Standing Firm on Sacred Ground

I returned home late yesterday afternoon having spent Wednesday through Sunday in Dallas and Irving.  I attended a great workshop hosted by the BKS Iyengar Yoga Studio of Dallas and conducted by Mary Obendorfer and Eddy Marks, senior Iyengar teachers.  Conjunction in Yoga: Compactness, The Deeper Meaning of Compactness.  I learned a lot and achieved a deepness in poses I have never before known.  It always amazes how much knowledge senior, experienced teachers have to impart as well as how very much work there is for me to do. 

I stayed with a gentleman in Irving who hosted me and that was truly an enriching experience.  He's a teacher and a member of the Turtle Creek Chorale, raised three children on his own as a single parent, and is now living alone in a small house with three dogs.  The house is in quite a state of disrepair and was, in areas, quite dirty.  Like so many Americans, he has fallen victim of the obesity epidemic and battles a wide range of problems, including diabetes.  He works hard and is gone much of the time.  In the meanwhile, his three dogs stay crated in the living room, so, needless to say, they were quite happy to have my company and freedom from their crates.  One of the dogs is a Shiba Inu and extraordinarily handsome and bright.  I totally fell in love with him.  We played, went on long walks, he lay down next to me on his back and let me rub his tummy.  He captured my heart with the way he stared at me and behaved towards me.  I would love to offer him a home out here but I don't think that will happen.  But I wish it so.  I have already contacted the Shiba Inu Rescue Society to see if perhaps I might find a Shiba that needs a home. 

I ran a few errands this afternoon after unpacking and washing clothes.  At the grocery store I got in line behind a woman who was having quite a conversation with the cashier, but it didn't bother me at all.  I knew the talk was slowing things down, but so what?  I had nowhere to go and practicing patience is always good.   Then the woman told me that she was so very sorry, but that all her groceries had to be rescanned!  I had never heard of that.  I smiled and practiced.  When it came time for me to be checked out, the cashier was very apologetic, told me the woman was a friend, and her daughter had been in an accident and was still in the hospital two months later having suffered severe head trauma and brain damage.  I was touched, and told her it was so good of her to listen and be there for her friend, that often we need to just listen to people and that in itself can be healing.  She looked at me oddly, checked me out, and said, your total is $$ Mr. Kind Gentleman, and again she apologized.  I told her she had nothing to apologize about, she had done a really good thing and I appreciated what she had done.  She was so stunned she started crying.  Then I could feel my eyes watering.  It was a sacred moment.  We were standing on holy ground in those moments, in the grocery check out line at HEB.  There was a moment of transcendence, of a blissful connectedness, a deep understanding, not a lot different from the way I feel when I practice Maha Mudra or contemplate the inquisitive eyes of a Shiba Inu calmly staring into mine.   

I am wondering if it is possible to find that inner peace when dealing with someone who is angry or bitter or very much on the offensive?  Maybe, but I'm not sure I will ever arrive there.  I haven't talked to one of my sisters in a very long while, and I called her tonight and within no more than five minutes she slammed the phone down, leaving me clueless as to the source of her anger.  It has nothing to do with me.  I think this can be a very important mantra, as well as "there is nothing I can do to change this" other than "be an example."  I suppose one can rest calmly in seeing clearly, acting mindfully, being truthful, and staying present.  The yamas and niyamas are the foundation of yoga, and when we let them guide us we can acquire a firmness to stand on shaky ground and be okay with it all, and in doing so set forth an example for ourselves as well as others. 

