A yogini at large

“The eyes are the windows to the soul.” (ancient proverb)

There is a school of thought (that I happen to subscribe to) that places an emphasis on our five senses (six, if you include the mind) as having more influence on our conscious thoughts and actions, our reality, than one might realize. These senses are also linked to natural elements: the earth to the sense of smell; water to the sense of taste; fire to the sense of sight; air to the sense of touch; and ether to the sense of hearing. Ether (meaning something very elusive, ethereal, and yet very powerful) is also the element associated with the mind, which is described as the bridge between our physical existence and the subtle, intuitive perceptions that percolate into our awareness when the busy, day-to-day mind steps aside, say, in meditation.

That the Eastern teachings have connected the senses with the natural elements of earth, water, fire, air and ether is a reminder that we humans are an integral part of this great earthly garden, and still depend on these elements for our survival. With this awareness we become more grateful, respectful, and responsible for the terrain we call home, and for the senses that help us to navigate it.

The senses provide information that is processed in the brain in ways that are too complicated for this author to explain. Or understand, for that matter. But I do know that, as with any information system, there can be glitches in delivery. Conflicting information can effectively “jam” the system, and lead to knee-jerk reactions like “fight, flight, or withdrawal” versus considered responses. Let’s look at a culinary example: in Quebec, Canada, they make a noxious smelling cheese called Oka. Its aroma is offensive (to some) and yet it tastes sublime. My sense of smell would warn against putting such a substance in my mouth, but once tasted, Oka cheese can be appreciated as a gourmet treat. (It goes particularly well with Calvados). Whenever the mind is confronted with conflicting sense perceptions such as these, a decision has to be made: on which information should one’s actions or choices be based? Life is full of these conundrums, the eyes telling one tale, the ears, touch, tongue and/or nose telling another. What is an average bear supposed to do?

As concerns the senses, our English language is full of expressions or stories that serve as cautionary tales. We say we “smell a rat” when someone or something is behaving suspiciously. There is no overt odour, such as with our Oka cheese, but something in our psyche picks up a signal that generates a warning. Not to be ignored. Little Red Riding Hood is a familiar nursery tale that illustrates this point:

“When Little Red Riding Hood arrives at Grandma’s place, she notices that her grandmother looks very strange. Little Red then says, “What a deep voice you have!” (“The better to greet you with”, responds the wolf), “Goodness, what big eyes you have!” (“The better to see you with”, responds the wolf), “And what big ears you have!” (“The better to hear you with”, responds the wolf), and lastly, “What a big mouth you have” (“The better to eat you with!”)”…and thence ensues the demise of Little Red (or a variety of alternate, less gruesome endings that aren’t of concern to this writing).

What is of concern is how to discern what is true and real when our senses present us with inconsistent or incongruent information. Such children’s stories are a form of shorthand; a way of passing on folk wisdom from generation to generation: “looks can be deceiving” and “don’t talk to strangers”.

In simple terms, Grandma ain’t always who she appears to be!

What’s true of sight applies to the other senses as well. All of the senses play a significant role in navigating our surroundings (how could they not?), and can be equally deceptive. We are influenced by an alluring aroma (smell), a pleasant face (sight), a sonorous voice (hearing), an attractive manner of dress (taste), or a compelling handshake (touch) without assessing the degree of sincerity or integrity of these attractions.

This points to a need for keen observation, for not taking things at face value, but rather attuning ourselves to the more subtle messages that come via our hunches, our intution, and the subtle signals that our sense of smell, taste, sight, touch and hearing present when we are particularly attentive. We can cultivate our sense of sight to the level of insight. Attune our sense of hearing to the still, small voice of intuition. Discern what “rings true” vs the voices of flattery or chicanery. Our sense of touch can respond to another person’s unspoken needs and be a source of empathy, and ultimately, healing.

On this premise, the value of leading an examined life rests. If we are going to learn anything from history, it is imperative that we learn from past mistakes, individual and collective; commit to a process of tracking our footprints, accounting for our choices, and implementing changes when necessary. Otherwise we are at the mercy of passing whims or conditioned, knee-jerk reactions. As the Buddha said, we must “deliberate and analyze, and when it agrees with reason and conduces to the good of one and all, then believe it, and live up to it.” The eyes may be windows to the soul, but the devil is in the details.

(P.S. This is my fourteenth blog and it still hasn’t become a habit.)

