Friends so sweet...

This morning, I in the company of friends,the Pwinkle twins and their Moon Beam Mom.Some friends you get to know ,even before their  actual conception,and when you meet them in real life you say ahha...it is a delight and surprise when a rose bud opens and you breathe in that first whiff of sweet summer, yet it is not a jarring surprise because you have carefully, lovinlgy watched  as this little bud  bloomed into life, and almost knew already the enchantment they would be and  already really are. Some words of wisdom from the four year old Starlit Stella,"It is better to have a friend than a dress" and from Haley ,the luminous comet twin sister,"could you ask your mom if she would let you come to our house and play". Why can 't we retain the simple honest playful ways of childhood friendship. Does growing up have to mean , a loss of sweetness , I hope not....
 an from excerpt, Julian and Modallo by Percy Bysshe Shelley(1792-1822)  ,on friendship;
"And from the waves,sound like delight broke forth
Harmonizing with solitude
Into our hearts areal merriment.
So as we rode,we talked and the swift thought,
Winging itself with laughter,linger'd not.
But flew from brain to brain;
Such glee was ours,
Charged with light
memories remember'd  hours.

My dear old friend,The Ficus Tree on this Tu Bishvat

Old Ficus "Sderot" of the Boulevard at the Weitzman Institute of Science in Rehovot
Continuing a tradition of Arutz Sheva Tu B'Shvat photo essays that began five years ago, photographer Michelle Baruch shares a glimpse of Israel's trees withArutz Sheva readers in honor of the New Year for trees.
The 15th day of the Jewish month of Shevat - January 30, 2010 this year - is the day on which the earliest-blooming trees in the Land of Israel begin to blossom, and a new fruit-bearing cycle is begun. In Jewish law, this cycle is important for calculating when a fruit of a young tree may be eaten (fruits may not be eaten from trees younger than 3 years old), and when fruits are considered produce of the shmittah year (the seventh year during which land must lie fallow).
In the 17th century, celebrated mystic Rabbi Yitzhak Luria of Tzfat instituted the practice of making a Tu b'Shevat seder (ritual meal) in which the fruits and trees of the Land of Israel were praised for their special intrinsic qualities and symbolism. The seder includes the drinking of four cups of wine (a parallel of the Passover seder) and the eating of various kinds of fruits - especially the seven mentioned in the Torah.
"For Hashem, your G-d, is bringing you to a good Land: a Land with streams of water, of springs and underground water coming forth in valley and mountain; a Land of wheat, barley, grape, fig, and pomegranate; a Land of oil-olives anddate-honey; a Land where you will eat bread without poverty - you will lack nothing there." (Deut. 8:7-9)
While the texts of the original seder were not recorded, modern versions of this kabbalistic Tu Bishvat seder have been revived in the Land of Israel, and it is now celebrated by many Jews, religious and secular. Many modern Israelis take the opportunity to praise the Land of Israel and express gratitude for being able to settle and cultivate the land again......Thank you Michelle Baruch for posting this tree.This old ficus tree stands at the enterance of the boulevard where the Weitzman Institute of Science is located in Rechovot, Israel.It is a beautiful campus with lovely well tended vegetation. It is the seat of  great scientific inquiry in Israel. It is where I studied,worked and lived before I returned  to the US and then studied medicine. I had long forgotten about this magnificent ancient tree that I would pass by daily and almost took for granted. It was there every day in its simple quiet ancient grandeur and wisdom. It was strong, steady. modest and always there .During a time in my life, that I felt ungrounded,uncertain, tenuous, searching, this ficus tree provided a sense of strength,comfort and resilience for me.I did not know if I would ever see this tree again and here I found it or" it has  found me". I  feel stronger,more grounded,more resilient, less tenuous , these many years later but still searching. Perhaps the ficus is still searching as its roots coil and creep into the crevices of the earth or as it bends  and reaches  its branches up towards the firmament.Sometimes one needs to borrow strength ,steadiness  and when the time comes lend it to another.. Today is Tu B'shvat. It is a day to honor the rebirth of all growing things and beings as they begin to wake up from the dormant quiescent winter lull.It is a sort of "birthday of the trees.", "Chag La Illanot" in hebrew. I have added  some photos of my own to honor the nobility and grace of all trees that serve us well,that we unknowingly depend on., that add dimension to our lives.It is a day to also honor all of us ,the caretakers of trees and all that grows by the fruit of our love and labor...

Freezing of Motion in Time and Space

This week's assignment is to photograph something at a fast shutter speed, to quickly freeze,capture the image as the curtains open and lets light in briefly,freezing the image and to photograph something at a slow shutter speed as the curtain stays open longer as the image moves through time and space, so it appears more blurred, not frozen.I have been thinking about motion and movement this week., that is what it feels like to move and about  the perception of seeing people, animals, objects move in space. It has slowed my pace down some as I am noticing the slightest of movements and am pondering on stationary matter, imagining what the first beginnings of a movement would look like. I am trying to remember what it feels like to begin to crawl, to walk,what is was like the first time I discovered the ectasy of jumping,skipping,dancing... These memories seem impossible almost to recover,it is akin to remembering the first time I felt  wind blowing on my face and understood what wind was.I guess that is in part what draws me to yoga, it makes me remember the things that are buried in our bodies, our minds.This draws me to photography as well as the way I see and capture an image uncovers, recovers  something I may have thought I lost and at the same time exposes me and teaches me of new uncharted possibilities. In my seeking some luminescent insights on movement, I findI am not alone.Etienne Jules Marey in Paris,(1876-1904)was a physician and physiologist.He was fascinated by movement of humans and animals.He was interested in capturing images as they moved through time and space. He devised his own equipment to study such movement. Here are some examples of his artistry and a photo of mine from this week of a girl slipping through water as she swims.

