Yoga in the Harvest Season...

Yoga in the harvest season involves a lot of forward-bends, crouching poses, climbing-tree poses... Sun salutation? Earth salutation! I wake and hit the ground running...

...er, but not running - plodding. Today I began with kneading bread from the sourdough started last night. Then into the garden it is - digging the pitchfork deep to uproot the parsnips, which finally got enough frost (ie, the ground froze for a few days!) to sweeten... Clip the tops off and offer them back to the garden bed as mulch, compost... Parsnips rinsed, I set to harvesting culinary sage - perhaps a little late, but it's still strong and healthy, and a bit of sage tea thru the winter?...yum! Sprigs of sage now rest on my bedroom windowsills - the warmest spot in the house, during the day - I look forward to waking up to sage-fragranced sundrenched air...

This blog post was inspired when I didn't do yoga this morning, but opted instead to commune with the earth - to do the tasks that anyone who wanted to survive merely 100 winters ago would have needed to complete in this time.

It's time to harvest the last of this summer's kale plants also - they won't grow any more with the lack of light over the garden bed. Washing off the frost-hardy aphids, I then blanch the leaves briefly and into the freezer bags they go. There are a few young kale plants left in the bed, but they should be transplanted to a sunnier spot if I wish for a winter crop...

Yesterday I picked up a large quantity of vegetables from my "keeper share" at Abbondanza - the farm I frequent (and lately have begun to volunteer at). Many of the veggies are "keepers" - meant for storing and using thru the winter (potatoes, winter squash, dried beans...). Others are simply hardy enough to still be growing at this point (kale, celery, beets, carrots...). I like to think: if I wasn't getting food shipped to me from California and New Zealand and Mexico thru the winter, what would I eat?! With no disrespect to those locales, it doesn't feel sustainable to waste fossil fuels shipping water-heavy food in refrigerated trucks and airplanes... ...all so I can eat strawberries and broccoli out of season!

Will there come a time - and will it be soon? - when this kind of thinking will be the only choice? If/when the industrial agriculture falls, will it be because of financial instability, or lack of resources, or choice?... I am choosing in my life to disentangle myself as much as I can in any given day/month/year from the imported food culture. If I really choose to live the life of a high mountain desert dweller, what does that mean? What grows here, now?

So for this last month or two, much of my "yoga" practice - the practice of uniting spirit and body, self and God, inner and outer - has been about living in the present moment of the season of this earth. As I worked in the garden today, I expressed my gratitude to the soil for nurturing these little parsnip bodies, to the sunlight for awakening and drenching all growing things in its glory, for this little home and its little plot of land, for my mother's sourdough starter (and for her relentless counsel on the phone!). Nothing more than simple presence - with the earth, with the day, with the season, with my friends. Patient and persistent and content, I live this little earthly life. I did sit to meditate for awhile, as the sun was setting and my body could rest into the fullness it had lived today. I know there will be fallow winter months for long sessions of asana (yoga postures) and meditation. But today I live the yoga of the earth.

Definition of G-O-D, no.2

Byron Katie defines God as "Reality." "Reality Rules," she says. All of our suffering comes from arguing with Reality...

Definition of G-O-D

Okay, I didn't mean to get into this definition thing when I wrote that piece called "...Closer to GOD," but it happened...

Yesterday a piece of poetry from the Bhagavad Gita popped into my head whose essential translation is such: Brahma ("God") is the offerer, the offering, and the fire into which the offering is poured... Sounds like a fancy way of saying "God is Everything" (see that other post if you need...).

But as I was pondering on this concept, I fell in love with the idea of ennobling my singing with this particular awareness. How so? Well, if the act of singing is to be a fully conscious act of G*@, I would have to be conscious of all aspects - not only am I consciously singing (conscious of offering), but I am also the free-flowing river of song (the offering itself), and the awareness, or fire, it is being offered into. So not only am I the singer and the song, but the receiver...!

Perhaps it sounds easy (and perhaps it is!), but it is a delicate edge to hold all of these angles at once, in Pure Awareness...

Esperanza (hope?)

I notice the subject of "hope" arising lately in songs I've been writing. It's a little funny, because I don't tend to find the word "hope" very vibrant (with apologies to our beloved Barack :-) When I first heard the word "esperanza," however, I had a wholly different feeling, and immediately set to writing a song by that name... When I sang it (nervous and shaky) for my Bolivian roommate (I don't speak Spanish, so writing an entire chorus in the language was pretty risky!)... - when I sang it for her, I told her my sense of the word, Esperanza, is that though it's often translated as "hope," its quality is more potent - as if striving for something that you know will come to be, living your life as an expression of hopefulness and positivity in the present. She said, "yes, that's it."