Ileus

It began on Saturday.  I got up at my usual 5:30 a.m., had coffee and a banana then headed to Peggy's 8:00 a.m. yoga class.  I packed my usual breakfast to eat after class, meeting up with my friend and house guest Daryl, who taught some five or six asanas during the 8:00 a.m. Saturday class.  We walked over to Starbucks where I bought some organic milk to add to my dry cereal concoction I eat most mornings along with a couple of small oranges.  I indulged and had a third cup of coffee for the day.  After a leisurely breakfast, we met at Peggy's home studio as volunteer students for Thecla who is going up for assessment soon.  At 1:00 p.m. I headed home, becoming more aware that something was not at all right with my upper abdominal regional.  It felt unusually full, even though I had eaten nothing unusual much less over indulged in anything (except the extra cup of coffee, which wasn't really that unusual).  By the time I got home my pain was increasing, slowly but surely.  I looked in the mirror and could see that my stomach was greatly distended.  I had a light lunch then decided to rest.  When I got up a short while later my stomach pain had increased dramatically.  I did some research on the internet on bloating, distension, constipation, blockage.  Apparently people experience these things all the time.   Just give it some time.  Stay calm.  Eat lightly.  Drink lots of water.  By early evening my pain was becoming unbearable, and by bedtime I could barely stand up straight.  Bent over in pain, I fell on to my bed and realized I was at the point where I was pretty close to not being able to function.  I felt I might throw up.  With help, I reached my doctor and he suggested I get myself to the nearest emergency room, which I did.  By the time I got there the pain was pretty disabling and my thinking was clouded.  I was quickly assessed and given a powerful narcotic, intravenously, which helped but also made me extremely drowsy.  I was given a cat scan and was told there was blockage and that surgery was a real possibility.  They booked me a room in the hospital and said they would talk with me the following morning.  The doctor told me I had ileus--a non mechanical blockage of the upper or lower abdomen.  Basically, paralysis sets in and nothing moves, at all.  There are a multitude of reasons this can happen.  He said he would order up some medication that would totally wash out my system.  Since I've had several colonoscopies I am familiar with this process of quick cleansing.  I drank the bottle of medication and nothing happened.  The nursing staff was small, only two people and the hospital wing was essentially deserted.  The narcotic, which had been administered a couple of more times kept me deeply drowsy.  I decided to get up and walk the halls pulling along my IV stand.  My stomach still hurt but had lessened.  After about 4 hours with no cleansing taking place whatsoever, I asked what was going on.  Could they give me something else or more of the same.  No one seemed to know what they were doing.  No doctors around.  I had a splitting headache and had asked three time for something for that and got nothing. I finally decided I was simply going to check myself out of that place and go home, which I did, after signing a statement that I was leaving without medical authorization.  I got home and felt better.  I'm still not back to normal, but my research has helped.  I called my gastroenterologist and he is going to get the cat scan results and give me a call back, hopefully tomorrow, and we will take it from there. One never knows when the strangest of things may suddenly happen. 

It is now four days later and I'm doing much better but still weak.  Nearly all the pain has gone as well as the distension.  I have thoroughly flushed my system and everything seems to be working again.  My gastroenterologist cannot see me for 2 months, so he must not think there is much to worry about.  I'm going to do a spring cleanse, in all probability I will use the one from Peggy's book.  Each time I've done a cleanse I feel so revitalized and refreshed.  I'd like to start now, but by the time I gather up everything I need it will be time to depart for Dallas, which is followed very soon thereafter by another workshop. 

I am diving into Light on Pranayama by B.K.S. Iyengar.  I feel inspired.  There are times when I forget that in many ways life hangs by a fragile thread--even a breath--and there are countless obstacles and mysteries we will encounter whose meaning we may never understand.  Just knowing that, is, in itself, understanding.  For whatever reasons, aspects of ourselves may become stuck, or paralyzed, but we must keep moving even deeper into those places where we get stuck, literally and figuratively. 
 

