Winter Solstice Time

December 19.  Just a day or so from the shortest day of the year, but it warmed up to 60 degrees today with partly sunny skies. 

I went for a run in the afternoon, then decided to take a break and walk up a tributary stream.  Then I saw a plastic bottle on the other side, and crossed on some rocks to pick it up.  The creek had left a plastic bag snagged a couple of feet up on a bush, so I put the bottle and some other litter in it and crossed back over the stream on a large log. 

It was an exceptionally beautiful day.   Winter woods, plenty warm, flowing stream, and leaves underfoot.  Squirrels were plentiful, enjoying the warmth as they scavenged in the leaves.

By the time I came back to the main trail, I had more than a half dozen bottles and some other litter - my small plastic bag was full and I carried a couple of the larger bottles in my hands as I ran home.

This Morning

The sky is gray this morning, after 24 hours of rain that brought over 5.5 inches down from the sky.  The air is full of energy, leaves are dancing.  It's cool, and feels much more like autumn than the middle of summer.

I held onto the tip of a slender branch and felt the pull of the wind as it blew against the leaves, trying to lift the branch up and away from me like a sail filling with air.  The uniform grayness of the sky masked movement in the clouds, until the shifting winds created a thinner layer of cloud and the brightness of the Sun began to glow.  It soon faded, behind thickening grayness.  

A soaring vulture burst into the sky between treetops, riding with the speedy wind, then circling back into the flow and appearing to pause before speeding off downwind. Songbirds flitted from tree to tree, and a squirrel scampered along an oak branch high overhead.

There's so much happening, wonderful things to see and feel, that last just a moment and then they're gone.  Nature is profligate with its riches, and has no attachment to them.  They appear, then they're gone, and then more appear, never the same, always changing.  The ones I see are the only ones I know.  There must be countless more that I miss because my senses and attention are limited.

The only thing I can be sure of is that I cannot predict what may appear, or when.  I can only be present, open to whatever occurs, ready to be surprised and amazed.

Storm Yoga!

The purpose of practice is to cultivate the ability to participate fully in Life.  Mind, body, and breath, the movement of Life itself, are brought together in a unified experience.  You feel the energy of Life flowing in you.  You become intimate with Life.

I was well into the flow of my practice today when the light coming in the windows quickly faded.  I heard the sound of wind in the trees and saw leaves and branches begin to move in the energy of the arriving storm.  The power of the storm called to me.

I paused my practice and went out to stand on the front steps as wind swirled through the treetops and brought a flurry of poplar leaves around me.  Thunder sounded, and a spatter of cool raindrops struck my face and arms.  As the front passed, the wind abated and the rain increased.  I went back inside to continue my practice on the mat, participating in Life as body and breath moved, immersed in the sound of life-giving water flowing down over the plants to the Earth.  

Mark Whitwell says that personal practice should be regular and non-obsessive.  It should help you find intimacy and freedom, not become yet another obsession or attachment.

Today, a few minutes standing out in the energy of the storm, from the same source of energy that flows within me as Life, became a meaningful, special addition to my daily practice.  A gift to me from Nature.

The Leap!

It's a beautiful morning.  The Sun is up in the clear summer sky, angling in over my left shoulder as I walk to the yoga studio.  The energy of life is all around.  The plants are green with full growth, now busy gathering the Sun's energy they need for the year.  Bees, wasps and flies are pollinating flowers, and birds forage and call all around.  The squirrel runs along the utility wire toward me, approaching a moderate sized tree that reaches its branches up towards the wire, but stopping short.  As the squirrel nears the tree it slows, pausing ever so briefly, and then launches into the air, legs and tail spread, arcing in the pull of gravity out and down into the tiny leafy branchlets, where it gains purchase and scrambles into the branches.  The leap, so fearless and natural, a joyous burst of energy, a moment of surrender into the sky by a creature with no doubt of its abilities and with innate knowledge of the world and how it works.

Another sunlit morning, and a female cardinal flies to a branch, sitting and grooming for a bit, feathers fluffed out, revealing a grayish blue undertone beneath the reddish brown outer feathers.  It draws in, exuding alert energy, and then hops up and out, floating briefly in the air before extending wings for a few skillful strokes to glide into another perch.  So free, so confident, so full of grace.

These creatures simply do what they are naturally able to do.  They move, playing with gravity without analysis, without doubt about their abilities, with apparent effortlessness.  I can do that too.  Not by thinking, or learning more, but by trusting myself and what I innately know about the world.  Making the leap, without a doubt.

Spring

after evening shower

fresh air outside -

morning

plants rising up from Earth

leaves facing warm

sunlight

gray forms of clouds, trees and

all solid things -

shadows

unseen but felt, filling

space around me -

air

sunlight on spider webs

soft morning breeze -

birdsong.

The Whole Truth

Searching for something,

 something real, something true.

We look at, listen to, measure, analyze,

 a bit of the universe, and

We think we understand it,

 each little piece.

But something eludes us,

 that whole which is more than the sum of the parts.