Butterflies

One of the Butterflies

by W. S. Merwin

The trouble with pleasure is the timing
it can overtake me without warning
and be gone before I know it is here
it can stand facing me unrecognized
while I am remembering somewhere else
in another age or someone not seen
for years and never to be seen again
in this world and it seems that I cherish
only now a joy I was not aware of
when it was here although it remains
out of reach and will not be caught or named
or called back and if I could make it stay
as I want to it would turn to pain.

"One of the Butterflies" by W. S. Merwin, from The Shadow of Sirius. ©
Copper Canyon Press, 2008
    Butterflies  ,so fragile,evanescent flittering images of flickering gossamer color.Flowers would and could not be ,if it were not for butterflies. And I believe we would and could not exist without the fleeting, transitory  moments of beauty that we can not capture,yet remain fixed in our memory. Butterflies would not be butterflies if they stayed too long in one place and perhaps they would become less beautiful to us as well.I  met this pair of lovely monarchs while taking a walk this summer at a village garden nearby to my work.

Happy Birthday Daughter

Today is my daughter's birthday,for me the best day of any year.When she was little we lived in a land of juicy ripe apricots and abundant sunshine on most days. We would go to the nearby market,and buy a few sun kissed "mishmish",the hebrew word for apricots,They were stone weighed and placed in our basket. The mishmish man knew us well. The tree the fruit grew was without any trip on an airplane, just picked from a tree nearby straight to our eager loving hands. .It was a longer walk up and down some hills, she in the stroller , meandering out of it to pause and ask in wonderment about all of the fresh ripe wonders she saw on her path.On the way home,she with warm sweet juicy cheeks ,apricot juice dripping down her chin,giggling,laughing ,smiling, learning about the abundant joy, sparkling glints of sunrays in her eyes.Here is a poem that reminds me of that sweetness ,that joy that lingers with me. Today is a day only of pure gratitude and appreciation. Happy Birhday. my daughter,With all of my love, for all of forever,Emma

A Newborn Girl at Passover
by Nan Cohen
Consider one apricot in a basket of them. It is very much like all the other apricots-- an individual already, skin and seed. Now think of this day. One you will probably forget. The next breath you take, a long drink of air. Holiday or not, it doesn't matter. A child is born and doesn't know what day it is. The particular joy in my heart she cannot imagine. The taste of apricots is in store for her.

What the darkness can teach us

On the way home last night, in the darkness of a wintery  night, my fair fawn friends again in their deer grove. The field was very  icy melting snow grey not the  white of glistening snow. The deer moved cautiously , slowly as the earth  was in that slippery,precarious , tenuous stage, between, freeze, ice, water.. I watched  them  as even in their caution,the fluid effortless grace of each movement of their limbs, their silvery tongues licking softly at the ice ,a slight murmur of a sipping sound.. I was slipping a little on the ice just a little, not yet as fluent fluid as a fawn. I could not get too close this time.It was so dark,so I photographed them at 3200iso  to make the camera more sensitive to the scant light available  in the night, again the assignment 1/60 second of  a shutter speed. I was reminded in the darkness of the notion of "trust".trusting my own instincts in this dark clearing of a winter night forest and the trust  the fawn  must have in  this water, this ice, this field, this fawn family, that this earth will keep them safe,cared for and well and the return to such safety  all days and nights. Today , in my yoga practice I was thinking of my fawn friends, their trust in the darkness, of the earth, of each other, of themselves. I was thinking of their  ease and softness in their every movement, their every breath....
This poem reminded of the issues of trust we think about in the dark.

By Dark

by W. S. Merwin

When it is time I follow the black dog
into the darkness that is the mind of day

I can see nothing but the black dog
the dog I know going ahead of me

not looking back oh it is the black dog
I trust now in my turn after the years

when I had all the trust of the black dog
through an age of brightness and through shadow

on into the blindness of the black dog
where the rooms of the dark were already known

and had no fear in them for the black dog
leading me carefully up the blind stairs.
"By Dark" by W. S. Merwin, from The Shadow of Sirius. © Copper Canyon Press, 2008. Reprinted with permission

Where images transport us

I am continuing with my photography classes. I took classes before in an art academy in another country, many years ago before the digital age,at a time in my life that I had far less daily responsibilities. My dharmic path was only in the beginnings of its unfoldings,I remember those days as having far more freedom to explore.I am not certain that is how I actually felt back then,as it seems the mind often takes us places to get tangled and constrict our creative potentials, which are vast and infinite,despite what our mind tells us in any particular moment. I was sitting in my photography class, looking at photos that the instructor had shot herself.I was looking at the various images of people from different parts of the world on the street, , living their live simply yet magnificently  as we all do in the ordinary and at the same time remarkable way living is.There was a particular photogragh of a group of  little Chassidic boys playing on the street in Williamsburbg,Brooklyn,a place the artist,my teacher once lived. I have frequented this area often and regularly as a young child,as it was the home of my grandparents. A powerful but subtle image can literally transport one through the  nuanced  light falling , the sparkling  in a child's eyes to some other place, some other era, as if it is almost touchable in real time and space again. I was seeing myself  as a child of 5or 6 with long chestnut braids bouncing to the sound of alternating jump ropes, slapping on the concrete grey pavement on a hot summer day in front of an old  bitter sweet chocolate colored brownstone. I was wearing a skirt that gently swayed with each  jump.When I visited Williamsburg , girls had to wear skirts and stockings ,even in the hot summer.My grandmother in her playfulness indulged me and despite the norms of her culture she agreed that hot lycra tights on a summers  day was not fun .. The children spoke in Yiddish, a language I did not understand, but we all shared the joy and wonder of childhood and jumping rope. Some of the girls looked at me with fear, some with jealousy that I was allowed to jump rope bare legged. Other deliquescent memories appeared like the smell of cod frying in my grandmothers kitchen, her giving me a calm bath to  cool off from the summer heat, no bubbles as we both agreed it made me sneeze and itch, and the most" pwinkling "(a special form of twinkling that occurs only between those that really love to hang out together) mischevious, green eyes of my grandmother.I commented to my teacher   that she captured  so well that place that was so special to me. She then said to me,"I can imagine you in Williamsburg  shooting on the street. I quietly said to myself, "so can I.....".The photo above is from Life magazine-chilhood and jump roping,,,