“…when you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.” (Winnie the Pooh)

I now know why I am rarely on time for “dates”. I putter. A close cousin to Procrastination, Puttering is my middle name. This morning I went to get a pair of shorts from the laundry room (clean, of course…) and found myself emptying the dryer, lugging the basket into the bedroom, then folding the clothes I’d dumped onto the bed so as not to let them wrinkle too much, and only when hubby said “You’re late” did I grab my runners and dash out the door. Good thing I’m only minutes away from my destination.

But still. “It’s not nice to keep people waiting!” my inner taskmaster chides. “Is your time more important than theirs! They should probably just leave without you!” it continues. (”It” seems to occupy one degree of separation from the “me” who is being chided. As if a part of me is actually separate, and the arbiter of my acceptability. But they both, bafflingly, live inside me and vie for supremacy. And they’re not alone!)

The late Swami Sivananda Radha, mentor and teacher of many an aspiring yogi/yogini describes this pattern in “Time to be Holy”. She writes: “You want to survive in your own mind, and your own mind sets the criteria by which you want to survive. That’s a very dangerous trap. It makes difficulties and creates a lot of absolutely unnecessary pain.”

Our son, the shame educator, would call that “shaming our shame”. And say that it comes from the same source as many a counterproductive behavior: a lifetime’s-worth of unconscious coping mechanisms that not only rule our lives the way my inner taskmaster rules mine, but which obscure our essential Thingish-ness, our true thoughts and feelings. We get too busy “doing the right thing” in order that our thoughts and actions align with the voices inherited from outside. And what those voices obscure is the still, small voice of our intuitive knowing, the authentic self that remains when we strip away all our pretenses and coping mechanisms. That, too, is not without pain. There is pain in knowing one has abdicated one’s authority and authenticity for the sake of belonging. Of not rocking the boat. And what suffers most is the unexpressed potential of the soul. According to Sarah ban Breathnach, best know for her “Simple Abundance: a Daybook of Comfort and Joy”: “The authentic self is the soul made visible.”

Though trained in Transpersonal Psychology, or “care of the soul” in layman’s terms, I still struggle to explain “soul” in my own words. Like Winnie the Pooh, the Things — beliefs and ideas – closest to my heart can whither to silence when subjected to outside scrutiny. Which is the kind of humiliation from which my inner taskmaster is trying to protect me.

And therein lies the rub.

The inner aspect which I’ve unconsciously developed to protect myself from the shame of rejection, dismissal, and defeat can also be the enemy of my authenticity. Of my own unique contribution to this great human tapestry. If I can’t even communicate clearly and candidly — let alone agree — with myself, how can I possibly communicate with anybody else?

However, after decades of living according to external authorities, how DO I go about embodying my authentic self? How do I listen for the voice of the soul that I’m told holds my “distinctive human code”? Self-acceptance is the key. Acceptance of my physical, mental and emotional make-up. Acceptance of who I am, why I’ve done what I’ve done, where I’ve been, how I’ve erred and when succeeded. What works for me is stopping the mental chatter of “coulda, shoulda, woulda” — and their opposites — long enough to let inspiration arise from what James Hollis calls “unknown zones”, or the “unfathomable otherness of the universe”.

Soul is one of the many things that originate in Hollis’s unfathomable otherness. So too does the life force that animates me — body, mind and speech. Explaining these phenomena to my satisfaction is a futile exercise. Words fail. But I do know enough to track my footprints in a journal that I can revisit at my leisure. I know enough to steep myself in silence in order to let my intuition speak. I know how to use my ego and senses as receptors, versus drivers. And I know enough to accept that I don’t know what I think I know. Furthermore, I understand that I don’t need to know all the answers, nor be perfect according to the script I acquired as a child, in order to evolve into a more courageous, caring and self-aware human being. And that’s good enough for me.

Now, as any self-aware bear would say: what’s for lunch?

“…we cannot stuff everything into this life. Every time we choose one thing, we exclude a dozen others. If we could live a serial existence, we might have a dozen opportunities to follow a talent, an interest, a curiosity, but we don’t.” (James Hollis)

With Groundhog Day (and the film by that name) just behind me, I gravitate to the above statement for the reality check that it is. In the film we see Phil Connors reliving the same day, February 2nd, until he is proficient at French language, ice-sculpting, chiropractics, life-saving, concert piano; even tire changing, bank-robbing and toddler rescuing. Back on Planet Reality, I fear I lack the time, manual dexterity and energy – not to mention self-discipline – to become even a decent ukulele player. This can be a tough pill to swallow. I am becoming, of necessity, more discriminating about what I choose to do. My choices reflect what interests me most, what has heart and meaning for me, and a significant factor in the latter is a sense of community. Simply put, I need people. And so far ukulele playing has delivered in spades!

