couple (desire in the guise of “attachment”, &c.). In fact, this contrariness has come to be a dead lock on any of these practices, to the point where any emotion or behavior outside of a sort of a bland bemused pleasantness is interpreted as “unyogic” or similar. This (inherently nonsensical btw) assessment is leveled both at self and others, and is an endless source of flagellation a la those crazy mofos in the Da Vinci Code who hit themselves with spiky thongs because they are just so baaaaaaaaaaad.

Peering at the discount handbags, I was suddenly struck with how we (the readers of this blog, a very specific subset and classs) let yoga and meditation get away with the same kind of hateful guilt trip that we generally don’t put up with if it comes from e.g. Catholicism. For some reason we can very clearly see the repressive techniques that these faiths apply to, say, sexuality and how it simply does not address personal transformation in any effective way for the vast majority of its practitioners. But we won’t hesitate to describe enjoying mocha frappucinos as an “addiction” (author’s aside:  can we knock that off, please? Apart from pathologizing desire, already wizened and inauthentic, the word addiction actually means something very real and very serious for its sufferers) or smirking at a students’ “attachment” to their favorite teacher.

I forwent spending $65 on facial line filler, although I’m sure I need it, because all of a sudden I realized you will never go broke or get bored underestimating peoples self-hatred. We have ably constructed these endless pits of constant hunger for work and struggle and practice, intended to change this human embodiment from what it is in all of its disastrous potential to…to what? To what it isn’t. This is hatred of intrinsic humanity rendered explicit, yet for some reason it gets a pass in a way that fundamentalist Christianity doesn’t…is it because there are more colourful deities? Is it because, as a student so recently and hilariously pointed out, “those gods haven’t f***ed us over yet”?

As all of these contemplations are multi-layered and frankly damned complicated to write about, I considered another layer of guilt that has been shmeared on top of this already suspect concoction. Sure, you might not want to eat nothing but raw cabbage wraps for lunch. What you actually want to eat could run the gamut from jerk chicken to a Mounds bar, I’m not saying, I’m just saying. At the root level these technologies just tell you, straight out with somewhat refreshing candour, you can’t eat what you want. Fine, then. The new, more insidious party line is this: okay, we can’t make you eat or not eat anything, but your *lack of desire for raw cabbage wraps* IS ITSELF the flawed behaviour, and for that, 50 Hail Marys and a 3 hour sunrise meditation.

“But Sjanz,” you rightfully object, “I do like cabbage. And I had a great sunrise meditation. What’s with the hostility?”. I can dig it. Here’s the deal: YOUR DESIRE BROUGHT YOU THERE. Your desire brought you to cabbage, to your guru, to the ashram, to Pilates class. It’s about what you WANT. And your want is intrinsically human and intrinsically powerful. Instead of addressing its magnificence and power, human desire has become so stigmatized that it is only under these very specific conditions that we allow it to flourish…that is you can only want what we say you can want. Those of you who have ever been around children are invited to notice how well a hardline stance on certain foodstuff works.  As a wee ‘un, M put himself in the ER after eating his weight in chewable vitamin C tablets because they were the only food with any sugar in the whole house. If your human desire brought you to any virtuous conclusions, congratulations. I have some of those myself. However, if your desire is to be your guiding beacon and metric for your behaviour you must logically allow others to do the same.

The game is rigged. If you take any of the big five and ensure that only specific capitulations to that behaviour are permitted, you are guaranteed an endless supply of guilty, ashamed candidates. The house always wins. These qualities are our nature. Out of balance, yes, they can cause some genuine catastrophes (that fairly obvious clause is just in case anybody out there thinks I’ve been raised by wolves). But you don’t find balance by putting a cinder block on one side of the scales and hitting it [that side] with a ball-peen hammer.