Pranayama and Photography

Does  pranayama,the discipline, art practice of moving breath in yoga share anything in common. I think I am beginning to think they do.I am a humble newbie at both and realize I know not very much of both, despite the fact that I am breathing and seeing all the time, for all of my life,.  In pranayama, I am learning there are techniques in breathing that give you more control over directing  energy and breath within one self, one's  mind, one's feelings, one's sense of being.The techniques are subtle and elegant and require a lifetime of practicing, but I am beginning to understand the myriad of infinite possibilities that become available if one remains with dedication to practicing.,The discipline requires control over something we think of as unconsciously controlled that happens naturally without any effort.So how do we learn  to be more masterful,thoughtful  skillful with that which requires no effort, no thought-it is paradoxical, almost magical  at best.
    This last assignment in my photo class was to shoot everything on 1/60 of a second shutter speed, and all other settings were per our personal discretions. What we chose to capture through the lens,  our preference.I had a short window of time available to me  to go out and photograph on a day that was unusually sunny and bright. I prefer to photograph when the light is softer, incandescent, ethereal. I was near a lovely local botanic garden that was carpeted with shimmering reflective snow, which made it difficult for me to shoot in such bright light.. I did not want to add changing too many variables on my camera,so I left the ASA at 400 which was  too sensitive for such a bright day, letting even more sunrays in. I decided to work with what I had and not create too many variables., as I was short on time, This exercise became a  potent learning opportunity. I was aware that as the sun's rays brilliantly reflected off the snow, I could control  to some extent certain variables of how much, how fast and with what sensitivity light traveled  through the camera lens, based on what settings  I chose on the camera.This  effected  what and how  I would  eventually see an image. It may seem trivial, banal, but it was almost  as though I had a revelatory moment,maybe even a spiritual moment, that something as huge,vast,ageless, uncapturable as sunlight had some qualities that could be contained, manipulated  for a brief moment in time The photo you see above is the Japanese Garden reflecting the shimmery sparkles of sun reflecting off the snow  as I stood in reverance , astonished at the sun's enormous reflective nature...

The intimate moments with one's self

clip from the Snowman,Friends do teach us how to fly,click to see

Dearest Readers, Sometimes I will just post something that is simple, eloquent, and just is a pleasant addition to my day or something that makes me pause and wonder. Today is such a day. Here is a poem that makes me feel a sense of connection to others in their private moments  of saying something  to one self. It is also the birthday of Raymond Briggs who wrote the Snowman which is one of my favorite childhood books as it softly introduces children to the magic of friendship, the sadness of the loss of a magical friend and the desire to appreciate the sweetness of life.Today is Raymond Briggs birthday.
         The Snowman (1978). It's just pictures, no words, but with those pictures it tells the story of a boy who makes a snowman that comes alive. They go on adventures and even fly through the air. But the next morning, the sun comes out and the snowman melts. The book was a big success, and a few years later it was made into a short animated film of the same name, which is shown on TV every year at the Christmas season.

When someone asked him why The Snowman ended so sadly, he said: "I don't believe in happy endings. Children have got to face death sooner or later. Granny and Grandpa die, dogs die, cats die, gerbils and those frightful things — what are they called? — hamsters: all die like flies. So there's no point avoiding it."

Talking to Ourselves

by Philip Schultz

A woman in my doctor's office last week
couldn't stop talking about Niagara Falls,
the difference between dog and deer ticks,
how her oldest boy, killed in Iraq, would lie
with her at night in the summer grass, singing
Puccini. Her eyes looked at me but saw only
the saffron swirls of the quivering heavens.

Yesterday, Mr. Miller, our tidy neighbor,
stopped under our lopsided maple to explain
how his wife of sixty years died last month
of Alzheimer's. I stood there, listening to
his longing reach across the darkness with
each bruised breath of his eloquent singing.

This morning my five-year-old asked himself
why he'd come into the kitchen. I understood
he was thinking out loud, personifying himself,
but the intimacy of his small voice was surprising.

When my father's vending business was failing,
he'd talk to himself while driving, his lips
silently moving, his black eyes deliquescent.
He didn't care that I was there, listening,
what he was saying was too important.

"Too important," I hear myself saying
in the kitchen, putting the dishes away,
and my wife looks up from her reading
and asks, "What's that you said?"
"Talking to Ourselves" by Philip Schultz, from Failure. © Harcourt, 2007

Winter Light on Winter Roses

The flower is the poetry of reproduction.  It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life.  ~Jean Giraudoux   
   When I walked into the kitchen today, these winter roses were flooded with radiant winter light.

