Still Sundays

January 30th.

If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the third paragraph. Thanks.

Emotions versus feelings. The circus of stories. Marco Rojas. Friendship upholds certain values.  Do you believe what you write?

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I have been awake for some time this Sunday morning yet I didn’t begin writing till quite late into the light. Later than usual. I am not sure I will make it to yoga this Sunday. Maybe a walk instead? After all, the Sun has graced New York City’s frozen topography.  I must offer my collection to this service. Sun, like love, demands an exchange of energy. Sometimes the only energy we can offer is what we allow ourselves to receive in stillness.

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While waiting for the water to boil for my tea, I realized how very true: the kettle will not blow its whistle that the water is ready until a certain temperature had been reached after a certain time. The recalling of this known fact since the early days of  my science learning was followed by the thought:  we can’t push to arrive at an understanding.

This reminded me something I had read a few years ago. I tried to recall where and finally found the text:

“When a forgotten item is not found, the urge to find it keeps on going subconsciously. As long as a problem is not resolved, it may hang in the mind as ‘unfinished business,’ with an amazing driving power. This mind (I can vouch for it!) does not like unfinished business; it wants order, quietly doing its thing of maintaining life. Presence is order—no searching for anything else is needed.

Not-knowing and not making a story out of what we feel, why we feel that way, noticing how the brain clamors to get involved in an interesting story again: ‘Why is this happening to me? Is it my karma? Why don’t I have more clarity?’  See it and drop it! Notice the resistance to dropping it, because there is a strong urge to live in continued story lines about “me” the enjoyer, the sufferer, the terrific person, or the miserable one. See it and drop whatever comes into view so that the only thing left is just seeing, then dropping, again seeing, dropping….Whatever appears is seen and disappears with the seeing, coming and going, coming and going… ” ~ Toni Packer, The Silent Question

But we like stories. I write them, I tell them, I hear them. What gives: our identity is not just one story.  Therefore, our searching for a small answer or a big explanation  can’t be wrapped in an ever fleeting emotional identity.

Emotions are not necessarily feelings, Marco Rojas likes to point out during yoga. Emotions come and go, feelings can be good guides.

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This last week I ran into three separate strangers who all happened to be photographers! Two even had the same name! What are the chances?!  What does it mean?! There I go looking for a story… I should  just buy a camera; I stopped my exploration of  amateur photography in 2005.

Universe, do I really need another outlet for creative clutter that clogs the flow of my current manuscript? Another detour around the destination for which much has been sacrificed already?

I will wait to explore photography, until then I will continue to create an x-ray of what I see with my words.

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People often ask me what type of yoga Marco Rojas teaches given my thoughts and emotions about what happens during his classes.  I remain speechless to describe this man’s gift. Words continue to fail me to offer proper gratitude to the Universe for blessing me by offering him as a “silent” teacher on many levels.

What I can share is this: yoga is a practice. Most people can’t get the ‘high’ I talk about because they don’t do it consistently. My entire schedule (social, work, writing) revolves around Marco Roja’s classes.

Most people are resistant to the changes that begin inside oneself—what you can eat and how much you can drink—once they begin a consistent yoga practice, only wanting the by-product: a shapely figure, no matter your body type. Eventually, the changes influence your thoughts, feelings, attachments, identities, and to watch yourself dissolve in many ways is unnerving to say the least. Most people don’t want that and if they do they are not willing to put in the effort required.

In art, yoga, relationships, love, writing, you have to bring yourself to yourself on a consistent basis to suck the delicious nectar that can not be available in drive-by attempts.

Self-exploration is not a one time catch for when you are ‘in the mood’ but it is a moment to moment undertaking. This doesn’t mean it lacks humor, fun, joy and is encompassed in dark seriousness, but a commitment to practice has to be made.

Otherwise…it is just a bunch of poses that make you sweat (depending on the type of yoga you are practicing).  Most people want to quit Marco Rojas for the same reason they can’t: freedom. Despite his massive following, there are some who are very critical of him. Biggest complaint: “I just want a great workout, not the ‘stuff‘ that starts happening if you continue to go to him.” Problem: no one offers a better “work out” than Marco Rojas. Not the hot yoga classes, not even ‘Bikram Yoga’ (which is the only type I don’t  consider yoga due to copyright infringement issues among other concerns).

Although there are many other very good instructors, Marco Rojas is not afraid to speak the truth as he understands it through yoga, out loud during yoga.  He is a human phenomenon and anyone not willing to recognize that…

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It was one of my closest friends’ daughter’s fifth birthday yesterday. The daughter is a favorite. I was late to the birthday. Ha! The reality we create to deal with the reality that wasn’t:  I wasn’t late, I missed it entirely. My friend and her family welcomed me with love nonetheless and the daughter and I were still able to connect for a short bit of time. No drama. No guilt.

I see other adults’  “friendships” and it breaks my heart. We consider much enabling which doesn’t allow growth as friendship.  That is not to say I don’t value connections for what they are. I appreciate good energy and allow it to flow in and out of the moment. When I was much younger I used to be embarrassed to share my ‘friendship manifesto’ when another would kindly refer to me as a friend. Grateful to grow up.

I am very blessed to have the friends I do but I am also obnoxiously, compulsively picky, and I compassionately but decisively and consistently nix people out of the zone reserved for “friends”.  Allegiance in friendship is not for friendship’s sake alone, it is a camaraderie that upholds certain values. That is how I function and I make no apologies for it.

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I met someone I didn’t know who went to my website’s homepage right in front of me at our first meeting. I felt no emotional reaction by that gesture and I am still puzzled by this…it will come to me, eventually. There I was and there was this stranger reading my words for the first time right in front of me. Right in the middle of reading my main page this individual looked up, stared at me, and said, “Do you really believe what you write?” My law training required clarification of the question before I committed to an answer: The non-fiction prose? Or the fiction?

The non-fiction.

I didn’t even think and responded: I don’t just believe what I write, I live my words.

I have been dragging that response—I live my words—since Friday night.

To what extent did I mean that? Often people say things, quote things, they aspire towards but are so far from manifesting in every day experience.

In a traditional flying trapeze act, flyers mount a narrow board (usually by climbing a tall ladder), and take off from the board on the fly bar. The flyer must wait for a call from the catcher to make sure he or she leaves at the correct time. My words are my call where I catch myself to fly against gravity.

No, what I had replied instinctively was my truth: I live my words and my perceptive reality becomes distorted and dark when my  actions are misaligned. I am not special; this is true for most, I just happen to know it without a doubt.

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I don’t write linear. My thoughts are never linear. They are simultaneous shooting stars and before I am done looking at one it disappears into an inarticulate memory. Is there a camera or pen to capture feelings, the caviar of shootings stars?

The answer to most questions is love.

I can live with only knowing that much.

A walk is in order, I say, even though the Sun is disappearing already.  The snow has stories that will melt all too soon, despite how unfriendly I find winter, a storyteller has to listen to all seasons.

~a.q.s.

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