When You are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

William Butler Yeats

Where Are You Going, How Have You Been?

"Where are you going." uh? "Where are you going?" one of my favorite yoga teachers called out in class the other night. Inadvertently and unintentionally out loud I repeated the question "Where AM I going?" which drew some chuckles. Her response went something like "that's a much longer conversation for later on". This stayed with me though through the entire class and into the next day. It's a question not unfamiliar to all of us - "Where am I going?". As I mulled this phrase over and over again it occurred to me that perhaps it wasn't exactly the right question to ask. It had a lot of meaning, no doubt. It's true we all question our choices in life and wonder if we're making the right decisions.

We are all trying hard to peer into the future, squinting with fierce concentration, seeking to glean a particular life path. We want it laid out with some precision leading hopefully to justification for the effort involved today. There is an inherent quid pro quo in everything we do. But that's being human. That's what separates us from other animals. We have the ability to weigh the acts of today and project, correctly or incorrectly, how others will respond to them in the future. On the other hand an animal just does. If your dog is happy with you he wags his tail and approaches, a cat will purr and crawl up into your lap because at that moment it's the right thing for them to do. They don't stop to consider - if I behave this way then maybe I'll get more food later or sure, perhaps if I'm friendly this person will pay more attention to me tomorrow. They behave as they want in the instance. They relate to you as they are feeling, right now, right at this moment.

We're a little more complicated. We act in all kinds of strange manners always with the future in mind. We plan, we scheme, we plot with hope and desire. We consider interactions not for what they mean in the present necessarily but rather for what affect they might have on others and how it will play out at a later date. It's a behavior ingrained in our species. I'm not so sure that this is much of an evolutionary prize.

It's set me to thinking. Maybe I've been asking the wrong question these past few days. Could it be that this practice of being human has got in the way of our being who we truly are? Maybe the question shouldn't be "Where are you going?" but rather "How are you going?"

"How are you going?" This boils down to the hardest question of all, "Who are you?" More specifically, how do you approach life, how do you deal with people and the everyday ins and out of what we call living. This is the true question. This is what we're here to find out. The path is irrelevant, you get to where you're going to go regardless, often times you have no real choice, life just happens. It's how you deal with it, your attitude, your passion, your joy of the moment and the anger that boils up when you you don't understand a given situation. It's how you act and how others perceive you that matter most. Not where you're going, not how popular you'll be or how important you are but who you are in any given situation and how you affect those who interact with you right now that matters most.

A hero is after all just someone who lifts the spirits of others. I believe we should endeavor to simply be the hero for those around us. Don't worry about "going" anywhere, just be the person who brings to the party the feeling - "hey I'm here and I'm ecstatic that you're in my life - knowing you makes this a better world". If you can do this, if you can accomplish this small task, well you've answered the question - "How am I going?". "Where" then becomes but a matter of pausing briefly and looking at the people around you and acknowledging the appreciation they have for you. You are "going" in the right direction.

A Cartesian Kind of Love

They say everything can be plotted on a graph. Given the right set of axes, x, y, z, etc and enough points and you can even predict the next spot on the coordinate system where an event will occur. This comes from a man named Descartes back in the 17th century. It was a by-product of his search for God and meaning in life. It's a foundation of our scientific knowledge.

As a culture we've taken it up implicitly. We search for the x, y and z trajectory that supplies meaning to our activities. 'Our history predicts our outcome'. 'My former behavior speaks to my current actions'. 'This is who I am so this is how I react'. 'I'm this way because of my parents, old relationships, long ago events, traumatic or otherwise, that have formed my psyche', and now you move through life governed by these causations. It's a powerful argument, books and books have been offered for both pro and con but no one denies that we look to our past to understand our future.

The real question is - does it get us to where we want to go? Invariably the answer is no. We wake up still with an unease of who we are. With a hunger for something more, perhaps not quite sure what. Too often we look to this diagram of our life and see, ah - that worked briefly before maybe I should try it again. Or we make radical statements to ourselves and others - no I must change, I must plot a point somewhere unexpected, some random position that shows I do indeed control my life. Of course there's no true randomness here, the search to fill that emptiness always points you in a known direction.

I've struggled with this quite a bit over the years and I have a feeling, though perhaps not an answer, about this conundrum. I believe that there is only one axis that counts, forget about the x, y and z stuff. The one true axis is called Love. Love for myself, love for my place in the universe, love for all those that I encounter.