Words are limiting to the mysteries of the heart

Dearest Readers,"dearest", i say as it is endearing to me that you venture onto my blog and let me share my thoughts with you so I thank you for your time, your interest...The yogic way tells us to learn from our injuries, that our mistakes are our greatest teachers. I often wish that were not the case because both injuries and mistakes are painful and in our less than ideal states we sometimes unnecessarily and blindly repeat them. So this recent pectoralis injury, this tingling warm prickly sensation is softening, but , it is traveling , radiating toward my back through  my arm  pit , so to speak. I am following the tingling sensations  to where the insertions of muscle fibers begin and end. It  has led me to greater intrigue to research what muscles I am actually using misusing or not using in my yoga practice, in my life practice.     On a deeper level, this experience,is teaching me more about the limitation of  language , words. The sensory experience of pain, love, joy, taste, smell, touch, sadness, ebullience etc  does not lend itself well to description in words, try as we do. Our minds translate feeling, sensation,touch sight, sound,light ,into words so we can communicate something of our  personal experience to each other as by nature we like to share.. It is always an approximation at best. The body and deeper aspects of memory speak in the language of images, metaphor, ether,illusoriness.When I follow this warm, sometimes hot tingle radiate under my ribs, the image of bright saturnian like goldenrod rings turning on  its axis around my heart appear. I do not know what meaning this may have or even if it has a meaning. I imagine if I surrender to this image, other images may come and go, perhaps memories, sensations, colors, light, sound. Sometimes I wonder what rare troves are  stored in our soma and if we had the courage to attend with greater presence to  these sensations, what creative wellsprings would we find. I have said earlier, that we prefer not to feel pain, but do we prefer not to be creative.I always wonder , in order to unearth creativity ,passion, must we cultivate an ability to endure pain to necessitate growth. Do we then become stronger, more resilient,  suppler, softer sylphlike and sensitive .......

Do Injuries Soften Us or Harden Us-Beyond the fibers of the pectoralis,lie the chambers of my heart

My heart with all its mysterious chambers lies beneath the dense protective fibers of the pectoralis....

Yoga and Injuries...a subject we try to avoid talking about as it can get kind of raw , perhaps too much of a whiff  of reality unexpectedly comes our way.Injury, pain, and hopefully and eventually recovery and healing  welcome and inevitable in our lives, in yoga, in relationships.... People often ask me, do "you" ever get injured in "your practice",almost as if they  imagine that I never injure myself. or get an injury, that  I am resilient, invincible. I can understand that myth a little as I am told that on the outside to "others eyes", my practice seems internal, quiet, steady, determined, that I am reflective. It is true that sometimes I feel calm in my practice , but sometimes I do not, and even when I seem  more internally focused  or quiet, there still is  fluctuation of the mind and emotion   erupting within  me, as still waters do run deep, human that i am. and yes, I have had many injuries, some of greater import and others of less . It is truer that I am more silent during an injury as I tend to lick my wounds softly without calling  more attention as I find the attention causes more pain festering and suffering.
. I tend to work quietly through a pain on my own terms.It has always been that way more or less.This week I experienced a new type of injury ,at least for me. I have been thinking lately about mula bhanda, the root lock,  if somehow I can get closer to sustaining that feeling in a more continous subtle yet deeper way in my practice. I began imagining  the image of the mula as a vessel or bowl that holds, circulates energy up, in and through me.With  a greater accessibility to matters of energy I  imagined a protective, nourishing bowl hollowing out at the base of my person  .You  could say, I even felt a  metaphoric warm breeze of support enveloping me , only briefly,very fleeting, none the less present , at least sometimes.
    So what does this have to do with injury, I think that I convinced myself that somehow this energetic metaphor, would   really not only virtually protect me in some way,rather than just let "it" just be without expectation.. As I have had injuries in boney tissue, soft tissue, catilage, muscle and yes, in my soul as well, I am sensitive to knowing, feeling where  the sensation stems from. Earler this week, I had a nice gentle, but deep practice, things seemed less effortful, like my breath was moving me rather than my physical being moving my breath. One could say, that it was" nice", a gift amidst this harsh stoney grey cold winter world. When I arose from  the warm mysore room  , acutely and suddely  I felt a piercing, jabbing knife like sensation under my left breast bone. I know my  own heart sits  with  crimson red and venous  blue tapestried walls under that protective bone of glistening white cartilage  rib and fibrous tenting muscle.. it felt as if the pain  came from my mere walking into colder air , literally piercing my heart..yes, i had been working deeply, but  I had a pleasant ,mindful practice of late. I was trying to decide if this was actual chest pain, fractured rib, strained muscle , all of those frenzied places the" not calm" mind will travel. .Over the next couple of days, I noted I could barely bare weight on my left side in chaturangas.and turning the steering wheel to the left in my car caused pain-discomfort. I nursed the pain with ice-heat-ice, ginger, tumeric etc and gradually the pain started melting.I realized the discomfort was in my pectoralis muscle, the tent like large protective fibers,that shields my heart , the sting radiated  around my chest. I am recalling the details of this injury as I have never had an injury  in a muscle that envelops the muscle of "my heart". It is a whole new level of experience and learning when the hot  stinging energy of pain surrounds one's "very own heart".I have been feeling unusually vulnerable, friable,delicate ,fatiguable and vincible. It as if this warm tingling energy is melting away the walls around my heart. I have had emotional experiences that have left me feeling this way, but less so as of yet in the form of a physical energetic sensation of melting.I am sitting now with this new sensation, in curiosity and reverence and with kindness , as after all I am  delicately entering the "chambers of my own heart"......

Reflections of Trees in a River

My first assignment at photo school is called "reflections"-we are to go out and capture some quality/ies of the winter light as it reflects., from different vantage points.When I first thought about the project, my linear mind went,"where will I go to find these reflections, when , how etc...It also seemed that there were numerous opportunities, the notion of infinite opportunities did not cross my mind. So, I went out and took a walk along a hidden urban part of a river nearby and along the vast icy windy oceanic lake nearby. Once the emersion into the light falling ,reflecting through me began to happen, I felt amidst a  meteorite shower of infinite possibilities , light showering, dancing, sprinkling over every possible surface.I guess, if you allow yourself to look, the gift of seeing does follow...

