It’s the things we do; the times when we turn off our cell phones, power down the laptops and the televisions, the 24/7 stream of news and entertainment, the onslaught of stimulus. It’s the things we do when we make time to be silent and do something we love, whether it is walking the dog or scrapbooking, shooting hoops on your own or picking on the guitar, taking a stroll through the woods or dancing barefoot in the yard. It’s the things we do that draw us deeper into ourselves and further from the rattle of the everyday life.
Tonight the Gallery opens an art show titled Sacred Hobbies. It was a phrase that starting insinuating itself into my language as I struggled with not having time to do my yoga practice. I went back to one of the basic principles of yoga; that yoga is not our physical practice but the way we live our lives. So I started working that theory into my life; when I had to choose between taking my half hour off to either do asana or take my amazing dog on a walk I choose to take my dog for a walk but for that to be my yoga for the day. Leaving the phone behind and not just taking in each moment of our walk but enjoying each moment (even the picking up of the poop moment). And I instilled this new awareness into other areas of my daily life, stealing precious minutes and turning them into profound experiences or taking what seemed like chores and making them my new sacred hobby. My walk up the hill to my office became walking meditations, my job making sandwich and scones turning into the sacred art of nourishing people. And my life, my little life as a struggling yogi and women, became enveloped with prayer and beauty. And I wanted to share!
I started talking this idea of sacred hobbies up to friends. What do they do in their lives that helps keep them sane and plugged into their own inner landscape? There seemed to be something for everyone and it was one friend in particular that gave birth to the exhibit opening tonight. Her own Sacred Hobby was making a thousand paper cranes; she had no “intention” for the cranes but asked if I would be interested in hanging them at the studio. It seemed a perfect fit and also a way to broaden this conversation I had begun among my friends out into the Community. From that reaching out into the Community I asked another local artist, a photographer who still shoots on film and develops his own prints at home in a self built darkroom, to join the show.
When I think back to just over a year ago when I opened Second Star Studio, it was in a way the biggest Sacred Hobby I’ve ever had and now it has helped to bring even more of them into my life. This show began as the tiniest spark of an idea and now holds a very special place in my life. I am so please and grateful for the shift in perspective, helping to see the profundity in every aspect of life, to embrace the idea of sacred as something other than solemn and of course to share this all with my Community.
Podcast junkie that I am, I was listening to some recent episodes of To The Best Of Our Knowledge while working at the studio when I stumbled across one called “The Uses of Enchantment.” It featured stories by Neil Gaiman, Salman Rushdie and one about fairies of all things. It was more entertaining than thought provoking but in this current time of struggle and ongoing winter I found the levity of the hour refreshing. The controversy in Madison is felt very strongly here in my tiny town that combined with the rollercoaster of weather that is late winter/early spring in Wisconsin there does seem to be an air of discontent afoot. We all seem to be just trudging along waiting for something to give, before a morning class students discussed the protest at the Capitol and the winter pledge drive for Public Radio, which just saw its funding slashed by budget cuts and we all seemed a little exhausted. So after class when one of the students said how glad she was for yoga because she was struggling to find some peace in all of this turmoil I was overcome with gratitude. Peace of mind is one of the biggest reasons people come to the mat and as thankful I was that she had found some I was also thankful for another thing that happened in class today; we fell on our faces. We fell on our faces and we laughed.
It wasn’t any special class but I found myself moved to bring lightness to my teaching which I try to do especially when practicing arm balances. We were working on Parsva Bakasana, side crow, in which you sort of scrunch down into a little ball, turn to the side and then balance on your hands, for most beginners (and even myself) you don’t wind up to far off the mat so as I was demonstrating I felt my balance falter and all to willingly tipped forward and let my forehead hit the floor, “and then you fall on your face and laugh.” And we did, and it’s one of those things that happen in a yoga class that when you are all working on something challenging together your efforts are shared, supported and celebrated. A brief up draft in a time of heaviness.
That evening back at the studio as I cut and pasted paper print outs onto pieces of cardboard, listening to stories of fairy worlds, forgotten deities and even Neverland I felt childlike for a moment. It was like being 8 years old working on a school art project and just knowing the teacher was going to love my creation. When in reality I’m a pretty fully formed adult and hoping my DIY signage doesn’t actually look like an 8 year old made it. But that's just one of the lessons yoga has taught me, that even though the outcome is important the effort is the yoga and the effort should be joyous. Yoga can be a very sacred practice and it can offer profound peace, but it doesn’t have to be solemn. It can also teach us how sacred laughter is and reminds us that when you look at the world through the eyes of a child there are countless things to smile at.
I’ve been thinking about the protest happening in Madison over Unions and teachers and how amazing it is and how it’s the perfect demonstration of Community. Community is very important to me, I grew up with the “it takes a village…” mindset. Teachers are such an important part of any village, teachers of any kind; school teachers, the elders, those who lead by example. It’s this idea that got me to thinking about yoga.
There are great spiritual leaders off in the mountains living in solitude, meditating for 20 hours a day, living on the scarce resources the Himalayas have to offer. And right now all I can think is, why? I say this knowing that there are people who will be enraged and offended by this so let me just say I appreciate the integrity of these masters, I just don’t understand. When there is so much turmoil in the world I wish some of the great yogis would come down from the mountain and go meditate in the street. How amazing would it be if a mob of yogis took to the streets and meditated for peace and understanding. Live by example but live in the Community where your actions can be seen and make an impression on those who may need it.
I teach yoga, and at times I feel utterly unworthy of doing this. There are times when I feel like a total sham, standing in front of my students and asking them to have compassion and to take care of themselves, when sometimes I can’t even muster the motivation to take my vitamins. Times like this I want to run to the hills and cast off all “worldly” things. But who would be left to unlock the studio when someone wants to practice yoga? So I stay and not because I think I’m the only person who can teach yoga in town or because I have enlightenment to share but because I love my Community and I think showing up is important. And as long as there are people who want a yoga teacher and are comfortable practicing with a teacher who’s still on her own journey, who could use a teacher herself, who falters more often than she likes and has just a dash of a southern accent than I’ll show up.
