Graduation in May

BFA.  NO BIGGS.  IT'S CASUAL.

So reads the graduate's Status since sometime last night, post graduation parties.

The ceremony itself was too long, far from casual in the first dry hour of speechifying and institution-building, but then delightful when, essentially, the students took it over.  Then the real feel of the school came through and it seemed clear why it was such an appropriate home for all these weirdos and crackpots and geniuses, each developing in their time at the school whatever singular talent, peculiar vision, they possess.  Delightful.

In the long two hours of the ceremony, finally the sun came out, though the wind was still utterly polar.  It took me hours to get warm.  The courtyard was packed with people and delicious eats, and it was so great to wander around the various galleries and rooms, checking out the kid's work on the walls, that of his classmates and peers.  They do put on a great party at the Art Institute, but how not to: the building just seems made for it, ideal for walking around, mimosa in hand, looking at whatever's hanging in the courtyard, whoever's hanging in the courtyard, all the smokers out front, relieving the pressures of the morning.

And in the crowd, to catch glimpses of the kid so exhilarated, running around, being hugged and congratulated by tons of people we don't know, other students at the school, friends who came to see him graduate.

More than his walk across the stage at the sound of his name to receive his diploma, that part -- the glimpsing him in the deep embrace of his people -- was the real graduation for me, the happy knowing that he made it through, he persevered, he made his place.

And that's what it's all about.

Full, proud Mother's heart

Tomorrow our son graduates from college. Our kid, now a grown-up, will be receiving his Bachelor's of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute.  It's a little hard to believe, and I'm trying to get all of my goofy Mom emotion out ahead of time so I don't make a mess of the mascara tomorrow at the ceremony.  But I know I will anyway.

At left is the artist as a very young man, in the phase during which he toted his coloring book and crayon briefcase with him everywhere.  You realize, I hope, that I am taking a tremendous risk in posting this photo; the repercussions could be jagged, but like I said, this is me getting my goofy Mom out as a precautionary measure so I don't make an utter spectacle tomorrow in front of strangers.  We are so proud that he finished college in four years, that he was a disciplined student (or so we're told), that he learned a lot from this experience.  How can it already be over?

And now he will move on, move out, move up, into whatever it is that he chooses.  It's such an exciting time for him and for us who are observing him as he heads off into whatever comes next.

I've felt so lucky to have him close by throughout college, and now really close, back living with us since October.  It's such a special experience to watch someone you love, someone you grew, come into the fullness of who they are.  And now really truly to stand on the threshold of adulthood.  So, so exciting.

Congratulations, Laurent!  You make us so proud and happy and delighted.

Drive To Work day

Driving to work on Bike To Work Day pretty much sucks.  I cheered everybody on their two wheels yesterday while wondering at my own self.  Yes, it's a hybrid, but still it's a car. Yes, it gets 45 miles to the gallon, but still it's 10 gallons every week or so, so I'm still part of the oil problem.  And to think that 15 years ago, I used to bike everywhere, we rode Critical Mass every month. I used to take our son to school and daycare in a bike trailer.  Now I commute 44 miles total a day, in my car.  What the hell?

Two big events in the past month have made me think about this more than ever.

First, the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull, the volcano in Iceland.  I admit to a fondness for natural disasters of this kind, so many warm memories of the post-terror clarity of earthquakes experienced in my home town of San Francisco.  Everything you think of as normal stops, you re-focus, you learn to live without telephones or gas, you break out the camping stove and eat in the street with your neighbors like we did on Liberty Street in 1989. You walk down Castro the next morning, in the quiet of after, and stand in the crowd assembled outside the plant-store and read along with everybody else the limited edition newspaper that's taped up in the front window.  You talk to strangers.  You make do.  

With the volcano, a whole lot of people had to make to do without flying.  I am not in any way minimizing the disruption and havoc this created in a lot of individual and corporate lives, but people had to stay put.  And without the vapor from so many aircraft engines, these same people got to see a bluer sky than they had in years, as one writer put it, "as if somebody suddenly ripped a veil away, exposing the true colors of the heavens."  It's almost absurd how silver lining that is!  Not a bad thing to have to make do with.  And it's our habits, the ease of flying here and there, that creates that veil between us and the true nature of the sky.  How lovely to be able to stay home, not fly away, and look up and take in a deeper-blue, quiet, empty sky.