"To Calve"-to give birth to a calf

Sometimes, in the course of my ordinary workday, I encounter the most honorable of human beings, where the greeting of "namaste" - recognizing the divinity in the person present in front of me is palpable. This cold wintery afternoon, such did  occur for me.A father of a now adolescent that I have  known for some time often tells me about his daily travails as a farmer. He has a a small dairy farm and paticipates completely in all aspects of his cows lives. Today he told me about the waiting  for a cow to birth and what it means to participate in the calving, to know the rhythms of his cows natural cycles that he can predict when the bag of waters will break, how soon after he will be needed to help with the birthing of the calf. On rare occasions, the cow struggles and needs a c-section. The new calf depends on the farmer's presence because there can be fragile moments in the first moments a newborn calf begins to breathe. So the farmer is waking up frequently during the long cold winter nights, walking through snowy fields to the barn to help birh these calves.We talked about how he feels about his animals and this is what he said,"If you love them , care for them, feed them, keep then clean and healthy, if you treat them real gentle-like, they will love you, they will be your best friends. It is easy to see when an animal is mistreated, they are unloving, mistrutful, angry, afraid. Oh, yes, I have my favorites pretty much from birth and get attached to them, we give them names...:Such  plainly truthful words, the same is true of how we treat or mistreat each other. I am aware of how far away from the natural rhythms of life I have become, what wisdoms of walking out to a barn on a snowy night to the birthing of a calf can hold and a simple wish to return to those truths....    A March Calf by poet,Ted Hughes

Right from the start he is dressed in his best - his blacks and his whites
Little Fauntleroy - quiffed and glossy,
A Sunday suit, a wedding natty get-up,
Standing in dunged straw

Under cobwebby beams, near the mud wall,
Half of him legs,
Shining-eyed, requiring nothing more
But that mother's milk come back often.

Everything else is in order, just as it is.
Let the summer skies hold off, for the moment.
This is just as he wants it.
A little at a time, of each new thing, is best.

Too much and too sudden is too frightening -
When I block the light, a bulk from space,
To let him in to his mother for a suck,
He bolts a yard or two, then freezes,

Staring from every hair in all directions,
Ready for the worst, shut up in his hopeful religion,
A little syllogism
With a wet blue-reddish muzzle, for God's thumb.

You see all his hopes bustling
As he reaches between the worn rails towards
The topheavy oven of his mother.
He trembles to grow, stretching his curl-tip tongue -

What did cattle ever find here
To make this dear little fellow
So eager to prepare himself?
He is already in the race, and quivering to win -

His new purpled eyeball swivel-jerks
In the elbowing push of his plans.
Hungry people are getting hungrier,
Butchers developing expertise and markets,

But he just wobbles his tail - and glistens
Within his dapper profile
Unaware of how his whole lineage
Has been tied up.

He shivers for feel of the world licking his side.
He is like an ember - one glow
Of lighting himself up
With the fuel of himself, breathing and brightening.

Soon he'll plunge out, to scatter his seething joy,
To be present at the grass,
To be free on the surface of such a wideness,
To find himself himself. To stand. To moo.

Manual Settings-State of Being

   above, first photo of class....  I have started taking a digital slr photography class at a local school. I have thought about doing this for many years now. I had lofty lofts that somehow I would have time and  the possibility of enrolling at the International Center for photography in NYC, but making good use of the realities, possibilities that are in one's current sphere of vision is good practice. It is kind of like a pose in the ashtanga yoga series , as the series dictates what poses are in the the series. You do not have a choice in the choosing of the pose, but there it is for you to explore and everything and all in that moment  is your exploration, your creation, your quandaries, your vision, your breath, your solutions, compromises , growth and dedication. So in the context of a minimal steady structure, infinite exploration takes place.
  I have some novice experience with photography as I have taken   courses many years ago and even when my camera is not swinging on my hip side,I see the world as if through the view finder, pausing to reflect at the mesmerizing compositions of this world.The instructor said we are to only photograph on manual which of course is the only way to photograph really. But, as I am only new to the dslr world, I often let the camera choose some quality of light for me, which then influences or dictates what my other choices are,thus making the experience not my own.. Now , it is all up to me, it is my choice, my responsibility.my venturing forth to express openly how I see the world, how I may communicate how and what and perhaps even why I see something some way or to contemplate why it is of interest me, to pause and ponder why,how I want to remember this moment or any moment. And what  makes a moment worthy of sharing with another, and how to convey my desire to then share that moment in time. So , I am beginning to refine, retune these ponderings. The first assignment is on "Reflections"-portraying some aspect of the winter light and its quality to reflect off of someone, something. I too am asking myself in this project what do I reflect into this world....stay tuned....

Flying

This weekend has been a treat indeed, Flying lessons From Tim Feldman, a Danish Ashtangi, now co-director  of the Miami Life Yoga Center dancer, choreographer, teacher of  yogic flight and pranayama. I mean, the flight of  vinyasa, movement with breath, jumping back, flying through the poses. One of the magical things I love about yoga that in the process of getting to know one self and moving through the layers of our self deeper and deeper, sometimes a sense of liberation," moksha" very suddenly just springs forth. The jumping up and through , floating through  against gravity,is the closest I imagine   I will come to actual flying. It is a lesson , in the possibilities that can exist within ourselves, if we at least try.Much of this like flying experience stems from the  beginnings of the understandings of bhandas and that we are matter  and that energy flows in and through us. How do we harness this energy, what do we do with it when we start to feel it in our soma, in ourselves.I think a regular lifetime practice of all the 8 limbs of yoga can begin to helps us to ask these questions, maybe begin to answer them, but more importantly to feel more alive and in that aliveness consider new possibilities, flight could be possible, but perhaps even self knowledge and using that knowledge to be compassionate, generous,forgiving,flexible and interested in our vast capabilities as humans.

