Sticking Points

When I started my computer this morning it was stuck on yesterday. 12/5, 10:36 PM the time and date read. Never mind, that it is currently 12/6, 4:42 AM. My computer is very old and quirky at this point in its life. It asks me to enter complicated codes so that it can start, it refuses to update and the ‘p’ button is pretty sticky.  The poor computer. Perhaps it’s ready to rest, to retire to the land of no longer functional computers and to await a new life as something else, to be recycled. 

I, of course, had the immediate thought of, “oh no, if it sticks on yesterday’s date, I’ll never get to play a new Wordle.” Sigh. 

It’s hard to break a habit. To grow. 

Some habits are actually healthy and productive, some are not. Wordle, well, maybe I’ll go with neutral. Some habits are so strong that perhaps they are more than habits. Perhaps they are attachments. And as attachments, perhaps no matter how healthy they are, our relationship to them isn’t healthy.

In any case, my computer is probably not the only one stuck in the past from time to time, struggling to get started.

Last weekend, YTT was focused on fire. Think arm balances and upside down poses for the physical part of it. Each of them makes you think differently, to change up your habits, your way of being. I mean, our habit is to balance on our feet and legs and to stand on them as well. With these poses, we essentially play around in opposite land, and so it’s no surprise that these things build fire.  The dharma talk and focus of our learning was tapas, or fiery transformation – or even transmutation. 

In life outside YTT, I’ve heard of fire as a cleansing element and although I never thought too hard about it, in passing my brain would resist that notion. Fire? No. Fire destroys things, leaving behind ash and chaos. Mess.  

But that’s uncontrolled fire. Controlled fire dances and glows, it cooks things, it heats things, can save forests, and it even provides a place around which people gather in the moonlight to sing songs, be warm or be outside – to be in the elements, in nature. At least it used to when it was still safe to light them – but that’s not my topic here.

Fire can be destructive or a tool. It can force us into nature, force us to rebuild, help us survive, bring us together.  And it doesn’t have to be one or the other. It can be both destructive and a tool.

The poses, these fire poses, they flip our perspective, force us to rebuild how we stand and balance, they inspire change for those of us stuck on yesterday evening. 

When I left YTT Sunday, I had this feeling of mixed exhilaration and sadness. Initially when I started this blog, I thought I could post about learning about myself through asana, like I just did, or even write humorous posts about the path of a creaky middle-aged yogini. I’m not sure that’s what’s coming out. And that’s okay. I always knew this was a path, for me, of internal change.

The reason for the mixed feelings was our presentations at the end. We all had to talk about one of the yamas and niyamas – we’d chosen them on strips of paper out of a metaphorical hat. The one that found me was Isvara Pranidhana – which I posted about. I had no idea if anyone would relate to anything I had to say, but they did, I could see it in their faces, I could read it in their bodies. There were a few comments about how what I said was beautiful.

I hadn’t thought about it that way, in fact, I was a little irritated with myself when I saw the direction it was taking as I wrote it. How did I find myself landing on love? I was going to talk about all the ways the world defined the divine perhaps and surrendering to our true essence, the divine within, and I mentioned those things, but the at it’s very core, all things stripped away, what I said was about love.

Exhileration: I realized that I could connect with people through my words, which is something I’ve always wanted to do, and that I could make them feel good, think a little more deeply and feel connected with the larger world around them.  And there’s nothing I’d rather do with my life, to be honest.

Sadness: But still, I’m stuck in yesterday. After the high of the connection, I saw my fellow students cluster with their friends, in some cases I think making plans about whatever, I saw them leave together in pairs and threes and had to think about where to insert myself or if I should. Because once again in life, I get along with everyone for the most part, but I’m a part of nothing. I don’t have my group, my cluster, my clump, I’m part of the larger whole, the ecosystem of YTT as it were, but I still somehow feel like the one who doesn’t quite below. It’s so 1992 of me, really.

And I can’t change what’s on the outside. Only what’s on the inside. In 1992 or in 2022 even, this would make me pretty sad. It still does.

Practice: I’m working on it.