Thanksgiving Day

It is Thanksgiving Day morning and I was about to post a somewhat esoteric Thanksgiving blog about the new urban linguistic conundrum surrounding Thanks/No Problem/Your Welcome when this message streamed through the cyberwaves...

Don't forget how this day connects to our country's history before you go out into it !   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6tIJ2QpOhY&feature=fvw

It is from my dear part Algonquin friend, so I of course watched immediately...and now share with you...to perhaps take  time for this 4:38 mnutes too. 

May your Thanksgiving be peaceful.

Two "Boddhisattvas" in the News...

I went walking early on this bright New England sunny morning surrounded in the  swirl of a golden, mahogany & umber world of  late autumnal splendor...leisurely taking in the sights and sounds of woods and sea so near my home, greeting a few morning walkers & their dogs while soaking up the crisp Fall air.  As I walked I marveled at how unrestricted, unhampered & free to go as I please I am...just as you reading this surely have this same freedom.

Compare this to today's news of Myanmar's democracy heroine & 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Auno San Suu Kyi, just released by officials from her most current house arrest after 7 1/2 years.    The 65-year-old, whose latest period of detention started in May 2003, with a recent setback for housing an American who swam to her home in 2009, has come to symbolize the struggle for democracy in the Southeast Asian nation ruled by the military since 1962.  Suu Kyi has been jailed or under house arrest for more than 15 of the last 21 years.  For more information on Auno San Suu Kyi visit http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_myanmar_suu_kyi

And then there's China's newest Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Liu Xiabo, imprisoned Chinese human rights activist and non-violent protestor for fundamental human rights in China.   Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment on December 25, 2009 for co-authoring the Charter 08 manifesto & his passionate fight to address the political repression by China's leadership, beginning with his participation in Tiananman Square in 1989.   Liu was chosen over a record number of nominations – more than 200.  Yet major Chinese printed press, television and online sources heavily censored this news OR chose not to carry this story at all, according to an October 2010 Newsweek article I read recently.  Though some radical online Chinese bloggers tried to cryptically ask readers if they knew this man's name or his accomplishments shortly after the prize was awarded, no sooner did they post the question that the censors blocked their sites.  For more information on Liu Xiaobo visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Nobel_Peace_Prize

Can any of us imagine what it is to be detained for years, to endure this kind of scrutiny and restrictions whether in our own home or in prison, for a courageous act to enable greater personal freedom yet deemed by our government as "subversive"?    

Boddhisattvas say their incarnations on the planet cannot end until all human suffering is eradicated.  Auno San Suu Kyi and Liu Xiaobo join hands with other names in history like Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela...sojourners towards that end...as well as the "invisibles"...like the estimated 2,200 political prisoners in Myanmar's prisons for their conscientious objection to the militant rule of their country...

Their notable courage & endurance to this end sits squarely before me today.

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A Class with a Provoking Yogi....

Recently a dear yogini friend asked if I wanted to take a yoga class with an out-of-town teacher named Matthew Sanford at a nearby yoga studio.   I said yes.  And that is when my friend mentioned that Matthew happens to be a paraplegic.

What rock have I apparently been living under that never before had I heard mention of this remarkable Yogi??

I have spent time studying Yoga Therapy and been in the presence of Patricia Walden & BKS Iyengar himself coaching heart patients, diabetics, muscular dystrophy and stroked clients through their yogic "rehab."  But never have I personally studied with a teacher who could encouraged exploration of the energy body because of insights resulting from such poignant loss,  and his journey to wholeness through Yoga.   Meeting this remarkable being was a priveledge...a "pratyaksha moment"...provoking that in-your-face profound kind-of experience travels in India can provoke when encountering certain light-filled individuals who've endured the un-endurable.

Whether slipping from wheelchair to floor for a particular pose he wanted to share OR levitating back into his chair & doing agile loop d'loops down tiny aisles arranged between about 30 students, Matthew CONNECTED with such heart to each of us, doing hands-on adjustments and guiding us through a pose from vantage points all around the room.  As I am both student & teacher of YinYoga and Angela Farmer's uniquely energetic teachings, Matthew's articulation, inspired by his personal studies with BKS Iyengar, opened a deeply interior portal, a personal transmission on the Yoga journey.