Wintery Whooshing Waves

I love water,everything about it, the wet, moist,sprinkling,cleansing,warm ,kind and the biting,tingling,prickly icy kind. I like that I live near a lake, but I think the grand vastness of an ocean would be even better.I love taking walks along the beach. The quality of the water, the sand, the air, the sky, the light,the fragrances constantly in flux,never repeating itself. I did not have enough time to get close enough to the waves today,so I watched from the shore the dramatic show of waves,breaking, spewing, whoorling, tossing sprays droplets of ice,sand and air.I am easily astonished by such drama,

"Covering the land..." by Paul Verlaine Translated by Norman R. Shapiro from One Hundred and One Poems by Paul Verlaine: A Bilingual Edition Copyright 1999 by The University of Chicago Covering the land— Dismal, endless plain— Blurring the terrain, Snow haze gleams like sand. Bronze the sky, with no Glimmering of light: Is the moon to grow Dim, and die tonight? In the woods, close by, Billows the fog, cloaks Gray the cloud-like oaks Floating on the sky. Bronze the sky, with no Glimmering of light: Is the moon to grow Dim, and die tonight? Scrawny wolves, and you, Wheezing ravens, when Winds blow sharp, what then? What? What can you do? Covering the land— Dismal, endless plain— Blurring the terrain, Snow haze gleams like sand.

Pas de deux avec les faons dans une foret d'hiver

This family of fawn are becoming a natural part of my life.It is interesting to reflect on what encounters in our lives lead to something more profound than just a casual  fleeting  passing episode in time. I wonder to myself , how and why does it happen that with some people, creatures something more enduring  and intimate ensues ,that we want to return ,that keeps drawing us back.I think it is something in the eyes,a slight movement of the head, the neck,yet the eyes remain fixed, penetrating, inviting.
   I have taken to bring my camera with me wherever I go these days. I am finding it is a way to facilitate my pausing, lingering, taking time to absorb a moment fully. This morning, my fawn friends again grazing, waiting, licking the moist white carpet of snow. I  have a sense of when they will be there now.. It seems they like to prance about when it is most  beautiful outside and when the air is soft and light.I share that love with them. They seem to be less frightened of me, let me get  just a little closer. There are two larger sleek males with coiled antlers proudly bowing, nodding. They are protective, one stands in front of the herd and one in back. It is interesting  how they, will let me almost approach them ,but then back off. They move closer to me if I get to close to a young one or a female fawn. They are  majestically regal .I am captivated  by their graceful slight,lithe movements.I am honored that they do not run from me. I feel vulnerable in their presence for they are the experts in foraging in the wild, they are the ones who survive with dignity every frigid  long winter, they are the one who have memorized the rhythm of the moon,the stars, the sun, the imperceptible turning of the earth, they are the ones who stay together in a herd looking out for each other no matter what. They are the one that with such contentment gently lick  the fresh fallen snow....
  and here are my lovely friends today...

In honor of Khalil Gibran's Birthday

It's the birthday of the author of the best-selling book in Alfred A. Knopf's publishing history: Khalil Gibran, (books by this author) born in the mountain village in Bsharri, Lebanon (1883). When Gibran was a boy, his mother decided to leave her alcoholic husband and take her four children to America. They settled in Boston, where they had relatives, and it was there that a charity worker noticed that Gibran appeared to be artistically gifted. Members of the aristocratic Boston society found him charming, and they began inviting him to social gatherings, where he discussed philosophy and poetry   
                                         On Children
 Kahlil Gibran
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
        This is one of my favorite poems by Khalil Gibran, a framed copy of it comes with me where ever I have lived. So often, I have needed this reminder as a parent, as a person. We do not own our children's souls and thoughts,they come through us, not from us.We are only the bows that they as living arrows are sent forth in the world. We can only teach them to try to make good sound choices and live well and at peace and contentment within themselves  and with gratitude for who they are.

The Death of Fluffy , the Guinea Pig and what is "good -practice"

Guinea Pig

by Julie Cadwallader-Staub

As if your cancer weren't enough,
the guinea pig is dying.
The kids brought him to me
wrapped in a bath towel
‘Do something, Mom.
Save his life.'

I'm a good mom.
I took time from work,
drove him to the vet,
paid $77.00 for his antibiotics.

Now, after the kids rush off to school,
you and I sit on the bed.
I hold the guinea pig, since he bites.
You fill the syringe.
We administer the foul smelling medicine,
hoping the little fellow will live.

admitting to each other:
if he doesn't,
it'll be good practice.
"Guinea Pig" by Julie Cadwallader-Staub. Reprinted with permission of the poet.

