worries that yoga breeds mysticsm

What Suzanne's grandmother said, via Suzanne's yoga sermon: "You never know when it is someone's birthday.  There are so many people and how can you know when something special is happening inside?"

Suzanne's sermon a Thursday before: "We keep trying to make these deals with the Universe.  We say, I'm going to put in good work and be a good person and I am going to be rewarded.  But it doesn't work that way.  Instead you get something completely different, and you have to figure out what to do with it."


And then I wonder why my connections and appreciation of things happens in retrospect - kindred spirits misaligned in time and space.  Craving for deeper, simultaneous connection I plead, "out beyond ideas of right or wrong, there's a field.  I'll meet you there." (- Rumi)


The death in our community of a woman that I did not know causes me, a curious mind, to wonder idly about dying.  It's an immature notion I realized, since I have the same mild interest in death as in say, visiting Columbia.  They speculate it was suicide since the paper doesn't say and being she was young, healthy, and depressed.  I'd never get away with such a thing (my mother would kill me, and for Fear of Missing Out) though definitely I'd consider faking my own death to get a break.  Although for the first time in all the lives I've quit I've done nothing to be ashamed of, a place still gets small.  You run across ex-boyfriends and burn your bridges at all the video rental stores, and I have always wanted to backpack Columbia.

asking questions

since 65% of what comes out of my mouth is a question (25% complaining, 10% "I disagree.."), I tend to amass eclectic bits of very important information. Ten really cool things I learned this week:

At work:
1. Dogs look to their owners to react. If you feel guilty about leaving your dog behind for the day, and you are uneasy while you apologetically say goodbye, the unexpected gift to your dog is a day of anxiety! Better to let your dog think a day to himself is a positive thing- Emily Fraser-Thomson (Canine Behaviorist)
2. The local bread industry: bread, unlike any other product -meat, produce, processed foodstuff - is sold to grocery stores on no risk (for the store) consignment, meaning what is not purchased has to be bought back at the expense of the producer.
Also, watch the Loleta Bakery drama unfold here: http://lostcoastoutpost.com/2013/jan/13/loleta-bakery-owners-and-loleta-meat-market-owners

From Uwe
3. Farthest object visible to the naked eye: Find Jupiter (the brightest object in tonight's sky) and look to the fuzzy mass near it (better with binoculars). You're looking at the andromeda galaxy, although what you're seeing is technically 2 million years old, since that's how long it took the light to travel here at 186,000 miles per second.
4. Anachronisms:
a. Modern Homo sapiens migrating from Africa existed alongside neanderthals in Europe for tens of thousands of years! until the last neanderthal died out 30,000 years ago. Uwe speculates the origin of stories of trolls under bridges. Wonders if I am related to ghengis khan.
b. The bank along Big Creek, NJ never managed to harden to rock after THE LATE CRETACEOUS PERIOD, or 72 million year old fossils can just be found in the creek!

Various local hiking:
5. Burning man is a refuge of the rich who "think the wildest thing they can possibly do is ride a bicycle naked through the desert, whereas the rest of us are like 'I can ride a bicycle naked any day I want. Nbd.' " -Two Humboldt Honeys at Strawberry Rock, wondering why 50,000 people converge annually in a place where one could not even survive by his own means.
6. The forest leading to Strawberry Rock is threatened for clear cutting by the the owners of the property, Green Diamond Timber, but is being defended vigilantly by some dudes sitting in trees. Blog: http://trinidadforest.blogspot.com/

7. Bacon spliff: rub a spliff with bacon grease so that the contents become visible and the product smells like bacon! Untested by me and potentially extra-combustible.

Stuff I read at the gym:
8. Marines and yogis don't lift weights: Lifting weights artificially isolates muscles and can cause injury. Full body weight-exercises (pull ups, lunges, eg) are longer lasting and more beneficial, since they use a lot of muscle groups. My New Year's resolution: one armed pushups.
9. How to perform an emergency tracheotomy to allow breathing through an obstructed through passage: Find the space between the Adams Apple and the lump below it (the cricoid cartilage) and make a 1/2 inch incision with a razor blade or very sharp knife. Pinch the incision or stick your finger in there, and insert a plastic drinking straw.
10. Gonorrhea is now the second highest reported infectious disease in the United States and it's quickly becoming resistant to the last known treatment. It's already untreatable by several classes of antibiotics. AHHH http://www.webmd.com/sexual-conditions/news/20120606/untreatable-gonorrhea-on-the-way

Meditation

"The light in me sees and honors the light within you."
I can't certify that my thoughts are inherently profound.
Children are anxious and bewildered and curious
and are not asked for advice.
I am obsessive and even if a notion indicates something
to be explored, it most definitely isn't virtuous
and I don't see that sitting on my knees reconsidering it is much help.
But let me humor the notion: humans generate light
While bingeing on raisinettes.
Maybe I can synthesize wisdom - it comes out of my mouth
or floats around chemically induced or while advising someone
like me but younger - but definitely I cannot use it.

I wrote this while wondering why people meditate.  I disagree with the idea that people are inherently wise or rational, so I thought I'd meditate on the idea by process of collaboration.  The people I asked about this are true blood hippies, JT, Oliver, and Dave, who let me know I had the wrong idea entirely.  Basically, you can't intellectualize meditation since the whole procedure is to give your brain a break thinking in circular, neurotic patterns by not thinking at all.