Truthfully, it rarely works as I would like but it's something I keep in mind whenever I take action nowadays. I ask myself - am I doing something that I love rather than have to, am I interacting with someone out of love or with a more base reason, am I accepting of what happens to me and when I do push back is love involved or something less?.

It's a simple graph at this point and the further I stray from that one path the more I question myself. I won't say that I'm totally happy but I've found a greater pleasure with my progress than I have in years. I accept a lot more that previously would have left me cold and bent on revenge or bewildered and spinning off into some world of self deprecation. When I come back to Love I find a consistent measurement for where I want to go and who I want to be. The vector is simple, it's a strong, solid line pointing in a focused direction. As it guides me I also let it define me, allowing my confidence to be built upon the knowledge that the next point plotted is with Love and will not be a bad position regardless of all around me.

As I travel further along these lines my concept of what Love is grows. Previously it was simply humane, acts of kindness and such, the care I give to those close to me. Now I'm starting to feel that there is a deeper sense of spirituality based on Love, a greater way of being and the actions that come from this are even more powerful. Albeit it's only in spurts and much too often I'm drawn back to that old system of measurement - how am I doing in accords with my past, what have I accomplished, what am I controlling and achieving, who is paying attention to me?

At times I sit along the shore and gaze out upon the infinite sea. Inside I feel a deep longing, a call to grace as if at once I need to be moving and yet be still. There is an inner voice that whispers incessantly to me, somewhere out there lies holiness, somewhere true understanding. And then I look across the sand and smile at all the castles being built, all the people intent on their endeavors, intricate in their architectures, consumed by the towers, moats and walls. Occasionally I join in, molding my own structures, pleased at the result and laughing in turn at the pure folly of building and caring to build; for there is always a tide, always a force that sweeps across our simple efforts reminding us once again, pay attention to the infinite sea.

The Secret of Poetry

When I was lonely, I thought of death.
When I thought of death I was lonely.

I suppose this error will continue.
I shall enter each gray morning

Delighted by frost, which is death,
& the trees that stand alone in mist.

When I met my wife I was lonely.
Our child in her body is lonely.

I suppose this error will go on & on.
Morning I kiss my wife's cold lips,

Nights her body, dripping with mist.
This is the error that fascinates.

I suppose you are secretly lonely,
Thinking of death, thinking of love.

I'd like, please, to leave on your sill
Just one cold flower, whose beauty

Would leave you inconsolable all day.
The secret of poetry is cruelty

~Jon Anderson

The New In Renewal

I find this to be the most interesting time of year. That period between Christmas or Hanukkah and New Year's Day where we seem to float, a bit disengaged, tangled in the memories of the past year and bursting with the urge to start over. Filled with the need to begin anew and aligning ourselves with visions of resolution. We begin charting a course towards becoming what we feel would be a better person. Most likely we've overindulged a bit with the holiday parties and dinners. It might be that the stress meter is running a little higher than normal particularly if you've had to fight mall traffic or sit next to an unpleasant in-law over the course of a family meal.

Yes, culturally we've set ourselves up for the promise of change. As if one we go to the sea murmuring "My new year's resolutions will solve that ___", "All I need to fix is this and I'll be ___", "Well on the first of January I'll start to ___" - you fill in the blanks. We're primed; we've guzzled and gulped, simmered with apprehension over gifts and family, and in the small hours of the morning hung our heads in remorse at past misdeeds of the fleeing year.

What better time for transformation. The urge is built into our behavior. It's become a part of our societal DNA. We go running hard and then slam up against this wall of promise - the New Year, the New You, the New Life, ah I love the sound of that - who doesn't? What's going on though? It seems like we're bringing to the forefront our weaknesses, our faults and identifying with them. In this post-partum moment we say to ourselves "I need to change". This is all good but the fly in the ointment is that we've've built up this pressure behind it. So instead of examining habits and inclinations and forging a new spirit evoked by gradual change we reach out and proclaim "I must be New!" This is the fallacy of our current lifestyle. We're conditioned to expect that we can get what we want quickly and relatively easy. Simply proclaim the new and improved You hence you are now new and improved.

True change is a laborious process, not altogether unpleasant, but it requires a lot of work, daily work, with a constant vigilance towards keeping on the path. We get all wound up with this concept of New, of being transformed. If we're not careful we mistake the process for the purpose. Rare is the legitimate overnight shift to a new way of being, even less often that St. Paul moment with a vision striking you into conversion, real upheaval, to the core, not merely conversant in the terms of conversion (unless of course you are chosen by God to be a saint, then all previous comments need not apply).