Walking around with my ukulele has attracted two other keeners who plan to convene on Tuesday for the inaugural meeting of the Nascent Ukulele Players. No doubt we’ll come up with a better name, and I suspect there will be more of us as time goes by. Music has a tendency to attract people like moths to the light, and I imagine all sorts of instruments jamming at informal “talent nights”.

Needless to say, this vision has motivated me to practice for twenty minutes a day, which, if done consistently I’m told will make me an expert in a mere five years! Even in so short a time I marvel at how much progress I’ve made, simply by choosing to spend the time I have (and that of my teacher) to advantage. I now know three chords, am working on a fourth, and next we will put it together into a song! Only a week ago that would be inconceivable. It once again brings to mind Goethe’s quote: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.” When I bought the ukelele I never imagined that it would draw a diverse group of people who are grateful for any activity that breaks the Groundhog Day-like monotony that COVID precautions have implied, or imposed. In a previous blog I described how COVID has restricted many liberties that I’d taken for granted, which begs the question: how much choice do I really have?

In general, I choose to believe that I am the sum of my choices, which is to say that my choices have led me where I am today. If I am not content with my current situation, I believe I have the power to change it. But if not age, then certainly COVID has taught me that my presumed power of choice is a luxury. This awareness compels me to choose wisely, gratefully, based on a vision of who I might become.

More than any particular choice, what matters to me is taking time to reflect on why I choose what I choose. Is it to meet some ego-driven need? To compare and compete? To succeed at an arbitrary standard I’ve inherited from my peers, teachers, parents, the media? On what does my sense of survival and security depend? My sense of belonging and acceptance? If these depend on outside standards and influences then I have abdicated my independence and autonomy to a revolving door of people who don’t really know me or my purpose on earth. Of course it can be comforting to fit in, but what price conformity? A statement attributed to the Buddha has been my pole star for many, many years:

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

Today I see the benefit of gathering more and more people in a circle of music, gaiety, and shared humanity. Outdoors and socially distanced, of course. As fate would have it, the song we are learning is called Kaleohano. It means “the voice of authority and respect”. It’s your birthright, and the choice to use it is yours.

C-F-C-G7-C x 2; Chorus (C) C7-F-G7-C…

“A clean house is a sign of a wasted life.” (Anon.)

For some unknown reason the above quote came to mind when I began to gather my thoughts for this week’s blog. The original idea for the theme of “habits” (I’m hoping to come up with a catchier title than that) came from a conversation with friends who asserted that it only takes from twenty-one to twenty-eight days to create a new habit. Presto; change-o.

I take exception to that.

I have been blogging for eleven weeks (aka seventy-seven days) and it’s far from a habit. I’ve been composting for almost as long, and experience an equal degree of self-sabotage as in my resistance to blogging. Bearing in mind that both of these projects are entirely optional, one wonders why I bother at all?

If for no other reason, the discipline and persistence required to establish an arbitrary habit are a pro-active way to prepare myself for the involuntary changes that have been visiting me (and everyone I see) with unprecedented frequency: (COVID! Quarantines! School, restaurant, airport closures! New strains! Vaccine supply and eligibility!) You get the idea . Developing the resilience that enables me to respond, correct course, re-imagine and otherwise persist in overcoming obstacles to my brilliant plans, is a good kind of habit to have.

So I’m going to experiment with how long it takes me to establish a fail-proof habit of blogging, composting, and now, (drum-roll please) playing the ukulele. I’ve been in possession of my new ukulele for almost a week and have yet to establish any intention to, let alone make a habit of, practice.

In fact, I’ve yet to take it out of the package.