Working title:  It’s not the band I hate, it’s the fans

One of my fave bloggers, Amanda at Pandagon, has had a running series lately about “hipsters” (no, I don’t know what they are either, but bear with me) and this post got my brain juices a-flowin re: our cultural obsession with authenticity. Of course I’m going to focus on our yogic subcultural obsession with authenticity, because that’s what you pay me for, and you always get what you pay for at Heavy Metta†.

The beef with hipsters appears to be that specifically clothing, but any cultural marker like clothes, music, social events &c. make a statement about the wearer/participant. For example, somebody wearing a Judas Priest t-shirt is assumed to know what or who Judas Priest is. To make matters more complex, a young man who has always been within wireless Internet distance might wear a “Whalley Tractor Pull” t-shirt, and his genuine knowledge of or support of said tractor pull is undermined by the dreaded ironic hipsterism. How can we know whether the shirt-wearer’s support of Judas Priest or their devotion to the Whalley Tractor Pull is real? What if they can only sing the chorus of a couple of marginally radio friendly singles but don’t know the whole discography? If I am a true adherent of the WTP is this hornrimmed ass clown making fun of me? Or is this a sign that I can give him the secret Tractor Pull handshake and we can retreat to more private environs to discuss last years’ finals?

Similarly there’s been a resurgence of interest in the traditional aspects of yoga, or at least what we think we know about the traditional aspects of yoga since none of us were there and everybody claims the ace in the hole when it comes to The One True Path. An article in the latest Yoga Journal made much hay out of the fact that our asana-heavy physical practice is, relatively speaking, an extremely recent AND colonial (British and Danish, IIRC) development. After this one-two punch of arrivistism and white guilt, the article leaves us with the ponderous burden of continuing to deepen our scholarship to ensure the maintenance of the True Yoga Tradition.

So instead of a Judas Priest shirt, we’ve got the mala beads and salwar kameez. What credentials are required in order to adopt the word “yogi”, or (sacre bleu) “yoga teacher”? If you’re a dilettantish Priest fan and you happen to run into the kind of guy who can recite the entire discography verbatim including guest performances, he (it’s usually a he) will roll a curled lip at you and your authentic worthiness to wear your Priest shirt will be revoked. If you got the shirt because you thought the font was cool and it was $2.50 at the thrift store, he may decide to ritually assassinate you. First of all, why does this piss people off so much, and secondly, who will appoint themselves the arbiter of authenticity when it comes to self-description and cultural markers? Why is being a “poseur” the last great post-millennial sin?

Alpha Priest Fan has probably invested a lot of his identity in this knowledge, and would probably like to either find like-minded souls OR use that investment to feel superior to somebody who fails to measure up. FYI the game is rigged. Music dorks rarely agree even when they are friends. But I digress. As far as I know, Priest has never requested of its fans that they adhere to any particular edict of personal behavior or ethics (you can correct me in comments if this is untrue). Yoga, on the other hand, has. Apart from any of the details of ethical behavior, yoga proposes a union of the levels of experience both within the individual and also within the subculture, unless the practitioner is following a path of pure asceticism and there isn’t anybody else around to align with. It would seem to follow that more inclusionary politics would more accurately reflect this union than sneering and divisive judgement. However! Even the most casual observer can catch, in any sample of in-studio chat or dharma snark, a little bit of the “that’s not REALLY yoga” sneer.

I would encourage you to contemplate why, if you have found your lip curling at an OM hoodie, it makes you so honked off. What specifically is it taking from you? Is yoga so weak and identity-less that it needs a NO POSERS ALLOWED sign on the clubhouse? Do you automatically assume that popularity implies dishonesty…inauthenticity? When you bought your first OM hoodie, did you know what you know now? It’s always a groovy feeling to think you’re in the in crowd, and it’s human nature to want to use that to stay special. But unlike other subcultures we are mandated, as seekers and practitioners, to remember the union of all levels of experience. OF COURSE keep studying, if you’re interested. OF COURSE always try to learn as much as you can. Knowledge can either separate or unify: how will you use yours?

†Thanks, Twisty.