Revolutions, you may notice, generally only replace the people in charge. As The Who succinctly put it, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss". What modifies societies and people in a permanent fashion is an underlying current of evolutionary behavior. It is wave after wave that reshapes the ledges of the shore just as it is slow tidal movements from deep within that fashion a new life. Ultimate change comes from small actions practiced over and over with awareness of purpose. This is yoga.

I'm not saying don't make resolutions. I think they're good for you and help you focus on what you want. I have a few myself. What I am pointing out is that you should prepare to undergo the long journey if you want permanent change. That brief momentary feeling of victory where you start from a gully of remorse and then climb to the edge and look out over a field of poppies is seductive but misleading. The new you is better served with small, insightful steps bearing a course that aligns with your spiritual nature. Trust that you'll get there without banners and proclamations but simply arrive when your Being is ready to accept what is.

Start by dropping the New from Renewal and work with what's left ~ Real.

photo credit: Sunburst by John Gavrille

The Cycles of Remorse

What are the limitations of our being? Does it not seem at times we fail not because we are incapable but simply because we choose not to reach beyond the boundaries we create for ourselves. Or even harsher, we let others set our path, becoming in essence a confirmation of their view of us in their world model. We say, in surrender: "This is who I am, this is who I must be".

We accept these borders and live into them as it is often is an easier road to success as defined by our peers and patronage than discovering new territories within. Our history, our demons of yesterday, lay claim to us and offer us respite from uncertainty by delivering behaviors we have followed in the past that have not produced success but rather relieved uncertainty. They provide comfort of course as this is familiar ground we have been over before and sinking into these actions, relishing these passions, allows us to turn off that insistent cry which is in essence the struggle for healing within our soul.

The myth is that this time it's different, this time I know what I'm getting into, while not realizing that what brought us here before was a flawed view of ourselves and feeding our weaknesses again is yet another attempt to assuage our fear of really seeing who we are. Oft times we fail to realize this but internally something sits uncomfortably and we view our actions, when we find a breathe of clarity, with a certain unease that remains intangible yet persistent.

We all have a light within us that shines forth. Some claim that light and recognize it as a beacon and gather others, acting as guides for them in some small way spreading love and joy in all their words. Others fear their light. They are cognizant of their capabilities but have a loathing within themselves of who they are. They use what gifts they have to collect around them those who would only confirm the shallow necessities of their limitations, to feed their hunger for self worth.

This is not to judge but merely to say - look within your nature, examine your actions. The mirror to your declarations of higher consciousness, to a more mindful presence, is the extent to which you are honest with yourself. Do you act simply because it feels good, damn what harm may come to others. Or even worse, carry disdain for those you perceive as weaker because they have not achieved some goal that your limited being chose for measurement. If you cannot even recognize these questions, shrug and say they never apply to me then you are indeed who I am talking to. Those who do not self examine continuously, strike with confidence but not concern, rely on aphorism when wisdom is required, these are often the most frightened of individuals. Their only recourse for respite is to accumulate followers in fashion and falsely believe the trumpets of acclaim that ring forth.

Love guides all warriors of Spirit. Not lust, not passion for recognition, not the security derived from positions of power. Love speaks simply in words of Truth. Love acts righteously without conscious thought. Love is. If all your deeds, all your being, does not first begin with Love then stop and find that small place within where Love exists and start again to build from there. This is the ground from which all true change comes from, the only soil capable of nurturing the roots we all need.

out of kindness I suppose

This is a bit tough for me, in a way I'm dragging myself back to this forum not because I want to write but because I have to. I'm struggling inside right now; of course I'll work it out but you - if you choose, can share in this process. What's in it for you? Well I have no real confidence in my entertainment value, certainly I can't compete with Dancing With The Stars but maybe I can give you a tickle that resonates somewhere deep within. Perhaps provide the shadow of a thought that runs through your mental stream as well as mine.