Respira la esperanza, con la fuerza del espiritu
Inspira la esperanza, con la fuerza del espiritu

My feelings on hope (and this presidential campaign, if I may) is that it need not be an end-point, but rather a quality we live our lives with. I don't actually feel a sense of attachment that comes with the "hope" that Obama or McCain wins or loses (respectively :-) But rather, I feel a deep knowing of the goodness of human nature. And honestly, I see "hopeful" bits of human goodness in both of them. Not to say I agree with both of their principles equally... But it serves to be said that I feel a sense of "hope," of goodness and grace, that is unconditional. I know humankind the world over is struggling now to find its balance - to learn how to live together in this ever-shrinking span of cultural distances... I know we all - me, you, the guy next door - we all struggle with the forces of dark and light within ourselves. Every day we have the choice whether to judge one another for our differences, even those we think are so clearly "wrong." And a million other subtle choices - do I know the repercussions of the little one-mile drive I took today, the plastic bag I took home, the smile I left with that cashier...? We live in a tangled web of dark and light, conscious and unconscious...

So I take time to return every day, to remember the sacred things I hold dear - peacefulness, compassion, non-judging, gratitude... And from this place I live, perhaps a little more simply, and with a lot of love and knowledge of the goodness of humankind. Lost, overwhelmed, shut-down, confused as we may be, we are a blessed species - and indomitably sweet :-) And the "hopefulness" I feel comes from that knowing - not to be diminished when one "hope" or another comes true or not. So often we can't understand the ways of grace...

As Rob Brezsney reminded us,

Before the last U.S. presidential election in 2004, *What Is Enlightenment?* magazine posed the following query to five religious leaders: "Many people argue that the upcoming presidential election is the most important in our lifetime. Do you agree?"

Four of the respondents said, in effect, "Yes, because George Bush is bad for America and the world."

But the fifth religious leader, Zen Buddhist Jan Chozen Roshi, replied, "I don't know. Our existence is so short, it's like a dust mote in the eye of God. To say that the time in which my dust mote existed was the most important is a self-centered view."

I love that!

And still, another new song arose the other day, in honor of this moment, this precipice...

Mother of the world, bring our souls to surrender
Bring your holy light down, that your children remember,
that we come from the womb just like all the ancestors,
and return to the roots of timeless answers, timeless answers...

And it's a time of doom and a time of rage
And everything we knew is falling away
But we are turning the page, we are the change
Sacred fire is burning away...

And I knew you long before I knew there was something more, something more...
And I held your hand before I knew the secret door, secret door...

Blessings on your journey - may you be ever-filled with peace.

Om Shanti

New Fansite?!

It remains to be seen whether this is for real, or if it's just a tongue-in-cheek parody of appreciation...

ihateariana.blogspot.com - my sister-site?...

Abhinivesha

It should be noted that in the last post ("Work It!!"), though I gave some examples of fear playing out in my life, the subtle fear that arises in meditation is more a primordial fear - perhaps the root of all these other fears in my life.

In the Yogic system, beyond the litany of basic ignorances, (attachment, aversion, etc, etc...), abhinivesha is considered the ultimate ignorance - and one that arises even in great sages and enlightened masters. It's often translated as either "clinging to life," or "fear of death." This is a healthy and understandable fear that all of us carry. And it plays itself out in myriad of subtle ways in our life - especially the less we're conscious of it. Heck, our whole materialistic/consumer society is based on this one primordial fear, one could argue...

So while I could (probably over and over again) address the basic fears as they play out in my life - of survival, money, approval... - this experience in meditation offers me a visceral awareness of the subtle root of all fear. Suddenly I feel I'm not actually in control of my life, and am brought face to face with the unknowable and unknown. I stand on the brink of annihilation and I can choose to surrender to its sweetness, or waste my time fighting the very fire that is burning away my hopeless clinging to life.

I'll choose annihilation anytime...

...
As always, I must credit Richard Freeman for his eloquent introduction and teaching of these principles...

Work It!!

I'm always thankful for my morning meditation and pranayama (yogic breathing) practice. Wherever I'm at, it provides an opportunity to sit still and witness, perhaps even transform...