Understanding the parts doesn’t 
lead us closer to the whole.

Like a crystal bowl that has been dropped,

 shattered, scattered, and

All we have are the broken pieces.

How can we understand the whole,

 the truth about the crystal bowl?

--

Galen Tromble, November 21, 1990

Disconnecting Your Buttons

Have you had a button pushed lately - someone said or did something that you immediately reacted to with anger?  Feels great, doesn’t it?  If you, like me, find that getting your button pushed ultimately makes you feel miserable and distracts you from the positive things that you really value, then you may want to work on breaking your patterns of reactivity - in essence, disconnecting your buttons.

“Don’t take anything personally.”  This is the second of the Four Agreements outlined by Don Miguel Ruiz in his book, “The Four Agreements.”  Having some person or event reach in and push your button without you being able to stop it is the ultimate of taking it personally.  

How can you begin to work on this?  First, acknowledge that people will do things that are upsetting to you - or at least you have allowed to upset you in the past.  Second, recognize that as righteous as you may feel in your angry and upset response, it isn’t helping you or the other person, and you will often suffer the most by being upset.  Third, practice choosing a different response.  Now, you may wonder how you can choose a different response if your button has already been pushed?  In my experience, you can’t, so you have to be proactive and present.  Let’s take a specific example, that is a common situation for many of us: driving.  

You’re driving in heavy traffic - a stressful environment - perhaps worried about arriving on time, or thinking about what you need to do when you arrive.  You allow a little space to open between you and the car ahead.  Suddenly a car races up alongside and cuts into the space without signalling.  You have to brake to avoid an accident.  Rage button pushed!  At best you’re angry, flushed, wound up in a way that may take hours to subside.  At worst, you may lose control and drive aggressively in an attempt to get back at the other driver and make sure they know you’re angry at what they did.  

Here’s how I have practiced a different response.  I understand that people are often stressed, inconsiderate, in a hurry, and that as I drive I will likely encounter episodes of rude and aggressive behavior that, if I’m not present and proactive, will push my anger button.  I stay alert for situations where it looks like people want to cut in, and I make a conscious decision to create more space for them.  I’m being proactive about creating space, being gracious to them.  I imagine that I have made their life a little better in that moment and I feel happy that I was able to ease some stress in the world.  But really, it’s not about them.  It’s about me.  An act of graciousness preempts a reaction of anger.  I feel good.  

Sure, there are plenty of things that rub me the wrong way - like people who will take advantage of a long merge lane to run up ahead of a line of stalled traffic to push their way in farther up - but reacting to that just ruins my day - it doesn’t affect them.

In short, the way to not get your buttons pressed is to consciously act in ways that negate the reaction before it occurs.  Start with common, impersonal situations like the traffic example, that you’ll get frequent opportunities to practice.  It’s harder in direct interactions with people, and hardest with people you have relationships with.  But once you get started, and you find yourself feeling better and reacting less, you’ll find it becomes easier to be less reactive.  Then, when there is a situation that you need to take a firm stand, you’re calm and in control, and more effective.   

The Truth Game - Ante In

Many of us have encountered bullshit artists. They can be entertaining - for a little while at least - but you know that you can’t trust what they say.  Perhaps there is such a thing as “harmless bullshit.” But when the bullshitter isn’t deterred when confronted with evidence that their statements are untrue, they move from bullshitting to lying.  

“A man is only as good as his word.” There’s a truth to that idea that strikes deep within us. Truthfulness is called for in all great moral and ethical systems that I’m aware of, from the Ten Commandments of the Abrahamic religions to the yamas of yoga.  “Be impeccable with your word,” is how Don Miguel Ruiz put in his book,  “The Four Agreements.”   Who wants to be lied to?  Who trusts a person who lies to them?  Who would put their fate in the hands of someone they couldn’t trust?

How do you separate truth from bullshit from outright lying?  How do you decide if it’s worth your time to listen to someone who is making a statement, asserting that something is true? I suggest thinking of it like a poker game.  If you want to be in the game - you want your statements to be believed - you have to ante in.  In this case, the ante is credible evidence.  If someone wants to claim a statement as fact, ask for the evidence.  If they have no credible evidence, then no seat at the table - they’re not in the game.  Facts get you in the game, unsubstantiated claims do not.

Assume that any statement made without evidence may be either bullshit or a lie.  It’s true that there may be multiple pieces of evidence that aren’t clear or that conflict to some degree.   Then you look further - what is the nature of the evidence?  Is it from a credible source - preferably one without an agenda?  If you follow the trail back do you find solid ground, objectivity?  

Claims without evidence may just be bullshit.  Claims that contradict the objective evidence are lies. Sometimes people make statements that aren’t true, and we let it slide as bullshit because they weren’t aware of the available evidence.  But when someone is in a position of authority, it’s fair to hold them responsible from the very beginning.  They’re in a position where it’s their responsibility to know.  In this case there’s no free pass to consider a false statement as simple bullshit if there is readily available evidence available to the contrary.  It’s not just bullshit, and it’s not an alternate fact.  It’s just a lie, plain and simple.  