Trusting the Power of Our Hard Earned Truths

Today is one of those days when I feel the deepest possible sense of gratitude for my life--my wonderful long time partner, his family which consists of his brother, his nephew and his wife and their two daughters.  My small circle of friends composed of people that are kind, gentle, loving, and working hard at facing life with as much guidance, courage, discernment, and wonder that they can muster, day by day.  My yoga community.  What can I say?  They are a huge part of my life, of who I am, who I want to be.  They are a diverse crew of sadhakas (aspirants).  I cannot imagine a more wondrous group of people to associate with.  So many of us are traveling on the same road, reaching out for similar goals, doing our best to be real and authentic, working hard at finding answers.  We are students of life with voracious appetites.  We want to do and be our very best to ourselves and to others, we want to always be evolving and growing in ways that are of as much benefit to ourselves and others as we are capable of.  We try to live from the center of our hearts.  I am so often in awe at the accomplishments I regularly witness, the wisdom I see imparted and shared, the courage to move into those places of vulnerability for the sake of growth and learning.   It is truly amazing and I am wonder struck.

The protagonist in Wally Lamb's novel "I Know This Much is True," has a recurring fantasy that begins in his early childhood and continues throughout his adulthood.  Because he doesn't know who his real father is, and his mother takes this secret to her grave with little to no chance he will ever find out, he fills this void imagining who his father might be--his stepfather, the priest, the neighbor next door, a long lost uncle, a school teacher, possibly even his own grandfather.  Although the main character, Domenick, does have a step-father who is present throughout most of his life, including his childhood, there is much lacking in the father to son relationship in terms of love, nurturing, caring, understanding.  The step-father is quite the brute and makes life, at times, a living hell.  All of this got me thinking about a recurring fantasy I've had for much of my life, since earliest childhood.  It is a fantasy that serves to fill a void, to compensate for those wants and needs and desires that didn't get met when, ideally, they should have.  There can be within us a deep longing that we may not fully understand, and during reveries or certain quiet moments (or even chaotic ones) we give free reign to our imaginations to help us feed this desire within us, this craving inside that just won't go away.  But I think such fantasies tell us more about ourselves and who we are than we may realize,  perhaps not a lot different from the way our subconscious mind integrates, assimilates, and resolves  the conflicts, confusions, and paradoxes of daily life through the dreaming process.   Granted, much of this is mind chatter and doesn't accomplish much at all unless we pay close attention and study ourselves astutely.  My recurring fantasy was composed of several aspects:  I wanted to be rich, I wanted a horse, and I wanted a brother.  These fantasies filled my voids, my places of emptiness, my places of deep inner longing.  I think I created these myths because I was an extremely withdrawn, lonely child.  I'm not sure why, but I hated being lower middle class and thought that if I had been born into a wealthy family things would be perfect.  I now know that is definitely not true.  When I was a teenager I got a horse from my step-father who let me keep him for a 2 year period before he was taken away.  I still love horses but something within was deeply satisfied in having that relationship with that horse.  My half-brother was born when I was 16 years old.  I changed his diapers, spent a great of time with him, worked especially hard at giving him plenty of space to talk when an early sign of stuttering first appeared, then subsequently disappeared.  I have many fond memories of him.  I was out living on my own by the time he started first grade so I was absent for much of his formative years.  I know things were very difficult for him.  For the past couple of decades or so, my relationship with my brother has been strained and constricted, and seems only to grow worse.  He is an angry man, filled with bitterness and resentment, he is mean-spirited and downright hateful and sarcastic to me nearly every time I have an encounter with him.  His anger is never based on anything that I can identify as being remotely real or germane to the situation at hand, but rather the residual pain of countless issues he has never faced or dealt with in a healthy, productive manner.  Out of the blue, it seems, I'll get a call from him and the next thing I know he is ranting and raving about something he thinks I've done that he finds deeply offensive which I can only attribute to a paranoid mind that I simply cannot identify with.  By the time he gets finished, I feel as though someone has shot me with a gun.  Verbal attacks can really cut to the quick when they come from someone you are related to, someone who is a member of your family, the brother I always wanted and longed for.  I find myself pulling on every fiber of my being to stay calm, to stay non-reactive, to try to bring the conversation back to the "business at hand".  It is extraordinarily disruptive and hurtful.  I am left feeling stunned.  Where does this nonsensical hostility come from?  It is very sad to witness such anger, such bitterness, such combativeness--and it is aimed at me just as surely as one would aim a gun at someone to shoot them dead.  Yes, it is pretty scary.  It certainly lets me know that I have work to do in learning to not let such confrontations linger too long with me, and I need to learn to not replay them over and over in my mind.  What does work is this:  listen to my heart and know what is truth and what is not.  Be compassionate and understanding.  Stand my ground and put into practice everything I have learned about assertiveness, appropriateness, truthfulness.  It is very difficult.  My heart races and the retaliatory impulse wants to rear up and strike back, but I do not allow that.  Everything I have ever learned tells me that not only does my brother's behavior have nothing to do with me, but I am helpless to do anything about it.  Life can be messy, and we are asked over and over again to deal with it, like it or not. 