There’s the actual ukulele. Nicely wrapped in white squishy plastic. Then there are all sorts of bits and bobs, the sight of which, I find strangely draining. (Like a parking ticket I have yet to pay but look at every day). There are extra strings. A tuner. Six colorful felt picks. So far so good. A left-handed chord chart that is truly mind-boggling. Tiny fingerboard-position stickers that go on the neck of the ’uke’, but which will require some serious manual dexterity. A self-inking chord stamp of as-yet-unknown utility. A book telling all about the ukulele. A nifty looking case. A strap. (Ok. I can handle that.) And maybe more. But I can’t bring myself to go near the couch where it sits to sort through all of it, to tame the beast as it were.

That said, I now have a handle on how I initiate change. I procrastinate. I talk about it. A lot. I make my intentions as public as seems reasonable, and then feel compelled to follow through lest I be judged, mocked, ridiculed etc. (Psychology texts call this “external referencing”. ) Hence the mention, in last week’s blog, of learning to play the ukulele. History tells me that I will approach that goal in my usual crab-walking fashion. (In case you’re unfamiliar with the term, a crab-walking approach is a sideways trajectory that the crab is anatomically forced to execute. No amount of wishing, hoping, thinking and praying will change what is the crab’s evolutionary inheritance. You can’t make a crab walk straight. It just is what it is.)

Figuratively speaking, crab-walking suggests a cautious, oblique (aka indirect) approach that has even been seen, by some, as sly or devious. However, for me, crab-walking is an arbitrary strategy that I’d like to grow out of. It means, in re: the ukulele, that I will move the bundle of related items back and forth from the counter to the couch, to the dining room table, and, as I sometimes do with laundry that desperately needs folding, to the bed I intend to sleep in this evening. I will eventually unpackage it bit by bit. As I have just now done! (Since I’m making this public, I have to demonstrate SOME progress). Next will be a text to my musician friend to set a date for an initial lesson. (Done. Tuesday at 1:00!) This will force me to do as much relevant reading and organizing as I can before that appointment happens. I have my pride, after all. And, with these small advances achieved, I heave a sigh of relief and reward myself with a small bowl of potato chips.

What has this to do with a clean house, a wasted life, or how long it takes to change or establish a habit? As with the crab, it’s about knowing what is possible and what is, constitutionally speaking, not possible. It’s not possible to have a perfectly kept house and yet make any kind of creative progress. Change is not possible if I don’t want any disruption to the status quo. (The bugs, mess and smell of the compost). To establish any new habit means enduring the discomfort of letting go of the old. Resisting that which resists in me. Day after day. Week after week. Until it becomes second nature. No “presto; change-o” for me. It’s Just. Not. Easy.

But by my count, I have already taken eleven steps to better blogging. A few dozen steps (if you count the actual distance to the tumbler) to consistent composting. And, NOT counting the shuttle between couch and counter, several solid paces towards ukulele playing. And that’s good enough for today.

Pass the chips, please.

“What you see is a compensation for what you don’t see.” (James Hollis)

I’m beginning to think composting in Hawaïi was a very bad idea. The truth is, Hawaïi is an island that, in some ways, cannot deliver the kind of services mainland cities offer would-be recyclers and composters. For a tree-hugger from British Columbia who’s used to reducing, re-using and recycling every kind of paper, plastic, bottle, box and even every styrofoam chip that comes across my figurative plate, (and the food scraps that come across my literal plate), it’s frustrating to see the heaps of garbage that two of us can generate on the Big Island on a regular basis. Generally speaking, I try to “clean up my own back yard” and reduce my personal environmental footprint versus blaming whatever powers-that-be that aren’t serving my particular needs. So I won’t go into a rant about how on Hawaïi Island we can only recycle a modicum of the above-mentioned “stuff” — some of which, as you know from my last blog post, is compost that has nowhere to go. But I will go into the recent setbacks that caused a mini-rant-fest, and saw me ready to abort mission on composting, and by association, blogging.

The reality is, not only have I almost irredeemably skewed the contents of my new tumbler-composter with stuff that needs a much bigger facility and different variety/combo of materials to “succeed”, but it’s messy, smelly, and buggy. Much the same can be said, metaphorically speaking, of any new plot I hatch, any new scheme I conceive — such as my ambitious plan to post a new blog on every Monday of 2021. (It sounded like a good idea at the time…) But I hadn’t factored in the steep-for-me technological learning curve involved in blogging. After a particularly frustrating “training session” with a long-suffering son, I briefly considered that my blogging, and my composting, days were done.

