Saturday XXXVI: Koans and Syncretism · 28 December 2007
How many unbelievable remarks can your MIL drop inside of a single Christmas?
Wait. Don’t answer.
It’s a koan. The answer is inside of me, but I am still working it out. It’s probably zero, but at the moment the figure I have is much higher.
I wonder which will happen first: I solve the koan or my head explodes. MsIL are like that. No, no. I mean koans are like that.
And in any case the sister cities Portland and Seattle are so beautiful to me—looking down from the Fremont Bridge in morning light, docking downtown on the Bremerton ferry—and it even snowed giant wet fluffs and R’s grandmothers were both hilarious. Truly and beautifully. So maybe I’ll add them and some more personal images to my flickr, but those images will be marked “for friends only.” If you are a friend and care to look in, make an account and tag me. Maybe later this year I’ll even break down and post friends-only asanas: something I’ve long considered not ok. Maybe not, though. But as you might have heard, I’m in a phase of prohibition-breaking....
Including “prohibition” itself. I broke the 5-year seal on alcohol consumption on the solstice, and that has been interesting. Do yoga and alcohol mix at all? To be blogged soon, even though it makes me uncomfortable in a way nudity does not.
But first, Ojai retreat for New Year’s ashtanga intoxication. The teacher who is hosting says I am on new-student probation (“We will put you in the yurt if you are bad”). The others I suppose are bodyworkers and therapists and all-around Pacifica sympathizers, so things might get a little syncretic. Transpersonal jungian astral analytic shamanic ashtanga? I hope so. Now shhhh. I think ashtanga can hold it together. It’s strong like that.
● Nice podcast about Rumi from last week. Rumi: “a world class thinker relevant to our painfully compartmentalized world… [for whom] the body is not an obstacle. It is a tool to be used for the journey.”
● My god, Laura Huxley died last week. The first thought I had was that she went before I could meet her, but that’s my problem. You can hear her syrupy hypnotic voice here, read her talking about her life here (read it); and the NYT obit is here.
● You already saw this if you read the paper: the dying Indian profession of letter-transcribing. Terribly romantic on multiple levels.
Posted by (0v0)
Categories: arbitrage
, astanga yoga
, beta state
, esoteric shit
, evolution
, having a body
, integration
, spirituality
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It can be REALLY nice to avoid family over the holidays, and see them instead when everyone’s a bit less False Nostalgia Crazed. What is it about the holidays that brings out role related nuttiness? I don’t know.
Is Laura Huxley any relation to Aldous Huxley? That was one interesting writer. I should get a biography. BTW am very slowly reading Ka. I’m enjoying it, but I don’t know what happened to my attention span since India 2, when I constantly had my nose in a book. I don’t read that much lately.
Posted by: boodiba · Dec 29, 09:19 AM · #
MIL and Drinking, neither one seem to fit in with my lifestyle due to the excessive personalities of myself and the MIL....We seem to have a lot in common in this arena.
Posted by: Susan · Dec 29, 10:35 AM · #
What a great story about the letter writer. Especially the ending!
Have a wonderful ashtanga intoxication.
Posted by: gartenfische · Dec 29, 03:12 PM · #
Hi (0v0)
I’m reading your blog on borrowed time. My brother and SIL have now taken the room where the computer is in my mom’s house. But I have to write to wish you a Happy New Year, and to tell you that just reading the first lines of your post make me giggle uncontrollably. It’s like the Aquinas question, “how many angels dance on the head of a pin?” Scholars debated the answer centuries ago. I will come back and read your posts later when I have more time.
hugs
Arturo
Posted by: Arturo · Dec 29, 04:03 PM · #
who would put you on probation? not nice.
Posted by: tova · Dec 30, 02:40 PM · #
Hi again. Now I had time to read the post. Boodie’s observations are right on. We can’t return to being how we were as children, but we try, don’t we? I think the asanas on flickr would be a fab idea.
hugs
Arturo
Posted by: Arturo · Dec 31, 03:42 AM · #