In "I Know This Much is True," the protagonist has a twin brother who suffers from disabling schizophrenia and for much of his life Domenick feels the need to take care of his deeply troubled brother.  In the end, there is really nothing he can do to change his brother.  In some ways his twin is another aspect of himself and he is forced to deal with some of life's most difficult issues.  I understand this.   

It is now time for me to allow my reactive anger to dissipate, to acknowledge all my emotional responses, feel them, and let them pass.  Sometimes letting go is the hardest thing to do, but also the thing that serves us best.   

Diving and Breathing Into Darkness

I had a dream that left an imprint I cannot readily get out of my mind.  Another imprint I can't seem to get away from (a good thing) is something Anne said to me, albeit indirectly:  "I find it interesting when I observe people being dismissive of their gifts."  The reason this resonates so loudly with me is because of the truth in it, because I am dismissive of my gifts on many levels.  That's a pretty profound realization.  In fact, it stops me dead and breathless in my tracks.  This is something to ponder long and hard.  In the dream one of my cats, Misty, jumped into a quiet, still lake and swam to shore.  In the dream I was both disturbed and fascinated as I watched her struggling to reach the shore, which she did, none the worse for wear.  For some reason I felt inclined to do the same, so I dived deep into the dark stillness of the water and discovered I had gone so deep that I couldn't reach the surface in time to catch a breath of oxygen, and I gasped for breath deeply while underwater and came to wakefulness.

Misty sleeps with me most nights.  She showed up one day a couple of years ago and I started feeding her.  She was meaner than hell.  In spite of feeding her and attempting to pet her, she scratched me viciously on several occasions, sometimes unprovoked when I would simply walk past her.  These bloody scratches fascinated me and scared me.  Clearly she had been abused by someone.  She was not wild.  In fact when I took her to the vet to get fixed, that had already been done.  Since then she has undergone a profound transformation because I have loved her, been gentle with her, never chastising her for her viciousness to me or the other cats.  I can tell that she simply cannot help herself.  The look in her eyes is one of terror when she strikes out.  She clearly expects retaliation, but doesn't receive it.  She never does that anymore.  She purrs contentedly and craves affection.  She is gentle and loving and gets along well now with the other cats.  She is still fiercely independent, she is still Misty, but the transformation has been miraculous.

In the dream, before diving into the water, I saw a school of eels swimming many feet below the surface.  They are slippery creatures, phallic, powerful, elusive. 