I was walking today around the small body of water that I tend to circle once or twice a week chewing on my thoughts when I looked over at a man walking towards me, a bit older than I and much more weathered. I nodded and went back to my revery when, as we passed he looked at me and said "no one really cares." A bit odd, sure, but you meet all kinds and normally I just smile and keep walking, perhaps a little swifter until I'm out of earshot but today, for some reason I don't know why, I guess I was feeling a bit melancholy, I stopped and looked at him and said "you're right - no one cares." He looked at me for a bit and then said "You know there are over a thousand homeless veterans in this city and no one gives a damn." Ok I had his number now, he was dressed appropriately and seemed cognizant, wasn't a bum and definitely a vietnam era soldier. I can tell, I've been around them enough. I told him I too was a veteran though not of Vietnam and abruptly he turned in my direction and with a nod we began to walk together, talking about the problems of post traumatic syndrome. He was retired and now he worked with the homeless and with the mentally ill in prison. He had a mission and I let him go on and on about the injustices and the efforts and the enormity of the problem and his little push back at the great beast. Pre-retirement he had spent his career building low cost housing in the south. This was a man of great passion and in the face of immense adversity stood with his back held straight facing into the winds of misfortune, rescuing whom he could. We didn't talk long maybe twenty minutes before we went our separate ways. At parting we exchanged names, his was David, same as mine. He looked at me, cocked his head and said you know what David means in Hebrew? I didn't - "Beloved of God" he said. I smiled and thanked him and went along my journey home. This short conversation has stayed with me all day today and now I feel how it's pulled and tugged at my inner landscape until these words come spilling out.

Why does this affect me so? As I struggled I think I stumbled upon a small part of the equation. I've been caught up in my own little world. When things didn't turn out the way I wanted or I became confused because I couldn't understand something I would retreat and hide behind a dark, quiet exterior. God knows I don't want to turn this into an emo blog but it's important for me to understand the lessons of the universe as best I can whenever they're offered.

This man today survived his life. I say survived accurately, because he too had suffered post traumatic disorders and survived only by reaching within and finding a deep passion for helping others like him. This is the model I think we could all do well to emulate. Not necessarily dedicating our lives to helping the misfortunate, a great concept but I certainly couldn't do it. No, the model is really to acquire or rather bring forth a passion from within that inspires you and others. Not just raise it to the surface and wave it as a flag but to live into that passion fully, to own it and identify yourself with it, acknowledging that to this concept you are willing cede control, raising it above the petty concerns that others would weigh you down with.

I know we grow so diffused by the everyday struggles that when we do find dreams or desires that fit this bill they seem impossibly far way or even silly. We say no, I can't have that, tone it down and settle for something 'reasonable'. We compromise and continue in a half hearted fashion, justifying it all along the way. "I have responsibilities, they need me, I'm not capable of that." Never once do we live into our full being, never for a moment considering that in our reason and passion for existence, all these problems, these concerns, are solved as a by-product of our reach for glory. The Universe does not play to an empty dance hall. The band knows the dancers and each affect the other.

Or we look inside and discover emptiness, well it's not really that we're empty, we're just not letting a light shine into the right spaces. It's there, but truthfully, it takes a bit of confidence and pure plain guts to grab something and run with it. If you don't have that - well, then what are you doing here, you should have checked out after the second paragraph. Of course it's there, it's you who's scared to accept it, to taste it, to play with it and be played with. Maybe it doesn't look like what everybody has told you it should look like - 'all your fucking life'. Frankly - screw 'em. It has to grab you and captivate you, force you to take a deep breath in awe and ecstasy, knowing that this is why you're here, this is it, this is the reason - and then it doesn't let you go. When you get to that point where you're scared breathless and shitting bricks well then, dammit, grasp the lightning bolt and shimmy on board howling in pure glory and grit and ride it all the way down to the strike. Then get up, shake yourself off and look for the next bolt. You deserve to have this much fun in this world, in this life.

My passions are writing, painting, philosophy and designing/developing cutting edge software so rad it rattles your teeth. My love is serving my community, my fellow yogis and assisting them with grace and tenderness. This they return in kind and I revel in the energy we build together during the space and time of a vinyasa session. My greatest gifts are my beloved friendships. This is a relatively new concept to me. I've had friends of course, good friends - trustworthy and generous but now, around me is a small group whom I love deeply and they, in turn, love me to no end and this is a truly great honor, this is my Guard. The Universe, when we allow it, smotes( I do like this word) us boldly and says Go Forth! Go, do not rest on mundane matters but raise your challenges as a road in front of you and each mile you cover begets a span of passion, each moment you grow emboldens you and allows you to overcome that which would deny you your true heritage, your magnificent purpose, at this moment on this planet - to be a shining, infinite being that lights the way for others.