When someone has a track record of being truthful, it is natural to trust that the next thing they tell you is true.  But when someone has a track record of consistent bullshit or lies, the presumption shifts.  The proper perspective is to assume that the statement is likely false, and insist that they demonstrate its truthfulness by presenting credible evidence.

I can respect someone I disagree with, but I can’t respect someone who has no respect for truth - who doesn’t respect me enough to be honest with me.  

I'm Sorry

I heard a cardinal singing in the yard this morning.  It seems early, but the increasing sunlight and warmer temperature today inspired him to call out his territorial claim.  Looking out the front window, I saw a mockingbird, a starling and a pair of robins.  In the early afternoon I set out for a walk in the park, intending to follow the hillside downstream, staying off of the main path.  But as I entered the park, I saw red and white plastic in the little stream to the left.

I walked across the ivy covered ground and carefully down the rip-rap rocks.  I looked for secure footing on the rocks, and thought that my yoga practice served me well, keeping my 60 year old body in shape for taking a wide stance on some rocks and bending down to pick up a plastic bag.  Just a couple of steps later my left foot slipped off its rock.  I had a quick flash of worry about falling on the rocks, but instincts were in charge and my balance was good enough.  I ended up standing in about six inches of water, upright, but with wet, cold feet.

I made my way a little farther downstream, picking up several bottles for my recycle bag.  I needed to get rid of the several other pieces of trash I'd found, so I climbed out of the creek bed and walked down to the nearest trash bin.  Then I went back to the stream to see if there were more bottles.

In the park, the stream tries to hold onto its original character as a pretty forest stream.  It used to flow from about Georgia Avenue a mile to the south, but developers turned it from a stream into a storm sewer, burying the pretty meandering creek beneath a layer of asphalt, hidden until it exits a culvert at the end of Edgevale Rd and flows in its own stream bed down to Sligo Creek.  Where the water flows, it looks fresh and clear.  But in the still pools there's an oily grayness and odor, from the vehicle residues that accumulate on the roads and wash downstream with each storm.

As I made my way upstream, finding more plastic bottles, Red Bull cans, and other refuse, I startled a pair of mallards that had stopped in the stream for a rest.  They flew a little ways upstream and settled in again.  It saddened me that they had to swim in the gray, oil stained water, instead of a clear, flowing stream.  

This little tributary of Sligo Creek is no different than dozens of others.  The watershed paved over, the streams confined to underground pipes that carry the oily waste and litter of us - who, no longer blessed with the beauty of a flowing natural stream, forget that it every existed and give no thought to the impact downstream of what we throw away.

To the pair of mallards:  I'm sorry that I disturbed you, and I'm sorry that we didn't give you a clean, healthy stream to rest in.  I hope you find better on your journey.

Helter Skelter Genes

We see the world from the perspective of our individuality.  We celebrate the years of our life, and mark the presence of a person from their birth to their death.  But we're each just a bubble that rises out of the vast pool of life, organizing matter into our individual form for a few years before giving way to time.  We are each a living thing, and we share certain qualities with other living things.  The mechanisms of our existence, the genetic material and biochemical processes that construct and sustain us, are common to almost all life.  Every individual life ends, but life continues.

We value ourselves so highly.  Would each of us not like to think that we had the ideal genes - the best genes to thrive in our environment?  And yet, the way life works, even the most perfectly adapted individual will die, and if they procreate, their genes will be diluted by half, perhaps for the better, but more likely for the worse.  Why does the sexual strategy rip apart even a successful combination of genes and roll the dice for the next generation?

I was reminded of Thoreau writing in Walden, about his observation of a red squirrel in winter, approaching a feast of corn ears Thoreau had laid out.  In the snowy carpet of winter, the dark-coated squirrel is much easier to see than in other seasons.  He wrote:

"One would approach, at first warily, through the shrub oaks, running over the snow crust by fits and starts like a leaf blown by the wind, now a few paces this way, with wonderful speed and waste of energy, making inconceivable haste with his 'trotters," as if it were for a wager, and now as many paces that way, but never getting on more than half a rod at a time; and then suddenly pausing with a ludicrous expression and a gratuitous somerset, as if all the eyes in the universe were fixed on him..."

And perhaps they are - the eyes of the hawk, the owl, the fox.  The strategy of rapid, helter-skelter  movements is programmed into the squirrel's being, the unpredictability making survival a bit more likely.

Our genes are a program to create an individual being, one of whose functions is to pass the genes on to the next generation of life.  It is key that the individual be successful at procreating, but the sexual strategy hedges its bets.  Like the squirrel darting either left or right, our strategy sends a random half of our genes forward into the next round.  Even the genes of the most perfect individual are, heading to the next generation, divided, shuffled, and combined with the equal contribution of the mate.  A darting, helter-skelter strategy to create a new individual, perhaps with a fortuitous genetic makeup that proves fit for the environment of its life.