Themes and Playlists

I rolled out my green Spiritual Gangster Guru Mat the other day for a home practice. As I settled into my first down dog, over comes my 4 month old rescue puppy Gibson. Still too young to lift his leg, he stood still and in super slow mo I watched him pee all over my mat. I couldn’t help but laugh. Anything little Gibson does is just adorable. But puddles of foreign liquid on the yoga mat, 9 times out of 10, are just awful.

Tell me if you’ve endured the following. You are practicing yoga in a sweaty yoga class, and the teacher says, “Warrior 3.” That smelly man in front of you sticks his foot in the air. You watch drops of sweat leave his ankle hairs and fall down on your mat. Coming out of Warrior 3 to place your hands on the mat for standing splits, you navigate to avoid touching that foreign liquid as ferociously as you’d steer clear of a drunk man in a speedo.

One drop of the wrong person’s sweat on my mat could drive me crazy. But I would gladly let my dog kiss me on the lips even though he licks his dog berries after lunch. Is something wrong here?

*****

In March 2002, eleven people abandoned a 260 foot ship about 800 miles south of Hawaii. They left the captain’s dog, a terrier named Hokget, adrift at sea. People caught wind of this story. Money started pouring into the Hawaiian Humane Society which paid $48,000 to a private company called American Marine to look for the ship. Air, sea, and high-tech surveillance equipment were all pressed into service. No luck. Finally, 6 weeks later, after the Coast Guard agreed to access $250,000 US taxpayer dollars, the dog was found…shaken, scared, but still alive hiding under a pile of tires. (See above picture of Hokget, with sun-burned nose, upon his safe arrival in Honolulu on May 2, 2002) When $300,000 is spent to rescue a dog but nearly 1 in 4 children across America are struggling with hunger, does that seem weird?

There’s one thing that us humans are suckers for. Receiving unconditional love. And humans, barring saints or nuns, don’t love unconditionally. We just don’t. Piss off your husband and he won’t jump in your arms and lick your face. Punish your teenager and chances are slim she’ll cuddle you one second later. Being this is my first dog since early youth, I’m realizing what a gift it is to have a bad day and look to Gibson for a good, slobbering smooch. Everytime we’re kissing I can practically hear him say, “It doesn’t bother me one bit that in most of your Facebook pictures you have a double chin. I just wanna love you and love you and love you some more.”

Is it me or is that worth over $300,000?

Visit here to read the NY Times story: When Chocolate and Chakras Collide

California’s oldest living tree is a Jurupa Oak in Riverside County, California reported to be 13,000 years old. If you were to plant a Juropa Oak seedling in the surrounding terrain, experts doubt it would take root. In fact, you’d have to travel 30 miles to find another Juropa Oak. Such is this particular 13,000 year old tree’s amazing ability to last through the ages in conditions not favorable to its existance. What can be learned from an organism with such endurance?

When the trunk of the Jurupa Oak is destroyed by burning, new shoots pop up all around it from the roots.  Similarly, pine tree cones will store their seeds for years until the heat of forest fires causes the pines to open up and release the seeds. In other words, the most enduring species in our world, things that live thousands of years, depend on fire to trigger regeneration and rebirth.

In 2009, so many of us experienced a different kind of fire that incinerated our finances if not our emotional well-being.  In the heat of the moment, these fires are brutally painful. But in the years to come, we will perceive the smoldering fires of 2009 as necessary means to a brilliant and beautiful future. Here are 3 reasons why…

1. New Direction

For so many of us, it feels like someone took a blowtorch to our savings and nest egg which are now smoldering remnants of what once was a healthy forest of assets. We can be pissed and bitter for so long but notice how the heat of those emotions, as they effect the pine cone, can also reveal within you new life, new freedom, a new path…so long as you get back on your feet and move the ball forward. S.I. Hayakawa said, “Notice the difference between what happens when a man says to himself, ‘I have failed three times,’ and what happens when he says, ‘I am a failure.’ ”

2. Enriched Life Experience

I couldn’t help but look at the above picture of the 13,000 year old Juropa Oak with reverence. For cryin’ out loud, the thing has been around since the Ice Age. There are a certain group of humans who you might say have a durability comparable to the ancient Juropa Oak. The Abkhasian* people of Central Asia routinely live into their 90’s and 100’s and often report only having been sick once in an entire lifetime. Part of their ability to live happily with great longevity is the fact that in their culture, one’s status increases with age. The elderly are seen as beautiful with silver hair and wrinkles being signs of wisdom and maturity. In the Abkhasian language, there is not a term for “old people.” Rather, they are referred to as “long-living people.” *

