Keep the cow and add the cat.

When I warm up on the mat

I do the cow, and then the cat.

My spine gets curved and then goes flat.

How to keep the cow, and add the cat?

Cow, you sacred beast with eyes

Large and lumbering, and yes, the flies.

Opportunistic is the cat

Who’s just around for treats and pats

Cow so giving, cat so rude

One give milk, one just eats food.

To find a balance, tit for tat.

How to keep the cow, and add the cat?

One or the other’s not the way

A bit of both, but not a grey

Black and white contrasting...how?

Flowing, like the symbol of the Tao.

So when I warm up on the mat

I do the cow, and then the cat

A little this, then more of that

I keep the cow and add the cat.

Flexibly yours

Flexibly Yours

I’m happy with tofu

I also like s’mores.

What’s not to like?

I’m flexibly yours

There are times when the kneeling

can become just a chore.

Unravelling dogma,

I’m flexibly yours

Banjo or Aum’in?

Lock or open the doors?

The playlist is empty,

I’m flexibly yours.

Inhale or exhale,

Sip slowly or pour?

Even rhyming gets tricky

I’m flexibly your(s).

Notes on notes

(Thanks to author and speaker Charles Eisenstein for all of his work, much of the following is based on his monumental book "Ascent of Humanity".

Money is a little like sex.  We think about it a lot, we plan to have more, it excites us and we are always thinking of innovative ways to use it.  It is also like sex in that we tend not to talk about it with acquaintances and we feel some shame in pursuing it.

Money is an agreement of value, we use it as an easy means to exchange, and in that way there is nothing inherently wrong with it.  However, the monetary systems of the world we have now are all debt-based.  The money is created by our agreement to repay it with interest, which requires all production - goods and services - to continue to “grow”, so that the money to pay the interest on money we borrowed into existence can be created.  Goods and services are created by taking something that is free - fish, trees, childcare, food preparation, laying claim to it in some way and then selling it back to those who now “need” it.  All modern growth-based economies are ponzi schemes.  When the natural bank account is empty, as it soon will be, the economy collapses.  This is why the U.S. Is spending billions of dollars per month to try to stimulate their economy.  It won’t work because:

 A)The economy is not economical - it does not frugally produce what is essential, it produces mostly crap. How many things do you own that have broken?  Is there anywhere to fix them instead of buying a new one?

B)You can’t have exponential growth on a limited planet.

The money we use sets us in competition against one another in a way that was unheard of in tribal cultures.  Tribal cultures didn’t use money, nor did they “barter”.  The relationship between humans was based on the gift.  If I’m lucky and I catch 6 fish in one day and can only eat one, I store the other 5 fish in the belly of my brothers.  When I’m unlucky my brothers (meaning anyone I know) will feed me.  The agricultural revolution that happened approximately 10,000 years ago created a surplus of food which then had to be stored, protected and traded.  This created the need to acquire and lay claim to land.  The ownership model extended to owning animals and even other people and eventually even ideas.  This surplus of food also allowed us to have many more offspring, who all also needed land....and 10,000 years later we are where we are today.  No land left that isn’t claimed, almost no fish in the sea.

So, when you look into your wallet at money, you are looking at a symbol of trade based on debt, not value.  It is also anonymous, and creates anonymity when it is used.  Your individual gifts become lost in the sea of commerce where everyone is concerned with making enough of this anonymous substance to pay the bills.  And almost everyone is in debt, and competing against one another for money.  This has been going on since the introduction of debt-based money, so many philosophers and economists see human behavior as intrinsically competitive  and self-centered.  They never studied what humans were like before money.

So how can you make this anonymous symbol of debt and competition somewhat sacred?  Is it possible in some small way to make these bills that move from hand to hand less anonymous?

Yes.  You can place an idea, a short poem, a drawing, onto the bill that you give someone when you pay for something of real value.  That could be paying to listen to a great street performer sing a song.  Or it could be giving it to your massage therapist, or your yoga teacher.  This isn’t going to change what our current monetary system does, and it will still eventually fail.  But it may be a message to another that we are not all in it for just the money.

Sound

Sound

I am sound of mind, body and heart.

I am in tune.

I am like the air or the water that carries vibration,

With clarity.

Sound, healthy, stable.

I am sound, which is a vibration moving through matter

So sound, so stable and solid,

I’m not really there.

Meaningless Sex

We’ve attached many things to the necessary interconnection of the male and female principles.  The complex and mysterious nature of male/female relationship and the desire to classify and capture the beauty within this union has created, at least in part, the culture, values and motivations we live with.

The male principle needs to be received, the female principle needs to receive.  I’m not speaking of gender.  Think of Velcro.  One side is made of tiny loops, one side tiny hooks.  The male “hook” principle cannot bind to another hook, nor can a loop bind with a loop.  It simply won’t stick.  This binary is presented of course physically, and on ever more subtle levels of our being.

When both sides know what they are (and of course there are always some loops in the hooks, some hooks in the loops, but let’s keep it simple here) they can bind to their counterpart.  This binding is innately pleasurable because it is fulfilling.  It is complete unto itself.  However, the recognized value and joy of this union creates, in fear-based animals able to project into the future, the desire to control access to this energetically and physically healing phenomenon.

