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. 

Admiring: A Woman Who Lived in Her Own Time

Tasha Tudor
(from Miss Moss)

I remember first learning about Tasha Tudor through some TV show, which is somewhat ironic considering she lived such an un-modern life. I remember watching the show, though, and thinking that such a woman couldn't be real, that no one would have the courage or the determination to live life so fully on her own terms. 

I read that she believed she was a re-incarnation of a sea captain's wife, and that this belief somewhat fed her determination to live the way she did. (Was this sea captain her muse and her animus?) She lived in a house without running water or electricity, raised her children and goats and cows and corgis, made candles, baked, gardened, and wrote and illustrated over one hundred books. 

Taking my inspiration a bit from Tasha, I'll be posting less regularly for a while. I need to live in my own time, and not in the time of my computer.

Postmodern Hymn: God Above

"God Above," by John Fullbright is a song that gives me goosebumps. I watch him sing it, and the song looks like a revelation, the way his fingers, mouth, and his whole body work together to create those notes. Then there are the lyrics, which for me, point to the troubles that can come from a theology of omnipotence. Why does God allow feebleness, sin, and evil? 

For one meditation on this question, I suggest the first few chapters of Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes, by Charles Hartshorne, which offers helpful alternative perspectives to the traditional Christian theology.

"Omnipotence as usually conceived is a false or indeed absurd ideal, which in truth limits God, denies to him any world worth talking about: a world of living, that is to say, significantly decision-making agents. It is the tradition which did indeed terribly limit divine power, the power to foster creativity even in the least of  the creatures. . . . The only livable doctrine of divine power is that it influences all that happens but determines nothing in its concrete particularity."

    —from Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes, by Charles Hartshorne

6: Strength and Efficiency

Honey Comb Patch, by Field Day

It's time for the sixth installment of the number series based on The Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe by Michael Schneider. 

The beauty of hexagons comes in their efficient use of space and their strength. Like circles, hexagons have a low perimeter to surface area ratio; like triangles, hexagons are strong and distribute weight efficiently. Bees build their hives in a hexagonal pattern and reap the benefits: "a mere one and one-half ounces of wax holds four pounds of honey," says Schneider.

We use the phrase "busy as a bee," but thinking about how efficient beehives are, I'm wanting to imitate bees in other ways. (And I'll be looking at my "altar to beautiful necessity," which includes a bit of beehive I found, in a new way, too.) Rather than be busy, how can I be efficient? How can I build something beautiful and strong? How can I cram as much sweetness as I can into my life?

Love Moves Us All

Marine bleue, Effet de vagues, by Georges Lacombe

I've been doing some house cleaning, and I came across an old program from a concert of classical music and poetry readings by Robert Pinsky. Flipping through the poems, I noticed several had stars marked next to them. This is one of them: 

As when far off in the middle of the ocean

A breast-shaped curve of wave begins to whiten

And rise above the surgace, then rolling on

Gathers and gathers until is reaches land

Huge as amountain and crashes among the rocks

With a prodigious roar, and what was deep

Comes churning up from the bottom in mighty swirls 

Of sunken sand and living things and water—

So in the springtime every race of people

And all the creatures on earth or in the water,

Wild animals and flocks and all the birds

In all their painted colors, all rush to charge

Into the fire that burns them: love moves them all.

    —"The Wave," from Georgics, book III, by Virgil, translated by Robert Pinsky

Love Creates Universes

My Universe, by Rob Ryan

A totally personal post: Today makes three years since I married my husband. It blows my mind how our love has created new universe, a totally new reality.

Food for the Soul: Black Beans and Bananas

from Be Here Now, by Ram Dass
via Good Rhythms

Here's another dish that comes from Jacques Pepin: black beans with bananas. The beauty of the dish is the harmony in opposites: dark and light, savory and sweet, traditional and unexpected. The black beans are slightly tart with the addition of some hot sauce and vinegar, and the bananas add a sweet counterpoint, like avocados only more delicate. It may sound weird to garnish a dish with bananas, but you really should try it! 

Cook your black beans with some bacon and onions, maybe a bell pepper and some chili pepper. We used dried ancho chilis. Then, when the beans are cooked, you can add some olive oil, hot sauce, and some vinegar along with salt, to make the coming contrast with the bananas more poignant. Garnish with sliced bananas tossed in some lemon juice and pepper, and some cilantro.

Enjoy eating your opposites! And look for something green to grow from your polarities!