By mentioning this experience, it is my hope to further support Matthew's message of healing through yoga with teachers and students alike.  I offer pranam to the incredible spirit humans who suffer great loss can invoke when they share their courage openly and vision for greater healing.  To learn more about Matthew's lecture and teaching schedule visit http://matthewsanford.com

Namaste.

Today's Time Change

I like to listen to time -- to the rhythmic sound of the clock ticking in a quiet house, bells from a distant church bell chiming or that synchronicity of my own heart noting "time" with every beat, keeping me awake to the gift of being alive and here and now.

Today time is marked by the arrival of a "time change" where here in the USA humans reconfigure the clocks to "fall back" for those States who participate in this odd custom of time "falling backwards" and "springing forwards."  But what about our own capacity to connect to this moment of pristine awareness, where as William Blake writes we "...hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour."

How did time pass for the Chilean miners trapped beneath the ground for more than 60 days, without the support of sun or moon, wind or rain, to mark their daily experience of that passage?  Who knows how time is marked within the steady embryonic development of a new life making its way towards birth?  Who can imagine the experience of civilizations gone by, remnants of the past locked in geological formations such as the carved pueblos of Colarado's native American Anasazi pueblo dwellers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Pueblo_Peoples?  What could they tell us of Time?

President Obama Arrives in India for Festival of Lights

I laughed as I heard firecrackers popping behind the NPR radio reporter from Delhi last night.  I wonder if President Obama realized he was arriving in India for one of its auspicious holidays known as Diwali --  The Festival of Lights?

That reminder brought my experiences of Diwali flooding back to me.  Sometime during my travels to India I read that due to their 1,150,000,000 (1.15 billion) population, Indians' ears have adapted to handle 9 times the amount of ambient sound...a.k.a. NOISE...as us Western folk!  My ears sure learned the truth of that statistic as an auditory direct perception -- whether it was a local bus blasting its air horn every few minutes to warn oncoming vehicles of our approach on a tiny one lane windy road, unexpected darshans suddenly blasting from loudspeakers at an ashram, construction beginning next door to my guest house at 1AM, or the wild abandon of Diwali firecrackers! 

Diwali officially lasts about 5 days somewhere between late October and early November.  Young or old, rich or poor -- Indian really get into their festivals, and to celebrate the meaning of Diwali, in addition to the parades of lanterns -- that means randomly popping off their personal stash of lights, a.k.a. FIREWORKS, for nearly a month at all times of day and night. 

Even within the confines of the Taj Hotel, site of the 2008 terrorist Mumbai terrorist attacks (often referred to as November 26th or 26/1), and the serious nature of talks with Indian leaders on nuclear energy, they will be surrounded by the spirit of Diwali.  May those discussions receive the blessings of the light.  For more information about Diwali see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diwali.

Vegetarian India??

This rainy morning a friend wrote to say they had read on article on India about the Hindu and Jain belief in pure veg living...honoring their compassionate commitment to other sentient beings & from my travels in India I had to answer as follows --

good morning...and not to burst your bubble about India

but not all of India agrees with the Hindu/Jains on the treatment of animals...in India you can eat at pure veg, veg, veg/non-veg and totally non-veg spots all over India

the influence of Christianity being adopted by many Indians as the "new religion" beyond the superstitions and "stigma" of old India, as well as so many of the Muslim faith, means a LOT of Indians are choosing to eat meat

one long bus ride from a state where cattle cannot be slaughtered to Christian Goa where they can saddened me beyond imagination...thousands of the most scraggly, head held low animals were being marched to their death awaiting in the next state and they knew it...clearly no food on the road b/c they were going to die anyway -- and their handlers walking right beside them whipping them if they stumbled from weakness or slowed down.

for a while i didn't get why the bus was surrounded by this sea of cattle, what was happening...and then it became clear and when i shouted to my busmates my "theory" they all nodded their heads with a certain bobble of acceptance that saddened me even further

India is a world of contradictions at times and can make you feel nearly crazy in moments, for the shadow of India is as deep as the brightness

not a very cheery response on a dark, rainy morning...but a direct perception...

The Birth of Post-A-Perception

Post-A-Perception

is a place to hang up your pratyaksha moments...

a cyber-bulletin board to post a moment you truly call a "direct perception", one you want to share with a community of fellow yogi's & yogini's...and all who find this dialogue of interest

moments where your world was crushed, reordered, expanded or simplified...
and how did that direct perception, that moment, change your world?

may our exchange serve to make us bolder and wiser with every step of the journey

namaste and welcome...