samsara-the riptide

This past year has been a difficult one. It is really hard for me to acknowledge that. I tend to participate, against my better judgement, in the Olympics of oppression. In the pantheon of suffering, this past year doesn't register at all. I have far more to be grateful about than I have to be upset about. I live a life of incredible fortune, friendship and opportunity, but I have suffered badly this year. More than I have in awhile. There has been tremendous, nearly overwhelming sorrow. death. grief. close encounters of the impermanence of everything and the incredible discomfort that truth causes me. So I came to Kripalu to try to readjust or reset or do something to change the feeling of sorrow and grief.

 I just went to a great workshop on the meaning of yoga. Several things pinged me deeply.

You are what you came from. Begin again. See the beauty. Yoga is the practice of tolerating the consequences of being you. Begin again. Act in ways that make you feel more alive. Surrender to the mystery. Begin again.

 It occurred to me at some point in the past 5 years that I was accomplishing things that I thought I would spend the largest chunk of my life trying to accomplish. I thought achieving power would be this tremendous and fraught journey that would culminate in me getting a glimpse into the heart of what makes the world tick. Instead I ended up an observer in the room and felt mostly disappointment with how people wielded power when they had it. I possessed it in moments of crisis because of a role and power felt cold, not intoxicating. I traveled and I took a path that I tried to write as it came. And still I end up back on the beach, watching the waves and feel afraid. I have to begin again, knowing what I know now and with a new understanding of just how much I don't know and will never know. I have to let go of the idea that knowing will protect me and walk on anyway. I have to accept this sorrow, stop comparing it to other people's. Accept that it is real to me and that I have something to learn from it. Begin again.