Or, I ruminated as I had the morning coffee-and-video-game-wakeup [Madden NFL '11] perhaps we have simply exploded; grown so fast that, like a Big Bang, what once was close and nestly is now at the wild periphery. Either we pay lip service to the idea that more people should do yoga or we actually believe it: either way, our dharma as teachers is to continually grow and expand, and that will necessarily mean abandoning that closeness.

And students notice it too, and nobody seems to know why it happens: where is the Old Group, they say? Why all the politics, why the camps and militant splinter factions? Why is that every person I used to see weekly without fail at our favourite teachers’ class is now off doing Core Bootcamp on the Northshore?

Okay, so after chewing on this for a while I have a bunch of different answers and they are as follows:

• Your friend practices on the Northshore now because she CAN. Simply by virtue of opening new studios all over the place, both YYoga and otherwise, people can fit classes more easily into their schedule and they don’t need to travel to the downtown meccas to do it.
• Your friend practices on the Northshore because now that her two kids are of school age, she has to, or she doesn’t practice at all [related to #1 but more to do with time passing and demographic priorities shifting, dig?]
• 30% of the Old Group, as the Old Group is wont to do, is getting really good at yoga asana and study, and they have their voice to share…meaning, they’re teachers now, and to get the gigs they need to live they have to take on classes that conflict with The Class You Used To Take Together. Or,
• heck, they’re SUBBING T.C.Y.U.T.T.T, which is fine except you are used to them being *beside* you, not *in front* of you, and something’s different and you don’t know what it is…you support them doing what they love, but their message is not The Old message
• Your old teachers keep learning, growing and changing, too. Their messages change. They go through stuff in their personal life that is either buried beneath the performative surface or expounded upon at length, depending on what kind of cat they are…and depending on what kind of cat YOU are, you can either feel it percolating or hear it tendentiously explained, which will either alarm or bore you, or both. After all, if THIS person can’t even keep their act together, you wonder, what am I doing here? Why is it not simply fun and new like it was back in the Old Days?
• Because you’re also in The Old Group, you’re getting really good at yoga asana and study, too. You hear stuff you didn’t hear before. Part of what was just the trombone noise of teachers’ dharma talks, when most of your head was populated by worry and static, is getting more clear, and you either don’t agree with some of what they say, or don’t find yourself moving forward the way you used to back in the day.

Communities don't grow by themselves, people.

These last two are related to the rate at which humans learn. Your learning curve in yoga asana is at first quite steep and you’ll get adept quite fast if your teachers are any good at all [at this stage of the game in 2010, almost all of them are]. However, at a certain point that huge rate of change slows, and you’re never going to have that huge drama from when you started, when EVERY DAY had a “first” of some kind in it. Sorry, there are just not that many new yoga poses. They’re also connected to what I suspect is a universal human need to see The Teacher as “other”: radiating confidence and perfection from some sort of Elysian yoga-teacher-base-camp, where we all sit around tending our organic orchids and drinking soma and meditating, instead of answering text messages and changing diapers and having the same argument with our parents that we did back in 1994. When you first meet your teacher, the vibration they hold is indescribably bright and inspiring, because they’ve done that work. What they’re talking about in class has NO relationship to your day-to-day of limiting beliefs, anxieties, control and conflict. It’s disheartening to hear or see that they have the same conflicts and anxieties, either camouflaged better, or repressed. As soon as that comes out, the romance ends and you’re left with the aftermath…do I go hunting for that “hit” of romantic radiance again? So a useful contemplation might be: Is it important to me that my yoga teacher be perfect, and in what ways? There are schools of spiritual discipline where perfection is a priority, and you may find yourself moving more in the desired direction studying them. Caveat: They may also expect YOU to be perfect.