As fate would have it, I was simultaneously reading Hollis’s “Living an Examined Life” (highly recommend it), and his words reassured me that such is indeed the nature of the beast when one is trying to live authentically, to live out what he describes as one’s unique “soul calling”. Hollis writes: “To step into our lives, to come back to the task of becoming who we really are when not defined by roles, categories, or the expectations of others is a most daunting summons”. Progress can seem glacially slow. Results impossibly far off. But whatever image I hope to create or sustain as a blogger-philosopher, it cannot be, “a compensation for what you don’t see.” (Nor, might I suggest, is that any kind of life strategy for anybody.)

By “what you don’t see”, Hollis is referring to the invisible mechanisms that run our lives. As composting is a metaphor for dealing with my inner resistance to this “transformational process”, so too the things upon which we pin the blame for why we haven’t changed, why we haven’t lost that weight, kept that journal, learned how to meditate, are not the causes of our malaise. The root causes of our hesitations and procrastinations are deeply embedded in old conditioning, unconscious survival mechanisms and archaic beliefs. And the root FEAR that keeps us stuck in that inertia is the fear of coming face to face with our own inauthenticity. Our lack of self-actualization, as Abraham Maslow would call it. Fear of realizing that we have lived what Hollis calls “a trivialized life, a distracted life, an anesthetized life”. All for the sake of not suffering, too much, the discomfort of truly growing up. Of showing up to the world as we truly are. To honor our own interests, talents and innner promptings, whether recognized or not, is, according to Hollis, our soul’s calling.

So what you read today is not a compensation for what you don’t see, but is actually a behind-the-scenes glimpse of my own struggles with authenticity. With stepping out of my comfort zone to try new things like composting and, if not mastering, then at least attempting the steep learning curve that blogging is for me. In the spirit of resisting that which resists in me, this, my first two-digit blog post will not be my last! As long as I’m not trying to be something or somebody I’m not, the blog can and must go on. If only in answer to my own soul’s calling.

What might be calling to you? And do you dare to answer?

P.S. I’m also about to take up playing the ukulele. Stay tuned…

Before enlightenment — chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment — chop wood, carry water.” Zen Buddhist proverb

Yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that I undertook to deconstruct three large, dried-out Christmas wreaths. I felt noble. All the plant materials were compostable…in theory, and I was determined to see them “re-used”. On day two, after nearly filling my new tumbler-composter with bucketsful of evergreen twigs and needles, eucalyptus leaves, wilted flowers and the straw “donut” bases of two wreaths, I checked the internet to see in what time these clippings would break down into the rich loam of my gardening hopes:

Short answer. “A very long time.”

Long answer, “A very, very long time. Don’t even try.”

But in spite of this discouraging internet knowledge, I stubbornly persisted in deconstructing the third wreath. Perhaps the whole bio-scientific universe would miraculously shift, and render useful this regrettable batch of post-holiday “trash”?

At first I thought it was my determination to compost the wreaths that meant nothing was going to stop me. Laterally I realized that it was the soothing, therapeutic quality that kept me at this relatively futile task. Pulling out florist’s staples, wilted flowers and tufts of dried greenery, stripping the straw donut of plastic wrap and fishing line, separating out the re-usable straw flowers from the garbage, and the garbage from the compostables, cutting the compost into more digestible pieces——all left me with a sense of peace, harmony and ease of well-being.

This seemingly mindless manual labor led my thoughts to what anthropologist Gregory Bateson called “entropic work”. The kind of repetitive work that is done in homes all over the world. Over and over and over again. Cleaning house, washing cloths, procuring, preparing and serving food; clearing up today’s messes only to be thinking about tomorrow’s meals, chores, clean-ups and errands in a seemingly endless loop. Often thankless, these domestic duties fall to someone (often low on the totem pole) in almost every household. Without that our homes, and our planet, would descend into chaos. (Go to Cairo if you want a glimpse of that).

As with home maintenance, personal growth can be mind-numbingly boring, lending credence to the John Lennon quote: “My life is what’s happening while I’m making other plans.” One to-do-list item after another gets in the way of a more exciting, care-free, (albeit imaginary) life. Hardly the stuff of our daydreams, inner transformation can be painfully slow. Like turning clippings to compost, change can take a very long time.

But what if these seemingly insignificant, recurring activities were to serve a “higher” purpose? What if all the minutia I attend to on a daily basis were performed mindfully, purposefully? What if it were symbolic of the personal growth work that, while being done internally, invisibly, profoundly effects not only myself, but people and things around me?

