Spider Yoga

Spider Woman, by Man Ray

We moved into a new home about a month ago—a home that had sat empty for several years before we showed up. Spiders had decided to take up residence, and we still see a spider somewhere inside our home just about everyday.

When I see a spider, it isn't just a bug to me; I can't help think about the different roles that spiders have played in myths (grandmothers, seductive women, cursed humans, tricksters). I feel a little less powerful (and less mythological—there aren't any stories about me in mythology, are there?) when my path crosses these little guys. Sometimes they get smashed, I have to admit, but I try to let them be, when I can.

The other night a spider joined me for yoga. She had long thread-like legs, and she mostly walked upside-down on the window blinds. I found her to be a very good teacher. She was so graceful and so self-assured. 

So I tried to do spider yoga in her honor. This involved some balancing poses: sun salutations flowing into half-moon pose, warrior three, and extended hand to big toe pose. With my arms and legs splayed out and floating in air, I tried to find the same quiet ease as the spider displayed. For me, this is when yoga is best—I'm not only deepening into my own breath and body, I'm also deepening into the mythological collective. 

Lent and the Conditions for Happiness

by Jose Manuel Ferrater
via Sebastian

We're now in the second week of Lent, for those who are counting. Growing up, I learned that Lent was a time for sacrificing something (usually, something that gave me pleasure, like chocolate) and that somehow my abstaining from a bit of food was like Jesus's temptation in the wilderness.

But since the onset of adulthood, I've found this practice of fasting to be unhelpfully negative. Wouldn't it be better to commit to a positive practice, like an increased regimen of prayer and meditation?

Enter in my latest thoughts on Thich Nhat Hanh and conditions for happiness. Over and over again, he stresses the joy that can be found in the breath, and in simply noticing all that is well with your body. His view is a rather dramatic opposition to figures such as Augustine, who are so sure that the body is the way of sin.

So this Lent, I'm practicing the joy of the body, not in some hedonistic, let's get drunk and have orgies kind of way, but in the simple way of noticing my breath and noticing my body and taking pleasure in that. Will you join me? I think it might prepare us for a fantastic rebirth on Easter.

How to Be a Good Pine Tree

The Last Gleam, by Charles Warren Eaton

Sometimes we just need a simple reminder:

"Imagine a pine tree standing in the yard. If that pine tree were to ask us what it should do, what the maximum is a pine tree can do to help the world, our answer would be very clear: 'You should be a beautiful, healthy pine tree. You help the world by being your best.' That is true for humans also. The basic thing we can do to help the world is to be healthy, solid, loving, and gentle to ourselves. Then when people look at us, they will gain confidence. They will say, 'If she can do that, I can do that too!'

"So anything you do for yourself, you do for the world. Don’t think that you and the world are two separate things. When you breathe in mindfully and gently, when you feel the wonder of being alive, remember that you’re also doing this for the world. Practicing with that kind of insight, you will succeed in helping the world. You don’t even have to wait until tomorrow. You can do it right now, today."

    —excerpt from "Imagine a Pine Tree," an interview with Thich Nhat Hanh, Shambhala Sun, January 2012

Recipe for Transforming Bitterness

Bitterness is a very dangerous sentiment. It can build up quickly until your heart is a pickled, shriveled little thing. It's something I truly fear, so you can imagine how thrilled I was to discover this recipe for transforming bitterness in one of my latest reads.

Excerpt from Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta, by Joris Hoefnagel
via rbs of Zenith

Transforming Bitterness

Ingredients

• bitterness
• pessimistic outlook
• frozen anger

Procedure

1. Settle into your life and the moment. Breathe.
2. Taste the raw ingredients and accept the onslaught of yuck.
3. Combine your life with the lives of others, dogs, flowers, bugs, and moon. It helps to do this with a curious frame of mind.
4. From this creative life energy, open your life to eternal possibility.
5. Your heart should now be a little more springy, like a cake.

Excerpt from Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta, by Joris Hoefnagel
via nends

Thunder Silence

I learned a new word in Japanese: mokurai (黙雷), which is translated as "thunder silence."

Being a quiet person, I love this word, because I feel how active and charged silences can be. Sometimes there's too much to say, and sometimes the other person needs compassionate silence more than words, anyway.

"We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet."

    —"Earth, Fire and Water" from The Celtic Twilight (1893), by William Butler Yeats

Winds from the East, by Stephen Beadles
via Selah, Selah

Touching the Earth

A while back, I listed to Touching the Earth, by Thich Nhat Hahn with Sister Chan Khong. It was a beautiful experience.

What I love is something as simple as bowing and touching your head to the earth can be very transformative, because you invite the transformation that occurs within the earth, from death to life, into your own heart.

New Mexico Triptych, by Frank McColloch

In Chanting from the Heart, Thich Nhat Hahn says that touching the earth "helps us return to the Earth or our roots, and to recognize that we are not alone but connected to a whole stream of spiritual and blood ancestors." By touching the earth, you "breathe in all the strength and stability of the Earth, and breathe out to release your clinging to any suffering."

"Climb Ev'ry Mountain"

When in the mountains (or in any challenging situation), I find the experience becomes more rewarding and significant when I ask myself:

How can I can make this moment into a living prayer?

Suddenly, the fear of falling/failing diminishes. Just concentrating on each step I take, each breath I breathe, I find myself participating more in the beauty of the world. These actions won't solve the evils of the world, but they make me more aware of how I can make a difference.

Photo: my own, taken near Fletcher Mountain, Colorado