I’ve romanticized, and then been disappointed in, every peer group I’ve had since I was in Grade 9. I was so excited to move to Toronto after hearing about all the indie-rock venues there on CFNY back in high school. When I moved there and actually *played* at the Horseshoe, or the El Mocambo, I had that Groucho-Marx moment of wondering if I really wanted to be a part of any club that would have me as a member. I mean, if I could do it, how amazing were these places anyway? So a healthy dose of low-self-esteem, combined with some unexplored post-adolescent hero-worship: nothing extraordinary here, but I’ve certainly transferred that to my yoga communities along the way. As I grow inexorably older I realize: any judgements I have of my teachers must necessarily fall on me, too. This helps me stay spacious, although it’s not always easy, especially when I hear some gossip or other come down the pipe…it always hurts my heart at first, but then I realize: we are humans in this, first and foremost, and I have never wished to have my practice eclipse that human-ness.

Okay, so, if you’re ever feeling disenchanted with your space, your teachers, your yoga buddies, here are a couple of tricks you can use, and I’m just making these names and concepts up on the spot as I go, heh heh:

1. Open to Grace and Set Your Foundation. You’ve probably done so many Down Dogs that you forget what it was like to do one for the first time. You’ve probably done so many Virabhadrasana IIs that you know very well where your feet should be placed. Knowledge is powerful and you’ve went to a lot of trouble to accumulate it…and it also removes space for more learning and a richer experience. When you come to any class, listen to the teaching. Even if it goes against something you’ve already heard before, or even something that you are very sure of, be open to the fresh experience being offered. If you hear a new cue, try it. If this seems boring and tedious to you, check yourself before you wreck yourself…this is what your teachers told you back when you started out, so the exhilaration of the steep learning curve is a DIRECT FUNCTION of being open. If you simply cannot execute what is being offered because of physical pain or a fundamental ethical rift, rest, or simply sit in meditation. Please do not be the douchecornet who insists on doing it their way in spite of instruction, that’s as rude as bringing a Big Mac to a dinner party. When you’re done the class and you are sure that you never want to return, then don’t [although I recommend not basing an entire path on one class, but I know we're very busy and you gotta work with the information you have].

2. Muscular Energy. If you want your friends to come to a yoga class with you, text them and let them know. Hug in. Be a centre for your community. Sure, there was a time when you knew you’d see everybody on Sundays at 4 or whatever…but that was because there was only 1 or 2 yoga classes in the whole city at that time. Those days are now over, which is sort of sad but mostly iNcReDiBle. How many more people enjoy the fruits of practice now than when you started? Do you know that your presence as a continuing student is part of why they love what they do? That’s a privilege and also a responsibility. And it’s fun to make sure your yoga remains social and enthusiastic…a lot of that energy takes more precedence than the teacher, the poses, the music or the philosophical material.

3. Inner Spiral. Expand. Bring your siblings, coworkers, parents, children, people who are legendary yoga hataz, people who you notice gazing sidelong and wistfully at your mat bag when you’re at work. Let your vision be refreshed by their experience of doing stuff for the first time. Let their admiration of your efforts encourage you to stay on your path, whatever that might be. Go with your pregnant buddy to a pre-natal class. Hell, go with your fratboy sales staff to a CrossFit workout. Get a membership at Harbour Dance.

4. Outer Spiral. Seal in your energy and recommit. While I rarely regret taking any type of class, from the most hallucination-inducing Bikram’s class to a narcoleptic gentle Hatha, you are not going to have your mind blown every single time. Grow up and get used to it, and give yourself an opportunity to contemplate or journal what styles and methods have really worked for you, why it might be time for a change, why you started practicing and why you practice now…and if they’re any different. Teachers, you have an opinion about why you’re teaching what you’re teaching…if you don’t have an opinion about any particular action or sequence, let the students have that space, but if you DO, stand in that strongly and encourage all the energy of the classroom to coalesce around that. Hold the students accountable to reflect the way that they hold you accountable.

5. Organic Energy. When you feel like you have more in you than any of your teachers are giving you, guess what: you’re full: time for an upload. Time to teach.