Spiritual, baptismal purification, diving deep into still waters is but one metaphor one encounters on the path to self-discovery.  We dive deep.  We have both feminine (cat)  and masculine (eel) energies at work, both at the surface and at deeper levels, skin to bone, outer to inner, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes not.  Taking the plunge and striving to reach the shore of Self.  There is an expansive emptiness that can be found right behind the heart.  Some consider this the seat of the soul, or true intelligence.   In pranayama practice Patricia encouraged us to go there, to breathe deeply into that empty space behind the heart where our deeper, truer selves reside.  Going through the sheaths, diving deep, breathing deeply and slowly, stopping the thoughts, discovering that there is so much more to who we are, more than our thinking mind.  Our breath can take us there, but it cannot be rushed.  It is all slow.  It is most sacred.  When we dismiss our gifts, our discoveries, our evolution, we are slapping ourselves with a denial of truth.  There is balance in all things.  There are moments of intense realization.  There can be gasping but that is part of the journey.  I bow to all the women and men in my life who have been such Teachers to me.  I bow to that in me that gives nurturing love to others, unconditionally, whether it be a person, myself,  or a stray cat that I adopt and love with all my heart.  It doesn't matter why I can do padmasana, it is an easy pose for me, just as importantly, it doesn't matter than I cannot do Hanumanasna.  But I will keep trying and I will keep diving into the emptiness in search of meaning, and I will keep trying, I pray, to reach the shore, to never stop diving, swimming and moving into those unknown places of such rich, fertile energy and discovery.

A Stand of Trees Gather, Growing Deep and Tall

I think it unlikely I'll ever be able to translate into words the many deep, meaningful        experiences that occurred at Gather at the River Yoga Retreat at St. Joseph's Abbey.  After five days of yoga, I do recall that time stood still and the retreat was over just as quickly as it had begun.  It is easy to remember the more surface events that took place, but so much was happening at a level deeper than I am routinely accustomed to, that I cannot readily access that from my everyday conscious mind.  I do believe there are deep imprints and absorptions still taking place.  I know I have much work to do.  I know I feel deeply humbled and so very alive.  However, there are those lighter experiences which I hope to put into words so I can revisit them and remember what a profound, extraordinary experience I had, so here goes and I hold no hope that I will succeed:

K was asked to demonstrate ardha chandrasana because Patricia had noticed how correct alignment was not being achieved by many of us.  K was surrounded by the entire group and from trikonasana began moving into ardha chandrasana.  It was quite a struggle, she lost balance, she fell out of the pose many times before she came close to achieving the pose, yet her face remained calm while her body struggled.  Her hands were shaking.  I found it quite painful to watch because I could see myself reflected in all her actions.  I had tremendous admiration for her perseverance as her achievement of the asana came slowly.  It seemed clear to me that what was far more important than achieving perfection in the asana was the steadfastness to keep at it, and keep at it calmly, and keep at it she did with extraordinary patience and calm.  Patricia told us that tall people had much difficulty with this pose.  We were instructed to return to our mat and move into the pose.  I went up into the pose with a lightness and balance I have never before experienced, and I stayed and stayed and felt I could stay forever although I'm sure it was only seconds.  The same thing happened on the other leg.  I was beyond astonished.  How could I do this with such ease and for me, seeming perfection?  Something deep inside exploded in the region of my heart and the tears came flowing out.  I wanted to stay with this, but the class was moving onward.  I wanted to leave the room and process this, but I needed to also move onward and beyond this powerful experience erupting from deep within.  I motioned to Theresa to please bring me some tissues to take care of the fluid flowing out of my nose and 10 minutes later I had fully "recovered", knowing I would return to those feelings later, again and again.  When we have those moments when we realize we have a vastness within us beyond full understanding, all contained within this embodiment surrounded by this single organ known as the skin, a vastness rarely glimpsed (by me, that is), we want to just sit and stay with it.  What I need to learn is that just maybe I can go there through a far more disciplined pranayama and meditation practice than I currently have going.  



