Cleanliness, Trump and Intentions for the New Year

It seems like the right time to be reflecting on Sauca – cleanliness. It’s the end of a season of eating and drinking, a time when attention goes to turning over a new leaf in the new year.

This year has been particularly hard on my body and I have failed to practice cleanliness a lot. Working on the election was physically and emotionally exhausting. Even though I managed to maintain my yoga practice right up until the last week or so, when get-out-the-vote season takes over everything else, I still ate the wrong foods, drank more alcohol than I would normally, and my entire life was overtaken by work. Focusing on one particular outcome naturally builds attachment to outcomes – so there’s some lack of cleanliness in the mind that flows from that.

The aftermath of the election has been even worse. I resorted to a lot of comfort eating and drinking, failing to re-integrate exercise into my life, the kind of coping mechanisms that might feel good in the moment, but only prolong the misery over any period of time. And I’ve felt like I’m living in a constant state of emotional fear and crisis. It’s a muddiness, a murkiness that seems opposed to sauca.

Looking ahead to the new year, I already had a few intentions to restore cleanliness. I did a thorough cleaning/organizing job on my yoga space. Getting rid of clutter and dust creates the possibility of more clarity of mind. Cleaning the space is part of living out an intention to practice more.  

My spouse and I also decided to do a 30-day cleanse in the new year. We are giving up dairy, wheat, sugar, caffeine and alcohol and also avoiding all processed foods. We’ve done it before – it is incredibly hard, but really helps clear out all the addictions to sugar, bread and comfort foods that have set in.

And, inspired by my (diabetic) spouse successfully giving up sugar for a whole year, I decided to give up alcohol for 2017. I don’t really have a “problem” with alcohol, in the sense that I don’t drink to excess, I don’t get out of control, I don’t do things I later regret. But, in the labor movement, drinking is a major, chronic problem. It’s how we cope with the stress and pressure and the disappointments. Since my social justice practice moved more into the labor movement I found myself drinking more and more often than I need to. One thing I have noticed over the years is that even one drink at night slows me down in the morning. I wake up feeling more fatigued, take longer to get moving, am more likely to sacrifice my yoga time for more sleep. Or I’m just so sluggish I can’t really get my mind into it. Having seen my spouse say no to sugar over and over again this year, even while I sat next to her and happily chowed down on every variety of chocolate and baked goods, made me realize how doable it is. With intention and commitment.

So I have an intention not to drink in 2017. I made the decision to do it about a month ago and I already noticed myself turning down a drink, or taking less enjoyment even when I did have a beer or glass of wine. It’s like some part of me is turning away from that experience in favor of something deeper.

I have to admit that part of my interest in sauca also came from reading all the various things circulating on the internet about how to prepare for a Trump era. This article is a good example. This Yale history professor who studies authoritarianism wrote a list of ways to prepare to live under authoritarian government. Many of the items on the list involve some kind of cleanliness – cleanliness and fitness of the body because “Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen.” Cleaning up your legal and financial situation – because power preys on any weakness and legal and financial problems make you vulnerable. I found this list incredibly helpful in part because it made me aware of things I could do. But also because it reminded me that so much of how authoritarian states operate is to take things away at a very personal level. (And also to destroy the basic bonds of personal relationships and community, but that’s a topic for another day). Asserting, protecting, cultivating those things is itself a form of resistance.

One of the pieces of writing that has helped me the most is this recent article by Rebecca Solnit. I had already got her book Hope in the Dark – which is pretty much on everyone’s “prepare for Trump” reading list – though I haven’t started reading it yet. She is friends of friends of mine who live and work in the Bay Area and a longtime social movement leader, critic and writer. I loved this article because it is so real – it doesn’t sugarcoat the reality that all the values and many of the people I know and love are already under attack. And this next period is going to intensify that attack. There’s no point in being in denial about it. But hope is a very powerful response, and in some ways the only response we have. It’s a version of pratipaksha bhavanam – envisioning a different reality even when it seems remote and distant is how we bring that reality into fruition. My friend Anne-Marie recently wrote a beautiful blog about pratipaksha bhavanam here (I don’t know if it pops up to that entry, but if you don’t see it right away scroll down for the Dec 15 post).  