With these thoughts in mind, I set about the task of deconstructing the third wreath. Thinking of it as pulling out the attachments (florist tacks), the outmoded beliefs (dead wood); separating what to keep (red straw-flowers) from what no longer serves me (plastic wrap), and cutting the mental or emotional ties-that-bind (fishing line) had a powerfully clarifying effect on my mind! Carrying the experiment further, I applied this same mindfulness to other household chores. Washing dishes (scrubbing away impurities), drying glasses (clarity, transparency), ironing (smoothing out convoluted thinking) and so on throughout the day.

Reframing my attitude to all the mundane things I have to do is a way of applying the Zen proverb: “chop wood, carry water”. Chopping wood and carrying water are hardly glorious activities, nor is pulling apart old Christmas wreaths. But, in what I consider a minor epiphany, I realized I had persisted with the third wreath not because of composting, but because focusing on the task at hand came as a great relief from all the could, should, and ought-to-do thoughts that assail an idle mind. A mind scattered and distracted by worries for the future or laments from the past. Controlling my thoughts and directing my imagination are of great benefit towards making present ideals real.

Layman Pang, (740-808) a celebrated Buddhist monk from the Zen tradition wrote: “My daily activities are not unusual, I’m just naturally in harmony with them.” Perhaps enlightenment means just that, being in harmony, being fully present and engaged in the day-to-day.

Next time you’re faced with a tedious task, how about giving it a try?

What’s it all about, Alfie? Is it just for the moment we live?”
(Dionne Warwick)

I belong to a first rate fitness club. And I’ve learned that first rate fitness clubs attract first rate athletes, and first rate athletes are a great inspiration for people of all ages to stretch past self-imposed limits and – if not compete in the Iron Man – then simply be the best physical specimens they can be. But also, at age seventy, the fitness levels of the top athletes around me can be a little daunting. An unchecked competitive streak compels me to overachieve, and occasionally, even leads to injury. Gimped up with a sore foot, tight calf and aching hip, I am forced to be still. Observe. Reflect on the choices that brought me here, and register a need for balance, healing.

Through this unanticipated time out, I am reminded that the physical “me” is only one facet of my “full specific life” as Laurens van der Post would call it. I am compelled to address the possible neglect of other facets of “me”, such as my emotional or intellectual, spiritual or creative, social or relationship well-being. If I am to be a proponent for living an examined life, I must have the willingness to ask, and honestly answer the questions that will lead to a deeper understanding of who and what I am, how I think, what I think, and why I do what I do. As the biblical quote goes: “ye shall know the truth [about yourself] and the truth shall make you free.” Or, as Gloria Steinem famously quipped: “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”

With the goal of freeing myself from unconscious patterns or conditioned beliefs that can be maddeningly misguided, I do what is called a “life pie” exercise, one that I was assigned annually as a Masters candidate at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. I draw a circle and intuitively divide it into six – usually uneven – pieces. Also intuitively, I label each piece of the pie according to what best represents the time, energy and/or resources I expend on that particular aspect. Through this process I can better see if, for example, my emotional or intellectual well-being has been sacrificed to an egoistic drive to triumph on my road bike! To clarify the kind of person I want to be, and the quality of life I want to lead, I ask questions such as, “What does it mean to live life to the full? What is a 360 degree life? What do catch-phrases like “be the best you can be” actually mean?”

These questions and reflections help generate a vision of who – or what – I believe I have the potential to be. Hence the title of this blog: A Yogini at Large. By some definitions, a yogini is a female yoga master, adept, and teacher. That would wrongfully imply that I have “arrived”. Another definition better represents what I intended by the term: “Yogi or Yogini refers to someone who follows or practices yoga philosophy with high levels of commitment.”

This blog is an example of such a commitment; a process of understanding and articulating what has heart and meaning for me, and then sharing it with other people. In that way it meets both an intellectual and a spiritual goal. Possibly also a social (reaching out), creative (writing and visualizing), and even emotional goal (connecting with others on a more profound level). In some dimly understood way I trust that what I imagine as possible can, through persistence and practice, become probable, and then actual.

I also know that I am solely responsible for, and stand to benefit most from, this process of self-evaluation, goal-setting and self-actualisation. I would not do this if I thought, as Alfie did in the 1966 film by that name, that the purpose of life was entirely for selfish gain and instant gratification — a kind of living in the moment that might not have been what Ram Dass had in mind when he advised us to “Be Here Now”!