Fast cars, silicone implants and promises made, broken and made again. There could be another way.  What we seek is right in front of us if we could only be honest, and act honestly.  What we are looking for is not “The One” in the form of another.  What we are seeking is the experience of Oneness hidden within the act of union with another - a profound meditation, a fractal circle of life, an unconditioned spontaneous act of humanity.

Language is a set of symbols representing real things.  The word cat is not a cat.  Numbers are useful symbols, but you can’t write poetry with them.  Words are useful, but cannot completely describe our experience of reality.

What is the meaning of a flower?

To try to attach meaning to the union of the male and female principles of life is to try to condition the unconditional, to reduce the irreducible, to attempt to understand the unknown by compressing it within the known.  This union we call sex is beyond meaning, therefore meaningless.  We should all aspire to have more meaningless sex in our lives.

Beyond Salt and Pepper

When I grew up we had two spices on the table.  Black and white, and we could put some of each on our meat and potatoes.  Cuisine was not a word we used, and dinner was eaten with a certain nervous vigor.  My older brother and I would ask to be excused from the table, after which we’d go and have fun.

In Canada in the 60’s and 70’s this relationship to food was probably the common experience.  Reductionist, somewhat oppressive and not a lot of fun.  What was fun was dessert and candy, highly refined mood-altering substances eaten sometimes in secret to avoid scolding.  What we are taught when we are young makes an impression that is not easy to alter.

Eating food is communion with the universe.  What we eat becomes us, sitting down to eat is a ritual action.  In a country like India, spices and combinations of them are too numerous to count.  The palate can become educated, and moods and emotions arise from the taste of food prepared with love, eaten with awareness and digested completely.

We were also taught a concept of heaven and hell, darkness and light, and how to suppress our appetites for more.  When we can not suppress any longer, we indulge in sinful treats.  This process too, is reductionist and not a lot of fun.  It also creates a duality that is not present in reality, only created in the mind of the suppressed and then passed on to the next generation of living, eating beings.

This model of living does not serve our potential.  There are millions of experiences between salt and pepper, right and wrong, meat and potatoes.  To begin to experience more takes a certain courage and honesty in recognizing our current limited ability to taste difference and nuance created by suppression and limited experience.

Tantra’s many definitions included technique, synthesis, or to weave together.  To take the dark and the light and weave them into a contrast, to engage the full spectrum of colour and create art within life, cuisine out of food, sacredness out of empty ritual.  To do this, one has to reach for an unfamiliar spice, experiment with it and see how it tastes and digests.

What vehicle does your yoga teacher place you in?

I have owned a lot of cars.  Old cars mostly.  Old, weird cars primarily.  It is tempting to say that I chose the cars I’ve owned based on some of my own weird old personality quirks.  That would be true.  I’ve owned cars made in countries that no longer exist - try getting parts for those!  But I loved all my cars, even when I was sometimes stranded on the highway calling the Automobile Association for a tow truck, trying to spell out the name and model of the vehicle to an incredulous switchboard operator.

Yoga teachers offer their quirks and particular view of things as they teach even a very physical form of yoga - hatha yoga.  If a yoga teacher teaches with sincerity, they offer a  unique vehicle.  To be effective, that unique vehicle must still have the ability to safely stretch, strengthen and calm the body and mind, just like a car must have the ability to get you where you want to go safely and relatively comfortably.

We often buy cars from large manufacturers.  You can go to an Auto Mall and choose from many vehicles.  Car salespeople represent one manufacturer, so they have a vested interest in you choosing one of their cars.  We have “styles” of yoga, and teachers of that style have a vested interest in promoting the benefits of that style.

A great car salesman would be one that places the interests of the buyer first.  The world’s best car saleswoman would ask the potential buyer what they are looking for, assess their needs (4 door?  Sports car?  Truck? MPG?), and then point them to the vehicle that best suited their needs regardless of manufacture, new or used.  Or maybe even suggest taking the bus.

A great yoga teacher would assess a student’s needs in the same way.  But in order to do that, the teacher would have to know the benefits and possible detriments of all the different “styles” of yoga.  This would require dedication, curiosity, an open mind, a willingness to let go of believing what they teach is superior, and of course they would have to practice daily and reflect on their experience.  This could take some time.  Yes.

Luckily, hatha yoga styles are a lot like cars from different manufacturers.  They are marketed for their unique qualities, often very subjectively with an appeal to emotion.  But in reality, we have cars, trucks, station wagons, luxury vehicles, sports cars, and then all the hybridization of those basic categories.  Each vehicle has a more or less specific function - speed, comfort, hauling ability - but all must fulfill the primary requirement.  They have to get you where you want to go.

Yoga practice is similar.  There are ways of practice that include restorative, meditative, active outer movement of the body, active inner movement of more subtle muscles, movement of even more subtle energies, therapeutics for injuries, and the use of sound and vibration.  These components appear in the modern brands or styles of yoga and it is these components that need to be understood and practiced by the yoga teacher in order to be fluent, knowledgeable, and able to serve the best interests of the student.

Unlike large vehicle manufactures, yoga teachers have a distinct advantage.  That advantage is their own quirks and particular way of being.  Those quirks appear as they teach, and if the teacher can recognize the quirks and couple them with a good understanding of yoga and the essential components of practice, they can offer a unique vehicle that will get their student where they want to go, quirks intact.  Like the way my old MG's wooden steering wheel felt, or the sound of my Skoda's engine peaking at 85kph.  I loved those cars.