Second, of course, is the criminal  and tragic man-made disaster, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, especially with today's news, as reported in the New York Times that BP was allowed to drill in the Gulf without permits from the agency that assesses threats to endangered species and over that same agency's strenuous objections!  And that the 5,000 barrels a day that we keep hearing about is an understatement. This oil spill makes me so sick at heart.  I can't imagine the thought-process behind the whole operation, it just seems so utterly insane. 

So, lately as I emerge from the Waldo Tunnel 5 mornings a week to the stunning view of the Golden Gate and San Francisco glittering beyond, I am really thinking about my part in this insanity and about how, if I didn't have a car (and paid parking), I would never even have considered taking the job I currently have.  The car is what makes the job possible, and the job pays for the car, along with everything else I have. But if I didn't have the car, ergo didn't have this job, along with an extra 1 1/2 or so a day not spent behind the wheel, what would I have instead?  How would I make do?

This is the year I get to find that out, since really, it's time.  By next year, May 2011, I will have shifted the circumstances that keep me in the car.  Next Bike to Work Day, I'll be on two wheels too, no matter what. 

Keeping Good Company

Gurumayi says, Another way to be disciplined in listening is not to keep bad company.

She quotes Mirabai:
  Give up bad company
  and keep the company
     of those who love God, instead.
  Listen to their conversations
     and discussions about God.
- "The Yoga of Discipline," page 92.

I've been keeping a lot of good company lately.  In fact, I suppose the sadhana is to keep good company all the time.  Whether it's actually going to yoga, or hanging out with my yoga-homies after class, or hanging out with my friends live or on-line via FB and email, or reading other people's blogs, or reading Gurumayi, or waking up in the morning and giving the murti a look-see first thing, or even the words on the YogiTea teabag as above, ALL of that is keeping good company.  For those hung up on the God word above (and you're not alone since clearly I'm still thinking about it), for me it's all just about truth, about ananda, about happiness.   Keeping company with seekers of happiness and purpose, that's what this is about for me.

And the good company is so helpful when the challenging situation comes. And boy, it always does, so why not have a well-developed system of good company to get us through that, to keep our eye on the auspicious ball?  When I am faced with some ridiculous situation at work, so nice to fall back into that comfortable net of good company and feel just fine, thank you, just fine.

Good company appears to make for more good company.  The more I practice, the more practiced I am.  It's not an accident that more good things happen, more good people appear; it's a function of the very real discipline -- there is, of course, effort involved -- of seeking the good, seeing the good.

Right now it's making me smile to think that this is a post about yoga, really, and yet not one word about physical asana.  Hah, yoga is wonderful. So many gifts beyond the physical practice!

Keep good company.  Be good company.

Use the Five to come back to The One

Last week Laura's theme, throughout our classes all week, was the 5 principles and the 5 mahābhūtas, the 5 elements. [Confession: because inside I am still a 12-year-old sitting on the stoop with my junior high friends, I hear mahābhūtas and turn it into "maha booties," and giggle a little inside...]

With the usual elegance of Anusara yoga, each of the 5 principles has a direct relationship to each of the mahābhūtas, as follows:

1. Open to Grace --> Space
2. Muscular Energy --> Earth
3. Expanding Spiral --> Water
4. Contracting Spiral --> Fire
5. Organic Energy --> Air

It was so helpful to think of the qualities of water, for example, when working inner spiral, to think of the openness and freedom of movement that water has, as we set about opening our hips. And to visualize the qualities of fire when activating outer spiral and the tailbone, firing up the belly. So elegant!

Whichever five you choose to focus on -- principles or Mahābhūtas -- Laura's real point was that we use The Five to come back to The One.

In Anusara, we go through these principles (open to grace, muscular energy, inner spiral, outer spiral, organic energy), and always end up back where we started, Open to Grace. We expand, then contract, but ultimately always expand again. And though I've heard this probably thousands of times already, last week this hit me with a new power.

Use the Five to come back to The One.

That's it, in a nutshell, really, whether we're talking about our 5 senses or the 5 elements or any other 5s or 3s or 2s under the sun. The real purpose is always opening, expanding, recognizing what is already there, using every tool at our disposal to come back home into our own bodies, into what a delight it is to be here in this form right now. Elegant and so awesome!

Deep love and gratitude to my teacher and to my teacher's teachers! XX