      "Johnson" was my daughter's childhood grand-father,her consistant,loving, warm, playful, step-grandfather,her most significant male attachment person as a young child.. I was a young single mom, training to become a doctor,which  entailed long sleepless stressful hours away from my young child. I had often to depend on the kindness,generosity of others in helping  me to raise  my child, especially when I was "on-call" so, Johnson,my mother's boyfriend  appeared on the family scene  fortuitously  close to the time of  my daughter's birth. Johnson and my daughter became  bosom buddies, so to speak. We had a guinea pig named Fluffy . She was white and fluffy,cute, sweet, but suscebtible to colds. It was also hard to make sure  her needs were always  well met being a single mom and resident doctor.She was well fed, well watered, cuddled, exercised, but keeping the cage clean was difficult with all the time demands in my life,but we did our best and Fluffy thrived.That is until one very cold January day, that was lots of gineau pig sneezing and wheezing.
    I went to work in the hospital and was on call that night,meaning that I would not sleep that night and continue to work through the next day. I would not be home for at least another 36 hours. In the back of my mind , I worried about Fluffy, but really it was not on the top of my thoughts. I had spent that night resucitating premature newborn babies as they tried to hold onto their first inhalations of breath,sat with and tended to frightened children  with  chemo dripping through their veins ,  they and I holding on, white knuckling through the wee  hours of the night,their parents vigilant at their bed side, some crying in despair others with tears of hope, the  garden varieties of diarrhoea, asthma, dehydration ...Every moment weighed so heavily ,portending .
    The next afternoon I received a weepy forlorn call from my daughter, Fluffy was sleeping in the corner of her cage, not moving , barely breathing. I think we both understood  what this meant. I was asked, Mom, is she dead?I was startled by the simplicity ,  and honesty  of my then 6 year old daughter. I had been living in a world that the fuzzy boundaries between life or death  were palpable . I so much did not want to have this conversation through the telephone wires.I wanted to be home.I really can't remember how I answered. It is funny how sometimes, we can not remember the words in a moment that life seems to stand still. I remember feeling that" life did stand still." Nothing can really prepare you for those moments. I probably said ," hold her, stroke her, cover her, that I love you and I will be home soon."
   As these things go, there was more to tend to in the hospital. I was not allowed to go home because Fluffy had died or more importantly that my daughter was encountering her first real experience with death. In this setting, I was supposed to be "beyond human."
    When I did arrive home many hours later, in the coldness, in the dark, we hugged tightly and for what seemed to be  aforever. I went to find Fluffy. She and her cage were gone. I was afraid to ask where she was,yet I had a sense of where she may be. I went alone in the very dark snow covered yard to the trash bin and there she was frozen dead in her cage. The earth was stone, hard cold, I was beyond exhausted. My daughter was peering through the kitchen window. I was so so tired,bewildered myself.. I really do not remember what I did, but I know that my" not remembering"  contains a foggy screen of the image of me walking  away from the trash can" leaving Fluffy behind."To this day , I am haunted  ,ashamed and regret  this image of me walking away and the look of bewilderment and dissapointment   in my daughter' s eyes.I do not remember what I said at that moment, although years later this image , this topic is revisited.I never discussed the topic with Johnson or my mother who were the babysitters , the guinea pig sitters that day, nor would I  ever, as , after-all "I" walked away and did not give Fluffy her proper burial in the stone hard black frozen earth of  that winter night.
   If we scroll forward about ten years, my daughter , then in college,is studying, Homer's ,"The Iliad". She calls me and reads to me the passsage that Priam is begging Achilles to grant him a proper burial , for Hector his son.Achilles is angry and wanting revenge and is reluctant to move from his position of dragging Hector's body through the streets as Hector killed Patroclus, Achilles' loyal and best friend. At the end, honor wins and Priam is granted his wish,The dialogue goes like this: from the Iliad book24;
    
   

Then Priam made his plea, entreating:

                                                 "Godlike Achilles,
remember your own father, who's as old as me,
on the painful threshold of old age.
It may well be that those who live around him
are harassing him, and no one's there                                           600
to save him from ruin and destruction.
But when he hears you're still alive,                                                        [490]
his heart feels joy, for every day he hopes
he'll see his dear son come back home from Troy.
But I'm completely doomed to misery,
for I fathered the best sons in spacious Troy,
yet I say now not one of them remains.
I had fifty when Achaea's sons arrived—
nineteen born from the same mother's womb,
others the women of the palace bore me.                                     610
Angry Ares drained the life of most of them.
But I had one left, guardian of our city,
protector of its people.  You've just killed him,
as he was fighting for his native country.                                                [500]
I mean Hector. For his sake I've come here,
to Achaea's ships, to win him back from you.
And I've brought a ransom beyond counting.
So Achilles, show deference to the gods
and pity for myself, remembering
your own father.  Of the two old men,                                         620
I'm more pitiful, because I have endured
what no living mortal on this earth has borne—
I've lifted to my lips and kissed
the hands of the man who killed my son."

Priam finished.  His words roused in Achilles
a desire to weep for his own father.  Taking Priam's hand,
he gently moved him back.  So the two men there
both remembered warriors who'd been slaughtered.
Priam, lying at Achilles' feet, wept aloud                                                          [510]
for man-killing Hector, and Achilles also wept                                      630
for his own father and once more for Patroclus.
The sound of their lamenting filled the house.

When godlike Achilles had had enough of weeping,
when the need to mourn had left his heart and limbs,
he stood up quickly from his seat, then with his hand
helped the old man to his feet, feeling pity
for that gray head and beard.  Then Achilles spoke—
his words had wings:

                                     "You unhappy man,
your heart's had to endure so many evils.
How could you dare come to the Achaea's ships,                        640
and come alone, to rest your eyes on me,                                               [520]
when I've killed so many noble sons of yours?
You must have a heart of iron.  But come now,
sit on this chair.  Though we're both feeling pain,
we'll let our grief lie quiet on our hearts.
For there's no benefit in frigid tears.
That's the way the gods have spun the threads
for wretched mortal men, so they live in pain,
though gods themselves live on without a care.
On Zeus' floor stand two jars which hold his gifts—                  650
one has disastrous things, the other blessings.
When thunder-loving Zeus hands out a mixture,
that man will, at some point, meet with evil,                                          [530]
then, some other time, with good.  When Zeus' gift
comes only from the jar containing evil,
he makes the man despised.  An evil frenzy
drives him all over sacred earth—he wanders
without honour from the gods or mortal men.
Consider Peleus.  The gods gave him gifts,
splendid presents, right from birth.  In wealth,                            660
in his possessions, he surpassed all men.
And he was king over the Myrmidons.
Though he was mortal, the gods gave him
a goddess for a wife.  But even to him
the gods gave evil, too, for in his palace
there sprang up no line of princely children.
He had one son, doomed to an early death.                                             [540]
I'll not look after him as he grows old,
since I'm a long way from my native land,
sitting here in Troy, bringing pain to you                                     670
and to your children.  Think of yourself, old man.
We hear that you were fortunate in former times.
In all the lands from Lesbos to the south,
where Macar ruled, and east to Phrygia,
to the boundless Hellespont, in all these lands,
old man, they say that you surpassed all men
for wealth and children.  But from the time
you got disaster from the heavenly gods,
man-killing battles round your city
have never ceased.  You must endure it all,                                 680
without a constant weeping in your heart.
You achieve nothing by grieving for your son.                                        [550]
You won't bring him to life again, not before
you'll have to suffer yet another evil."