During our first daily afternoon circle which began forming before I had an inkling as to what we were doing, I found I was the odd man out with nowhere to go and sit as the circle rapidly formed and closed.  When Patricia motioned to me to come sit in the space immediately next to her, I must admit that I was both delighted and puzzled.  Just maybe she kind of, sort of, liked me.  Maybe not.  I don't know (yes I do).  We read out loud from the Tree of Life by Iyengar, beginning with the person to Patricia's left and moving clockwise.  I quickly realized it was highly unlikely I would get to read because we were asked to take the same position every day, and I would be the very last to read.  I was both relieved and disappointed.  I wanted the opportunity to read, it would be an easy way to participate as I would merely be a medium for the words on the page. Gotta find that beginning.  Much later, when we were gathered around Patricia she decided to find a passage from Light on Pranayama.  She asked for a volunteer and the response was total silence.  I was thinking how much I would enjoy reading but I was frozen in silence.  She looked at me and said "okay" and handed me the book.  Such phenomena occurred often at the retreat.  It was magical, mystical, ecstatic, tense, hard, scary, and a whole slew of other feelings and thoughts that compel us to move towards inner growth and healing.     

I was attempting to do parsva sirsasana when Patricia told me to come down and go to the wall.  At another time during sirsasana, she asked me if I thought my legs were moving more towards her or away from her.  I "guessed" wrongly and she came over and adjusted me.  Later, she was trying to remember whose feet were going too far behind them, "which she said was not the most common misalignment", so I confessed that it was me.  Go up, she said.  We were in a wide circle with a mat in the center of the room, surrounded by a great deal of empty space.  I immediately said, "oh no. Please."  Then in an instant I said okay and went to the mat.  So glad I did that.  My ego still intrudes and tries to lead me in the wrong direction, but this time, at least, I crossed over the bridge into discomfort, which is of course nearly always a place of discovery.

Many years ago (1991) when my partner and I were taking a driving tour of the south, I froze with fear when I saw the bridge crossing the Mississippi river into Baton Rouge come into sight.  It looked massive and foreboding.  I stopped the car in the middle of the road and declared "I cannot drive across this bridge".  Cars were honking and angrily moving past our stopped car.  I was shaking, my palms were perspiring, my heart racing, I felt faint and sick.  My partner took over driving and I begged that he not exceed 20 mph.  I held on for dear life, thinking that a breath of wind was going to send us flying over the bridge, into the depths of darkness, into the unknown, into death.  It was a full-blown panic.  On this trip to the Abbey as we approached this very same bridge I told this story to Eric, and continued to drive across the bridge with complete calm.  It was an easy crossing, and there was no small amount of rejoicing and gratitude going on inside of me.  Here they come again as I write, those tears of joy, of sorrow, of empathy, of gratitude, of recognition of the vastness within me, within you, within each and every one of us, the limitlessness of moving onward into the light and into the darkness.   

Stories That Teach and Heal

Last night during yoga practice, while in sirsasana attempting to rotate the left side of my hip towards the teacher standing in front of me, I lost, completely, my sense of direction without knowing it or feeling it.  Each time I would make the rotation asked of me, I would move in the opposite direction.  I felt a slight defense mechanism kick in, a mild sense of defiance. Surely I was doing it right and the teacher was wrong.  How could I not "get it?"   There is a simple fix to this and I came home and did it in front of a mirror and could clearly see how I was rotating in the opposite direction asked of me.  I can be my own worse critic.  I can take things personal when they are not meant to be.  (Even if someone does attack us personally, it rarely has anything to do with us and everything to do with them.)  The only one "attacking" me, was, of course,  me.  So what is the lesson in all this?  Many.  Don't take things personally.  Don't criticize yourself for not being able to do something that doesn't much matter more than a hill of beans.  Be patient and kind towards yourself, always.  Probe, plumb the depths.  As always, my hypersensitivity comes from a deep longing to be loved and accepted, and often I think that is not happening because of a deep sense of feeling unworthy of love and acceptance.  My issue, totally.  My story.  My history.  It always comes back to the basics.  Learning to listen to our own stories, learning to tell our own stories as well as learning to listen to the stories of others, results in learning, growth, wisdom.  When those feeling arise, stay with them.  (Also, don't drive.  After class, I knocked over the entry gate post--metal and set in concrete--and did a hell of a lot of damage to my car because I was so caught up in processing this and not focused on driving).