As always, whether Ram Dass or Alfie (or some other role model) is your “guiding light”, the consequences of whatever path you take or choices you make, land squarely on your own psychological and spiritual, even social, emotional, physical and creative plate. I am the sum of my choices, and only I can change my trajectory. The life pie exercise is a good way to assess the “what is” in my life at any given time, and discern the steps necessary to shift into a sense of possibility, of what “could be”.

Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, global spiritual leader, poet and peace activist urges his followers to start where they are: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.”

What might be your next step or steps?

“You must do the one thing you think you cannot do.” Eleanor Roosevelt

At the moment, the one thing I think I cannot do is write this blog. What is holding me back? New Year’s resolutions. New Year’s blessings, prayers, videos and messages from all corners of the globe. By great writers and leaders, actors and teachers. Wisdom circulating through my email, my WhatsApp, in text trails and snail mail. Taunting me with wit and wisdom and techno-dexterity that date me back to the Stone Age. So I ask myself: “What can I possibly add to all that?” Better yet: “What can I subtract?”

Me. Myself. I.

Amazing, serendipitous, unbelievable things happen when I get out of my own way. For example, as of this moment, I don’t know what I’m next going to say. And that’s OK. Because something will bubble up from my subconscious that will guide my thoughts and writing. And, just in time, a quote accredited to Goethe floats into mind:

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it,
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated, —
Begin it, and the work will be completed!”

That would be a good quote on which to end this posting, but, alas, I have more to say. As New Year’s resolutions go, beginning anything is a good way, indeed the only way, to make manifest the dreams that Goethe refers to. As for resolutions, a friend asked me on New Year’s Eve if I had made any for 2021. I said that I had not.

Yet.

In return, I asked what hers were.

“Just one”, she said: “Get. It. Done”.

And so, in the spirit of getting it done, on Friday, the first day of January, I am getting my weekly blog done for the seventh time in a row. And you will be the first hundred or so people to know that I intend to write one blog a week for the next twelve months. All of 2021. I’ve said it here. Now I’m committed. I have witnesses. I have friends who will say: “It’s Monday…”, with arched eyebrows and a challenging glint in their erstwhile non-judgmental eyes. I can’t face saying: “Sorry. Not today”.

But beyond wanting to save face, what is my motivation to keep blogging? It is to continue the meaningful dialogues that Thomas Merton claimed are “absolutely essential if one is to remain human”.

COVID has taken much from us. In the macrocosm it has taken lives and livelihoods, devastated industries and brought humanity to its knees. In the microcosm of my small life, it has snatched away blessings and joys that I had long taken for granted: “breaking bread” with friends and family. Shopping maskless-ly for groceries. Strolling, even lingering, in now-verboten public places.

It seems that a reasonable way to compensate for what COVID has taken away is to reach out via the very technology that first intimidated me, and which now allows me to participate in the great global information exchange. And, more importantly, it enables me to do what I set out to do. Continue the conversations I have had — or would like to have — face to face with many of you.

So in the spirit of carrying on where some of us left off, I share my New Year’s dream/wish/hope:

May we all find the fortitude to undertake – and in so doing complete – whatever it is we think we cannot do.

(And that you’ll let me know how it’s going.)

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. (Anaïs Nin)

The other day I walked past a darling little sprout; some unidentified seed had landed in a hole the size of a quarter in the driveway, and there this minuscule speck of potentiality pushed forth three or four bright green leaves that caught my eye via their sharp contrast with the surrounding hardscape. (In all honesty, I can’t imagine it having much of a future.) But the point is, it followed an ancient and irrepressible mandate to bloom where it was planted, or, more aptly, had randomly landed. It did not decide to wait for a better location; more sun, perhaps, or better soil. It grew because that’s what it was programmed in its DNA to do.

As a rule, we humans have more choice about where and how to put down roots. But what are we programmed, in our DNA, to grow into? How do we choose the terrain? If our ideas of who and what we are here to achieve, or be, are seeds, what seeds do we want to cultivate? What ideas of success, achievement, worth and value do we subscribe to? I imagine the latter are arbitrary; different strokes — or seeds, to continue the analogy — for different folks. But I wonder how much thought we really put into what we are doing, where we are going, and why. What influences do conditioning, peer pressure, media and other outside factors have on the roles we are enacting? And if we’re not the authors of the script we are following, who or what is really in control of our lives? Which choices are “freely” made and which are driven by unconscious programs, mechanical habits and unexamined beliefs? What is authentic to me and what is a product of FOMO-esque conformity?