Old godlike Priam then answered Achilles:

"Don't make me sit down on a chair, my lord,
while Hector lies uncared for in your huts.
But quickly give him back, so my own eyes
can see him.  And take the enormous ransom
we've brought here for you.  May it give you joy.                        690
And may you get back to your native land,
since you've now let me live to see the sunlight."

With an angry look, swift-footed Achilles snapped at Priam:

"Old man, don't provoke me.  I myself intend                                        [560]
to give you Hector.  Zeus sent me here
a messenger, the mother who bore me,
daughter of the old man of the sea.
And in my heart, Priam, I recognize—
it's no secret to me—that some god
led you here to the swift Achaean ships.                                      700
No matter how young and strong, no living man
would dare to make the trip to our encampment.
He could not evade the sentries, or push back
our door bolts—that would not be easy.
So don't agitate my grieving heart still more,
or I might not spare even you, old man,
though you're a suppliant in my hut.                                                       [570]
I could transgress what Zeus has ordered."

Achilles spoke.  The old man, afraid, obeyed him.
Then Peleus' son sprang to the door, like a lion.                                    710
Not alone—his two attendants went out with him,
warrior Automedon and Alcimus, whom he honoured
the most of his companions after dead Patroclus.
They freed the mules and horses from their harnesses,
led in the herald, the old man's crier, sat him on a stool.
Then from the polished wagon they brought in
that priceless ransom for Hector's head, leaving there
two cloaks and a thickly woven tunic, so Achilles                                           [580]
could wrap up the corpse before he gave it back
for Priam to take home.  Achilles then called out,                                 720
ordering his servant women to wash the body,
and then anoint it, after moving it away,
so Priam wouldn't see his son, then, heart-stricken,
be unable to contain his anger at the sight.
Achilles' own spirit might then get so aroused
he could kill Priam, disobeying Zeus' orders.
Servants washed the corpse, anointed it with oil,
then put a lovely cloak and tunic round it.
Achilles himself lifted it and placed it on a bier.
Then together he and his companions set it                                           730          [590]
on the polished wagon.  Achilles, with a groan,
called to his dear companion:

So, as parents , as humans there are times we wish we could have done it differently, that we we wish we were not as tired, as cold , that we were stronger, less flawed, wiser, more compassionate, but we can not turn back time or erase some images that we carry with us. But sometimes something beyond our human perception takes hold, sometimes our greatest follies are our gratest teachers and sometimes, those near and dear to us forgive our mere human state and even learn from watching our foibles and try to do it differently. So, this young child who watched her beloved Fluffy get left to the  cold trash becomes inrtigued with stories of honor,dignity, the noble rituals of how we live and die , the human condition in antiquity, the god like and human like ancient Greeks, the human  quandries of the Trojan War and then one day, she ponders spending some time in her own life "retrieving the forlorn amongst us humans from the trash".It is so interesting and miraculous, that I awake to a poem in my email from the"Writer's Almanac" about a  family guinea pig dying of cancer and think about  our Fluffy, our Johnson,my daughter,Priam, Achilles and Patroclus and how  myself to live a nobler life.There are so many ways that we are all connected through time, through space,through memory  through the commonality we share that makes us as  human as we all are....

Lost

A native American Elder was asked,

“What shall we do if we get lost?”

Stand still.  The trees before you and the bushes beside you are not lost.

Wherever you are is a place called here,

and you must treat it as a powerful stranger

both asking to know and be known.

Listen.  The forest whispers,

“I have made this place, you can leave and return once again

saying, here.”

No two trees are the same to Raven,

no two branches the same to Wren.

If what a tree or a branch does is lost on you,

you are truly lost.

Stand still.  Listen.

The forest knows where you are.

Let it find you.

Arrangement by David Wagon

I have sometimes taken long hikes in the forest and thought I was lost.Sometimes, I walk in the forest and feel so protected,that it is not possible to get lost.Walking in the quiet warmth of this snowy woods, it seemed that I was indeed,found.

The Taming of a Rose

"'You are not at all like my rose,' he said. 'As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world.'

And the roses were very much embarrassed.

'You are beautiful, but you are empty,' he went on. 'One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you — the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or ever sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose......You become responsible forever for what you have tamed." (from ,"The Little Prince" by Antoine de St, Exupery)
    My mentor,Dyrud as we fondly called him taught me through the language of metaphor and example. He not only tended to his lovely elegant orchids in his little green house, but also to a radiant blushing blooming garden of spring and summer roses. I imagine he was trying to show me that if you assiduously tend,care,nurture,observe,respond and give measured space for growth and exploration, something akin to taming happens.Perhaps, only those who have been tamed,can tame in return. Perhaps that close connection of feeling,knowing what another really needs to live and grow, on their terms  and responding based to their unique specific needs is a pre-requisite to developing a conscience .

Conscience

Conscience is an ability or a faculty that distinguishes whether one's actions are right or wrong. It can lead to feelings of remorse when a human does things that go against his/her moral values, and to feelings of rectitudeor integrity when actions conform to such norms.
                        This morning I am more reflective, I think about how this writing a blog helps me feel more connected to humanity,that perhaps others will read these words and say ahha, I share this concern, this struggle, this joy,that none of us are as alone in our thoughts as we imagine. I think of Dyrud this morning. I would ask him about the notion of a conscience, how it develops, why it develops, why some seem to have an active compassionate conscience and others not. In his sweet,wise,gentle way, he would  say, come , let us tend to the orchids,he would notice how the grey light of January quietly fell on these well cared for fragile flowers on a frigid winter day.He thoughtfully reflected on my serious queries of how one really develops a sense of right and wrong and in his gentle,unassuming way of being present with me in this little green house flooded with light,i learned and in that sacred memory continue to learn about what makes us human and how to make the best of that human-ness that we are. I practice yoga for that reason as well,because I learn about my humanity.