A little background: I'm living in a distinct time of uncertainty. Design jobs are thin, I'm on the brink of a couple big projects/decisions with music, and finances are mighty slim... This morning, as sometimes happens, a veery veeery subtle sensation came over me, with accompanying emotional involvement. The emotion and sensation feel somewhat scary, with a sense of lack of control (like I said, this is very subtle). This morning, I discerned an underlying thought: "I shouldn't feel scared," and I decided to apply Byron Katie's "The Work" to this thought...

[For those of you not familiar, The Work is a series of questions designed to unravel the compulsive patterns our thoughts take, perhaps offering new possibilities - or maybe even a blank slate!]

Here goes...

"I shouldn't feel scared," can you know that's true?... No, I can't

How does it feel when you think the thought, "I shouldn't feel scared?" I feel judgmental on myself, as if I should be stronger, less vulnerable.

Can you think of one reason to drop the thought (and don't try to drop it! {to quote Katie, "we can't drop our thoughts, but they can drop us...") Yes, I would feel kinder to myself, and I would allow myself that sense of vulnerability, of humbleness in the face of the unknown.

Can you think of one stress-free reason to keep the thought? No :-)

Who would you be without the thought, I shouldn't be afraid? I would accept the sweetness of feeling vulnerable, humble, perhaps even in awe of the mystery, the unknown. I would accept that I don't (and can't!) know everything, remembering that it's this unknowing that opens us up to growth.

Turn the phrase around, and see if you can find a reason the turnaround could be as much or more true: "I should feel afraid." Yes, I can see that this is very true. In my experience, fear often comes as a prelude to embracing something vaster, more freeing and amazing, than I could have imagined with my limited awareness. And to open to that unknown, vaster realm, I've had to pass through the gateway of fear - rather than skirt around it or pretend I don't feel it. Fear, even terror, has been a powerful waterfall veiling an unlimited treasure trove of creative inspiration - a purifying fire that we pass through on the way to divine grace.

As you can see - The Work doesn't aim so much to fix our "problems" as it does to untangle the obsessive thoughts that attach themselves to us. By thinking "I shouldn't feel afraid," I was a) placing a judgment on myself (not very nice!), and b) not allowing the gift of that exciting sensation we often call "fear" to fill my heart with its vibrant blessings.

So here, I dive, fearlessly into the unknown...!!!

:-)

I was a Country Bumpkin...

To forget how to dig the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourselves.
~Gandhi

It's true! I was a country girl, running wild thru the fields, getting bee-stung and nettle-stung and showering from a hose. I didn't always live in the country as a kid, but often, at least when I was young. In the autumn, my mom would pull me out of school just a week or so after it started so we could head up to the apple orchards for pickin' season. She still does – is in the Okanagan orchards right now! She goes up in the early summer for thinning season also. …though she stays home in Oregon for winter pruning season – where she tends the trees of any fruit owners smart enough to request her magic touch.

This summer, I probably emailed my mom no less than 20, 30…? times with gardening and pruning and cooking questions alone! (At least 5 times just this past week!) From how best to pit [hand-picked!] cherries, how close to trim back the grape leaves, how to can peaches (with skins or not?), when to harvest nettles… My mama's got the answer to everything earth-related. At least so far as I can tell…

I confess that I left my country life intentionally. Suddenly, the city life my dad and his new girlfriend and her three kids lived seemed so much more enticing – I could have new clothes and as much candy as I could eat! And watch movies and tv?!! So I left behind my thrift-store finds, the gardens and berries growing all around my mama's home, my girlfriends on the farm, and worst of all, my Mom. I cry just writing this. I've never thought of this pinnacle moment in quite this way before…

Over the years, as I passed {roughly} through adolescence, and finally gave up trying to "fit in" (this bumpkin never could quite figure out city folk!), it amazed me to watch how little bits of my mom's long-rejected lifestyle started to creep back in. I started making or thrifting nearly all my own clothes, cooking my own food from scratch, and growing gardens everywhere I could! Gardens? But of course! I never thought much of it, never even thought of myself as a gardener. In fact, just to prove my thoughtlessness, I didn't even do it all the time. But it was more often the case than not – almost just as a compulsion…

It wasn't until this last year, when [surprise!] I started tending my overgrown yard and planting a garden at my new house – that it really started to dawn on me what a powerful path this really is. Indeed, as I start to think of what really is important – especially as the social structures all around me are teetering – this simple act of growing our own food seems primary.

I loved reading this little bit by Starhawk recently: "With all the furor about falling markets and frozen credit, nothing real has changed in the economy. Granted, the repercussions will be that many of us have less money in our pockets and fewer opportunities. But we still have the natural resources we had a month ago. We still have our skills, our knowledge, and our productive capacity. What we’ve lost is a towering edifice of icing with no cake underneath."