But the Solnit article reminded me that I have spent too much time the past 8 weeks reading about how bad it is. Reading about all the crazy things Trump is doing and saying. Putting myself in direct contact with the ways he is already abrogating our democracy, and advancing his personal financial interest ahead of any version of national interest. It’s a kind of a pollution of the mind and emotions. I’ve been increasing my own fear and emotional instability by steeping in all the bad news. I’m not saying I should be in denial, or be uninformed, or stop reading the news. But I do need to find a way to create cleanliness of the mind by also reading more things that remind me of what is good and beautiful in the moment. And what is possible in the future. I feel like part of the practice of sauca is to create more opportunities to have hope. One of the reasons I decided to start writing this blog was to create a space to be more intentional and disciplined about shifting my attention away from the constant stream of internet news and toward cultivating the clarity and strength to act.

All of these thoughts made me curious about what the sutras say about cleanliness. 11.32, 11.40 and 11.41 seem like the relevant ones. Most of the commentary on these sutras is about physical cleanliness. Meaning water and soap to cleanse the external body, asana and pranayama to cleanse the internal body.  Edwin Bryant’s commentary on 11.32 talks a bit about why it’s important to refrain from consuming alcohol and meat. The idea is that alcohol and meat cause fluctuations in the mind, and since the goal of yoga is to still the fluctuations, consuming alcohol and meat takes you farther away from the intended state and makes it impossible to experience yoga. That aligns with my reasons for wanting to give up alcohol. I rarely eat meat, though re-reading the sutra and commentary reminded me of why I should give up even the rare indulgences.

Bryant also talks about mental cleanliness, “The commentators speak of jealousy pride, vanity, hatred, and attachment as examples of mental contamination. Bhoja Raja states that internal cleanliness is to be accomplished by benevolence – exuding a friendly attitude toward all” (Bryant 253).

The commentary on the other two sutras focuses on cleanliness of the body as a way of getting over attraction to others, sexual fantasies, misperceiving the beauty of the body. That’s not really a problem I have, although it did make me think a little bit about how much we focus on trying to look good. How I always wish I could lose weight. How that’s part of the illusion of thinking about the body as some indicator of self and self-worth.

11.41 is much more about cleanliness of mind and spirit, and that speaks much more to what I need in my life right now. Bryant’s translation: Upon purification of the mind, [one attains] cheerfulness, one-pointedness, sense control, and fitness to perceive the self.

I know that the clarity of mind and body I want goes beyond just sauca. Arguably all the yamas and niyamas – the practices of yoga that are off the mat – contribute to that clarity of mind. Really it’s one of the main points of practicing yoga in all of it’s forms and most of the sutras say something about what it takes to create clarity, the right kind of thoughtfulness, the stance of compassion, the physical strength and emotional stability to take action, the mental strength to resist the temptation of judgment and certitude.  All of those things are part of the “coping with Trump” toolkit.

This is the last paragraph of Rebecca Solnit's article:

Many people are still trying to figure out what to do; others are doing it. They give me hope, in some portion of humanity, the portion that will resist Trump and defend our ideals. It will be hard. It will be ugly. Our job will be to be embody and protect all of those things most antithetical to authoritarianism, racism, misogyny, kleptocracy, an atmosphere of lies and indifference to science, fact and truth.

In easy times, we grow slack; this will require us each to find our capacity for heroism. Some will, and my hope lies with them. Or us.

I’m thinking about sauca right now because it’s a useful lens to look through to see the whole picture. It’s a place to start. A way of finding capacity for heroism, creating the conditions for love, solidarity, peacefulness in the New Year, in whatever ways those things can exist.