Practicing Yoga and Social Justice

Aside from the tragedy of what is happening with deportations right now, I find myself in a strange and sort of lovely mindspace. For one thing, I’ve gotten over the crisis moment and settled into practice. I keep thinking about the Buddhist mantra – chop wood, carry water. That’s what I’m doing right now. Working on my projects, focusing on what difference I can make. Trying to stay insulated enough from the big picture that it can’t get me down, can’t blunt the power of what I can try to do. I also feel wonderfully full of ideas, of inspiration, and great relationships with great people. Yesterday Mo and I went to a screening of the documentary 53206 , which is about how mass incarceration plays out in the zip code with the highest rate of incarceration of black men in the world. It is a neighborhood about a mile from where I live. It was kind of shocking to see so many familiar images - buildings, people, urban life. The documentary was heavy and full of t...

At the beginning of the year, I felt a strong motivation to focus on cleanliness, sauca , in all it’s different forms. To me, that meant changing my diet, giving up alcohol, and attending to how I let DJT-related news condition my brain. I also unsubscribed from most of the daily emails I receive inviting me to buy stuff. (If I need something, I can go buy it, but I don’t need emails to suggest consumerism to me when it isn’t arising from my daily life). All of these practices have affected me in very dramatic ways. Firstly, just because by doing them I receive daily, even hourly, reminders of my intention to live better. Every time I eat I have to make a choice whether to honor my intentions or not, and making that choice reinforces my connection to better living. There's also a feeling of greater control at a time when so much feels out of control. And eating better, and not drinking, also mean sleeping better and feeling better on a deeper level. It’s b...

We are living in a time of great uncertainty, of emotional and intellectual turmoil, of not knowing where are the limits to what may come. The definition of yoga in the sutras is the cessation of movements in the consciousness. What a time to practice finding stillness – when every day the turmoil in our world feels unescapable, unprecedented, overwhelming. And yet stillness comes. I had been reflecting these last few days on having a sense of equanimity. Wondering if it was really equanimity or was I falling into a state of alienation and disaffection. I have been losing the fire of outrage and wondering if that is good or bad. Aware that it is an incredible privilege right now to have lost the fire of outrage; my friends and colleagues who work on immigration, for example, are in the middle of a great conflagration of outrage. They don’t have the luxury of allowing the outrage to dissipate – they are being called, daily now, to bear witness to the violation of our co...

It’s been about six weeks since I started this blog. I was just starting to write something about what it’s been like to try to write regularly, the interesting experience of not knowing if I have anything to say but then discovering my thoughts as I write them. And how surprising it is that I’ve been able to write a couple of days a week even despite the rest of my crazy life. Then it happened – two weeks without posting something of substance. I’m just reflecting on that gap. It happened, in part, because we had a staff retreat in DC and every day there were meetings from morning til night, with extra work time before and after to attend to the normal workload. And then I had to travel to New Jersey for a few days. Airplane time is good blogging time, but in this case I drove. So that didn’t work.  It also happened because I’ve been trying to keep the news at arms length. It also happened because I started to feel kind of numb. I really thoug...

As one of my contributions to our collective effort to survive this time, I am periodically offering a free 10 minute guided meditation on my blog. 10 minutes because everyone can find 10 minutes in their day to do something that sustains you and increases your positive impact on the people around you. And because research shows that even 10 minutes of meditation can improve your brain functioning - and make you feel better. There are dozens of meditation apps and sources out there. I don't claim mine is anything better than what you find could elsewhere. But two things might make your experience of these guided meditations unique. First, if you have attended any of the leadership retreats where I offer a mindfulness practice, you may find that listening to these guided meditations connects you to the retreat experience and allows you to renew the feelings of connectedness and power you had there. Second, many of my guided meditations will have a social justice eleme...