In Kitchen Table Wisdom, Rachel Naomi Remen writes:  "Everybody is a story...The more we listen, the clearer that Story becomes.  The wisdom in the story of the most educated and powerful person is often not greater than the wisdom in the story of a child, and the life of a child can teach us as much as the life of a sage...Hidden in all stories is the One story...Our true identity, who we are, why we are here, what sustains us is in this (our) story.  The stories are about the same things, stories of owning, having and losing, stories of sex, of power, of pain, of wounding, of courage, hope, and healing, of loneliness and the end of loneliness.  Stories about God.  In telling them, we are telling each other the human story.  Stories that touch us in this place of common humanness awaken us and weave us together as a family once again. These are stories about who we are, not what we have done." 

I think this is so very important.  When we get hooked into those moments where we buy into the voice that says we are not worthy of love, we suddenly find ourselves moving away from our real, authentic self and buying into the falsehoods we have spent years trying to unlearn.  This is all okay, just have an awareness of what is happening.  One method is to acknowledge that you are aware of what is going on, congratulate yourself for having this awareness, take three deep breaths, then think of things that are healing, move towards thoughts and feelings that run counter, or opposite, to this "wrong" thinking. (Ana Forrest). 

It often comes back to the basics, no matter how lofty our thoughts, no matter what great strides of accomplishment we make, no matter our social or economic standing, it always comes down to the basics of each and every one of us being human, and finding that and connecting.  Staying real, staying true, finding the authenticity, and going to battle against the stories that teach us the wrong things.  It is through these very stories, these life experiences, that we learn and grow, fall down and get up, sometimes it feels like little more than putting one foot in front of the other, over and over again.  But, as Hanuman showed, putting one foot in front of the other may be one enormous leap, whether we realize it or not. 

Strange Fruit

Yesterday while standing in line at the post office to pick up a package I overheard a customer loudly refer to his employees as wetbacks.  The postal worker he was talking to looked at me wide mouthed, to which I responded by shaking my head.  The elderly white haired man looked at me and said, "Would you prefer that I use the word illegal immigrant?"  My only response was "the word you used is very derogatory."  "Tough shit," he said, "that's just the way it is."  I left.  Then I got mad.  I called the Postmaster.  He had heard all about the incident--in fact, all this occurred while he was retrieving my package--and had every intention of taking some kind of action.  "I cannot believe in 2013 we still have that kind of bigotry, I don't want to hear it, my customers don't want to hear it, and I don't want my sons to hear it, and I'm sorry you had to hear it." 


After seeing a photograph of a lynching and haunted by the image for days, Abel Meeropol--husband, father, poet, social activist--wrote the following poem which he also set to music and which was later made famous by Billie Holiday:

     Strange Fruit

     Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
     Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
     Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
     Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

     Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
     The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
     Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
     And the sudden smell of burning flesh!

     Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
     For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
     For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop.
     Here is a strange and bitter crop.

This same man later adopted the two sons of the Rosenbergs who were found guilty of treason and executed for conspiracy of passing information to the Russians.  At that time, the 40's and 50's, many Americans who joined the Communist Party were pioneers in the civil rights movement. 

Why is it so very difficult to do unto others as you would have them do unto you?

Who hangs from yonder passion tree?
Your son, dear Mother
Do you not know me?

"The Latin root of religion--relegere--means to be aware, and absolute awareness will never perceive difference or conflict." 

"...dharma is rather about the search for enduring ethical principles, about the cultivation of right behavior in physical, moral, mental, psychological, and spiritual dimensions.  This behavior must always relate to the growth of the individual with the goal of realizing the Soul.  If it does not, if it is culturally limited or warped, then it falls short of the definition of dharma.  Sadhana, the practitioner's inward journey, admits of no barriers between individual, cultures, races, or creeds."  B.K.S. Iyengar

And so.