3/17/2017 0 Comments And then... the Light.
I peruse these words sometimes.
Wander back over the terrain I've covered, carried by the breadcrumbs of image.. language... soundbyte... & prayer that I've scattered along the way. And I'm struck sometimes by the melancholy of what's there. There is a stream of ennui, an undercurrent of not-quite-right-ness that permeates this river of Thought. And frankly, I'm all right with that. In the happy-shiny world of "Wellness" and Namaste, there can be an overbearing tendency toward "keeping it light". This propensity toward a sort of fierce happiness. Throw up a Rumi quote. A pretty, perfectly-filtered shot of a handstand. A green smoothie. A beach. The visage of the placid, perfectly-groomed yogi poised Just So atop their meditation cushion. And all of it is sparkling & grand. (& Believe me, after a grazillion straight days of literal rain in my neck 'o the woods, I am not knocking some pretty pictures of Sunshine!!) And yet... I wanna give voice to the shadowy bits. I wanna speak to the places that ache. I wanna stand in the tiny patch of ground which I've been granted, lift up the mini-megaphone that's in my hands - and speak to the BIG WHY - behind all the silvery-sweet-even-saccarahin WHAT's that permeate this modern permutation of Yoga. Practice. Tending the Sacred. Dipping into the Well. All that. There's a reason why We Do the Things We DO. I roll out my mat in the morning not in some vain effort to achieve an outward physical appearance or form - but to Love up the one that I'm in. To show up - strong, gentle, steady, listening - and offer what medicine I have to this imperfect body I possess. I sit upon the cushion for a bit each day not because I am hoping to levitate out of the mess and muck swirling around me and out there in the World - but to find a still point inside of it - and carry that clarity into the places that have need. I bust out the tiny, ill-tuned ukulele and sing a line or two each day, not because I imagine that my small voice echoes magically out into the Eher and shifts the whole vibration of everyone around me. I know it changes me. I know these small acts of daily devotion re-arrange my own humble particles and cells. They help me shift what needs shifting - deep within - so that I may once more open my eyes - re-enter the landscape around me - awake - empowered - ready to do the work of Healing in a broken world. And so I give voice to the Sadness. I paint a picture of the fracture and the futility I feel sometimes. I let the Wound have a Voice. So that I may point the way back to the Bigger Light - that's wanting to get through. I turn there to remind myself - and hopefully us all, as well - that all these lovely things - handstands and smoothies and practices of all shapes and sorts - are not here to lift us up OUT of the pain and struggle inside this world. But to equip us to step more deeply into it. These practices our Salve, the nectar, the Balm. And we fill our cups - to take it back out to Wherever There is NEED.
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