Serious Fucking Alchemy · 17 January 2008
Can I say that?
Yes. Breakfast with the ineffable again this morning. Probably, it is always this good but my mind forgets to note it.
Oh who am I kidding??? This is special. Serious. Fucking. Alchemy.
How many days in a row are we going to hit paydirt like this, kids? Are you wondering the same?
Yeah, you give up the digging of a thousand shallow wells. Choose a method and just mine it mine it mine it like a dirty methodical little drone…, and now and then you hit a vein like this.
Think you can take it to the bank? Want compensation for your efforts or your surrender? Want to buy in? Riiiiight. Not packaged for resale. It’s here and it’ll be gone soon. I’m too much my teacher’s student to hold it or him or us tightly, and this only increases the joy. Like contemplating death increases your living.
The room is packed to the point of a waiting line, because everyone in fifty miles whose value of practice edges out her compulsive need to be right (hello: what is that hangup about except self-sabotage? It’s ok, we all get in our own way; but we don’t have to keep doing it forever) is on a mat in that room. Post-political practice space, right here for the making. Get in! Carpe manduka.
Many days, there is no assistant. A few who have been at this thing a little longer will give a neighbor an adjustment in supta vajra or pachimo. I’ve been doing a pretty strict counted practice this week, and this highlights strongly the relationships that facilitate my rhythm and those that do not. One companion, I can come to the top of a vinyasa, shift over for his supta vajra, breathe him through it and take one step to the mat without ANY shift in mental state. He doesn’t reach for any talky talky connecting, doesn’t put some kind of lowly beta-level awareness on me. And I come back to the top of the mat just like I’d added a posture—supta vajrasana B—between chakorasana and bhairvasana. Two others on that same train in the immediate perimeter, but another who hasn’t quite caught on. I love her just fine, but if the greater good is to contribute to the collective rhythm that supports the alchemy, I have to let her wait for the teacher. Because his awareness, given which he’s doing and what he’s done, is less fragile than mine.
I got in the car and this was on the stereo, loud. (What I get for blaring Back in Black, from the Unholy Los Angeles Driving Mix cd my brother made a while back, because I thought it a good way to toast RP this morning. Or at least so it seemed on the jaunt from bathroom floor pranayama to the door of my car, as the CDs live in a big cramped bookcase in the hallway. And it did work nicely for cruising Santa Monica Blvd in the dark, though I did frighten a homeless man at a stoplight. Anyway I took the highroad--Wilshire--back here to the working class fringes of Santa Monica, trumpeting Prince's version of the apocalypse and definitely in a state unfit for operating a motor vehicle.)
That’s a lot of apocalyptic Americana from twenty years back. But AC/DC and Prince never knew the shift in consciousness would look like this. This quiet, this early in the morning, and as much about working hard as it is about letting loose.
Posted by (0v0)
Categories: arbitrage
, astanga yoga
, esoteric shit
, evolution
, having a body
, integration
, power of suggestion
, self-deception
, sound
, spirituality
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Sheesh. You’re making me think of moving to LA.
Posted by: jlafitte · Jan 17, 10:35 AM · #
“Yeah, you give up the digging of a thousand shallow wells. Choose a method and just mine it mine it mine it like a dirty methodical little drone…, and now and then you hit a vein like this.”
Now there’s a poetry of practice! Love your version of supta vajrasana B. Impersonal and intimate, not a breath out of place. It’s why I’ve been loving practicing with my husband — because he can put down the habit of personal without worrying that I’ll take it personally. And that’s a remarkably intimate space. :-)
Posted by: karen · Jan 17, 11:19 AM · #
Sweet. For those of us who need a lot of time alone to recharge, I think a long-term relationship has to include this kind of being-with-while-being-alone. It is really intimate, isn’t it?
And it’s very rare (and wonderful) to find, at least for me. Amazing how available it can be in the right kind of practice environment.
Posted by: (0v0) · Jan 17, 11:43 AM · #
LA may well be where I end up.
Serious fucking alchemy indeed…
Posted by: Anna · Jan 17, 12:37 PM · #
yeah, there was a trance vibe going. The trance induced by the rhythm of the breath in communal ritual. It almost felt like Mother Gravity gave up just a fraction of her precious meters per second squared… or may be I was already pradipika’d by the stealthy concrete wave riding of the pre-dawn ride so much so I didn’t even see the owl in the dark.
If that is too much inside speak for you, I rode my electric e-glide skateboard (top speed 20 mph which is damn fast for cement) up the concrete earth overlay to the practice space and its a rush!!
Posted by: e&sj · Jan 17, 03:32 PM · #
Holy Brat Patrol! (Start at 3:10.) I love your mode of transportation in from the beach and am glad you just missed me rocking out to AC/DC. (I don’t know why that feels so right between sama vritti and surya namaskara A?)
Other locals on the trance we’re building up in there? Is it really happening?
Posted by: (0v0) · Jan 17, 03:43 PM · #
So you had a great practice in a full house, gave a couple of adjustments without losing your concentration, and then got in your car listening to Prince in a state that could have gotten you arrested….
Did I get this right?
:)
And BTW like fashion, like the threat of apocalypse comes back in 20 year cycles too.
Posted by: Susan · Jan 17, 05:31 PM · #
Yes, that is all. This post was written while I was still stoned, so I was feeling like the Second Coming might be around the corner.
Posted by: (0v0) · Jan 17, 05:38 PM · #
“carpe Manduka”!!it’s Soul Train, baby!
Posted by: eor · Jan 17, 10:29 PM · #
I can’t believe that you are capable of this. Wow. I am shocked and impressed, really. :)
My former girlfriend Susan? Hi sweetheart, I don’t understand this eaither. ;)
Posted by: Zee · Jan 18, 08:33 AM · #
Zee, You just used emoticons.
Is something WRONG?
I’m concerned about your health.
Posted by: (0v0) · Jan 18, 03:29 PM · #
Zee, what is it that she’s capable of that surprises you?
Posted by: Carl · Jan 18, 04:23 PM · #
My guess is that Zee took “stoned” to mean “under the influence of marijuana”, as opposed to stoned by practice, which is what the owl meant.
Posted by: Katie · Jan 19, 06:24 AM · #
Hi (0v0)
What a beautiful assemblage of words to describe the meditative state of your practice. The people I’ve observed doing 3rd are usually in a deep intense state as you describe. The breathing is steady and focused. I like how you can help the companion nearby with supta vajrasana withouth having to say anything.
The mechanical air in your shala must be pretty quiet, or the number of people so packed, as you describe, that everyone can hear the breathing – which is best. Is that in Santa Monica? One good thing that the radiant floor of AYSF allows is that there is no sound of mechanical air, so you hear your own breathing and those of others. At YSSF we get a similar feeling when we practice in the smaller room (Prana) but most of the time we practice in the big room (Lotus). The number of practitioners vary, with Wednesdays being usually the busiest day. AYB has a medium sized room with a great floor, so regardless of what the mechanical air is doing, you hear the meditative intensity in the room. And there, everyone moves to the front as a space opens up, and takes rest in the back. It’s a good practice because it does force you to practice with intensity near someone.
I came to your blog to quiet my over-writing in my own blog this weekend, to shut up, and here I’m blabbing off in yours. hehe.
hugs,
Arturo
Posted by: arturo · Jan 20, 07:46 PM · #