When I think about it in this light, I realize I am a resource of sustainability, damn it – even of Hope! – in this day and age. And I'm lucky to live in Boulder, where the network of sustainability is growing stronger day by day. (Whether this region is ultimately sustainable is a discussion I would like to keep alive with my dear friends, far and wide!). Here we have local dairies, local farms and seedbanks, (www.eatabbo.org!!), local meat, local arts and crafts…

I could go on and on about the importance of sustainability and living local (ie, not exhausting our fossil fuels to import cheap shit that is so much more rewarding to grow/make/trade at home…). But what feels most crucial to me is the quality of Soul that I experience by growing my own food, knowing the local farmers, getting gritty under all my nails, sewing my own skirt, walking to work…

Tonight we're expecting the first frost of the season, and I spent the afternoon harvesting a bushel worth of tomatillos, the last of the zucchini (beautiful little babies with their flowers still attached made for a gourmet feast!), all the basil (saved a couple clippings to root and grow thru the winter as 'starts' for next year, but the rest went straight into pesto!), parsley, cilantro, a couple delicata squashes…

I left the pumpkin (hahaha, that rhymes with bumpkin) – it's not even orange yet, as I believe it can safely survive one frost. I also left the parsnips – they're eagerly awaiting the sweetening bite of cold – as are a couple hundred dandelion roots just waiting for the after-frost harvest!... Tonight's dinner consisted entirely (minus the olive oil and salt) of vegetables from the garden or the farmer's market. I consider this network my lifeline – both to sustainability and to sanity. And I am thankful most of all to my mom for instilling me with this most basic and sacred of sensibilities. She is a blessed soul – a powerhouse of wisdom and integrity. I aim to become more and more like her.

...
RESOURCES:

If you get a chance to read this book, Animal Vegetable Miracle, it may enliven your sense of the importance (and joy!) of living local - plus, it's a fun read! Also, visit http://animalvegetablemiracle.com for bountiful links to treasurable resources such as the slow-food movement, sustainable agriculture, where to find farmers and farmer's markets around the world....

www.ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets – find a market in your area!

Agriculture is the most healthful, most useful and most noble employment of man.
~George Washington

"There seem to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth. The first is by war, as the Romans did, in plundering their neighbors. This is robbery. The second by commerce, which is generally cheating. The third is by agriculture, the only honest way, wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle, wrought by the hand of God in his favor, as reward for his innocent life and his virtuous industry."
~Benjamin Franklin

...Closer to GOD

Oh how I love using that wicked 3-letter word – G-O-D!!! Of course, I wasn't raised with any Judao-Christian mythology… …er, at least not firsthand. Both my parents took the "high" road of the 60s and 70s, and in their own ways, each of them became mystics – finding more truth in direct contact with the divine than by any strategized religion…

But this post isn't about my past, my parents, or the lack of organized religion in my childhood – it's about how interesting I find it that being sick can bring us closer to God. Oh yeah, I forgot – what is that elusive "God" I was brought up with, if not the one dictated by some book? It goes about like this: "God is everything." Yup, that's it, not much to it. Um, everything? Even bugs? Even really nasty shit? Yup, everything.

Okay, I digress again… But really, I do find it quite amazing to witness that the simple act of getting our ass kicked (in the case in point, by a gnarsty throat-bug and achey flu!) – how that simple, humbling act tends to bring me right back to God. In this instance, I'll elaborate on my definition: God as that grace, intelligence, consciousness in everything. (That doesn't mean God's not also that murkiness, ickiness, heaviness… in everything also! Mind you…)

Okay, wow, lot's of 'splainin' to do when I use that little 3-letter-word! Well, I'm not intending this blog to be a discourse on what-god-is – I suggest we can each discover that for ourselves, and likely it's not something we can put into words…

Guess I could sum up this post by saying that the act of slowing down, listening within, and awakening to the intelligent grace of healing brings me into a place that feels mighty divine indeed.

I read a little passage in "Beauty Power and Grace: the many faces of the Goddess" yesterday that made my heart smile. As I was laid low with sickness, humbled in my humanness, and asked to slow down and nurture myself, I was reminded that it is these very yielding and feminine qualities that draw us closer to God: "the qualities generally associated with the feminine, such as love, compassion and humility are considered the most essential. In the balance of the inner and outer worlds, it is ultimately in the inner world that the individual finds fulfillment."

So I am enjoying this little respite from the social and go-go-go in the world activities – time to regenerate a sense of stillness, centeredness, and God-focus in my life....