Things are much different in America where we tend to totally forget about our elders. Why? Compared to the Abkhasians, we have litte respect for life experience whether in the old, middle aged, or young.  Any hardship you have endured adds to your character, wisdom, and perspective. And anyone who knows their ass from their elbow will, like the Abkhasian, respect one who has been through hell and highwater. Helen Keller said, “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”

3. Stronger Relationships

The Vilcabamban* people of Ecuador’s Andes Mountains are another indigenous culture that is revered for its peoples’ ability to live happy lives deep into old age. One notable quality of the Vilcabambans…they don’t armor themselves against the pain of life and “they have not withdrawn from one another into shells.” They consider struggle to be part of the process. The Vilcabamban live in close-knit families and help one another through tough times. “Their spirits are connected to each other, their smiles all the deeper for all they have known and shared.”  *

Like the Vilcabamban, the 13,000 Juropa Oak is in essence more than one tree, it is a close family of trees having cloned itself many times over. And that family of trees, in spite of residing in over-populated over-polluted Southern California, lives on year after year. That is the most important lesson that we can learn from this ancient tree. To endure life successfully means not that you have avoided the greatest hardships and dodged the hottest fires. Rather, you’ve used those hardships and fires to make you stronger, to reveal new emotions, to deepen your roots, to enhance your relations.

*from HEALTHY AT 100 by John Robbins

My friend recently shared a story that put the grind of 2009 into beautiful perspective. He described lying on his bed enduring a hot summer day. He had nothing better to do than watch flies succumb one after another to a fly trap. The flies would be attracted to the trap’s scent only to get stuck, whip themselves into a frenzy trying to escape, and die a slow death. My friend recalled with awe this one fly that reacted differently. Rather than freaking out and whipping itself into a frenzy, this fly stayed calm.

Step by step, the fly picked up and cleaned its leg and then picked up and cleaned its other leg and did it again and again until it finally was free. My friend recalled how a creature which epitomizes filth and annoyance actually displayed a certain elegance and beauty in its resolve to survive. Which is just the thing we lost in America during the economic boom of the early 2000’s. We were gluttonous in our consumption, in our over-construction, in our values. There was no sense of beauty in our march toward success, wealth, and pleasure.

And now, so much has disappeared, so many homes, things, relationships. And many of us face the same predicament as the trapped fly. Those who freak out will further their trouble. But those who proceed with grace, dignity, and even elegance will most certainly recover and slowly but surely rediscover their wings.

Herein lies the question. If you’re halfway normal, you’re struggling, grinding, busting your butt to make ends meet. In such a state, who cares about beauty?! And how in the world can you possibly be elegant?!?! Following are 3 tips:

1. Service

“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” MLK

The same friend who told me the story about the fly told me that whenever he feels out of balance, anxious, and lacking, he plugs into the needs of his community and helps someone out. It’s his way of staying centered and putting everything into perspective.

2. Pride

“The only real elegance is in the mind; if you’ve got that, the rest really comes from it.” Diana Vreeland

One thing I’ve learned from my 91 year old grandma…whenever she leaves her retirement home, whether to go to breakfast or take a ride in the car, she always always always dresses up fancy in her scarves and slacks and coats and purses. This is not a matter of her clothes being expensive or inexpensive. Rather she has great pride in spite of her aging body and fading twilight. And no matter how broke, no matter how old, no matter how exhausted you might be, nobody has the right to your pride. Nobody!

3. Touch

Have you ever taken a yoga class and gotten a nice adjustment by the teacher? Or better yet, have you had a friend give you a little shoulder massage when you were really stressed? There is nothing more elegant, graceful, and wonderful than human touch. Like the most gorgeous dress or the most extravagant coat, a loving touch can take your breath away, cause time to stop, and if not for a moment, allow all worries to subside.

Like the trapped fly, take one graceful, firm, empowered step at a time. It might take months or years to recover. But if nothing else, let your recovery be filled with dignity.  As Gandhi once said, “I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”