You’ve heard it said (as I quoted a couple of blogs ago) that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. Think about it. Is that true? Is it possible that we have spiritual DNA, too? And if we do, how does that factor into the terrain in which we choose, or are chosen, to “bloom”? How do we know if we have other, soul or spiritual growth goals? Even imperatives? Is it sufficient to have even a vague sense of something greater, higher, deeper or simply “other” than the success stories that we have subscribed to? And what would it mean to commit oneself to this “other” agenda?

I think of the Goethe poem about commitment, in which the famous sage writes that: “the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too”. What does he mean by Providence? If I commit myself to cooperating with my soul journey or purpose, am I in a dance with an invisible partner that some call God, Allah, Jehovah, Zoroaster or a host of other names for “that which goes by no name”? Let’s face it, it’s complicated!

From experience, though, what I know for sure is that when I seek, I find. When I ask, I receive. And when I knock, Providence or whatever you want to call it, responds. And that dialogue, that call-and-response, is what I am drawn, by my soul DNA, to follow.

And you? What are you drawn to? And what’s stopping you from blooming?

“Wherever you go, there you are.” (John Kabat-Zinn)

We had a series of several small earthquakes on Hawaïi island early this morning. Yes, I know. I’m in Hawaïi. Don’t judge me. The quakes were the second set of tremors in less than a week. The newsflash I read, alerted via a text from a friend, said that Kilauea volcano was erupting, yet again. This was accompanied by what could have been stock footage showing fire and brimstone (whatever brimstone is — molten lava perhaps?) and great plumes of smoke billowing into the atmosphere.

Without really thinking about it, I let the next news item load onto my screen and observed scenes of the great white blizzard that has descended on New York City. Two extremes: hot and cold, lava and snow. Both events are apt to cause damage and loss to persons and property. And add two more calamities to the hot mess that is 2020.

But neither of these events are impacting me personally, at least not yet. Certainly I’m not planning to visit the Big Apple any time soon. But it remains to be seen if the VOG that blanketed Hawaïi for months in 2018 will descend on our side of the island once again. Perhaps reversing the exodus of mainlanders intent on evading COVID 19 by making their new home on Hawaïi Island.

In short, there is really nowhere to go that isn’t visited with its own particular problems. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. That is as true of humans as it is of places. Notwithstanding global events of great significance, each of us are confronted with more mundane challenges, inconveniences, difficulties and exasperations on a daily basis. Which is why, when I read the latest updates on Kilauea, the phrase that came to mind was “the wisdom of no escape.”

What IS the wisdom of no escape? What would it be like not to avoid or anesthetize myself from what is coming down the pipe of “everyday life”?

My first thought is to “Be Here Now” as Ram Das would say; anchor myself in the present moment and simply observe the thoughts and sensations passing through my conscious awareness. Where and how can I reasonably hope to contribute? In all honesty, if it weren’t for technology I wouldn’t have a clue about a blizzard inundating New York State. I wouldn’t even know about a volcanoe erupting across the island from me. Do I want to be oblivious to these and other disturbing happenings? No. But do I want to obsess about such uncertainties and inevitabilities? No again.

Where I DO want to focus my attention is on the places and activities in which I, personally, am apt to make the greatest difference. There’s no end of opportunity to improve, or exacerbate the situation in which I find myself. The choice to be part of the problem, or part of the solution, is mine alone. Recently our community chose to hold a Christmas toy drive for under-privileged children living on the island. The response was robust and heartwarming. Seeing the success of this endeavor, a group of teens started a food drive for items that could be funneled to the same, or other families in need. The old adage to “do what you can, with what you have, where you are” is alive and well in my corner of Hawaïi. And this ability to respond to an immediate need is a more powerful agent for change than lamenting how “nothing will ever be the same”, giving up, and citing something “out there” to blame.

So it behooves me to ask: “What can I do to ameliorate or improve the situation in which I find myself?” If each of us were to ask ourselves that, I can imagine an inexorable wave of change gaining momentum day by day by day, making us, and the world we live in, a better place in small but significant ways.

As Gandhi would say: how can I BE the change I wish to see in the world today?

How can you?