Courage

I started off the year thinking and writing about fear, and for the last month I’ve been thinking a lot about courage. It feels like progress.

A month ago I talked to a friend and colleague about my concerns that the very idea of resistance was being coopted and normalized. I worried that it was hip and cool to go to rallies. That we'd gotten excited about resisting without really having an impact. I feel almost embarassed for saying those things, because I realize how much I was failing to see what was really happening. But I had to say it out loud to hear myself, and then to start noticing that something really beautiful is happening. 

It is like the resistance is flourishing – the mundane acts that start with demanding the full force of our democracy are giving rise to extraordinary acts of courage and self sacrifice.

Two weeks ago, disability rights activists staged sit-ins in Mitch McConnell’s DC office and in Senator Cory Gardner’s Denver office to protest the proposed cuts to Medicaid being considered as part of the Obamacare repeal. The courage. Many of them wheelchair bound, they got down on the floor to protest what would essentially be a death sentence for many of them, the loss of healthcare. They displayed such profound courage, putting their physical health and safety on the line the way they did. The images of police carrying them out, still chanting, removing them from wheelchairs, zip-tied arms behind their backs. Images that juxtaposed their heroism with treatment that at its core is demeaning and debasing.

It’s just one example, but it speaks to what is happening in our world right now. Something is growing and emerging. A new sense of self, of who we are as a people. It is courage that might help us fashion a new vision for our country – not just a return to pre-Trump, but something grander and more beautiful. Something built on an idea of true justice. Something we’ve never seen, but we know can exist.

Yesterday I read this dialogue between Naomi Klein, Michele Alexander and Keeanga Yemahtta Taylor – three forceful, brilliant leaders whose vision and courage are going to help us follow a path forward. They speak to the deeper need I’ve been feeling – for us to express and fight for that bigger collective vision. To go beyond the defensive battles of the moment and demand something bigger.

Yoga teaches us a lot about courage. Our tradition instructs that backbends build courage. They build up strength in the arms and legs. They require us to go into the unknown – to stretch into unmapped space, to extend toward something we can’t see. They open and expose the heart, an act of courage even in calmer times.

Two years ago when I was in India, Geetaji taught a backbending class and talked explicitly about courage. The class focused preparing to drop back from headstand into a backbend (dwi pada viparita dandasana). About halfway through the class we started the dropbacks, but the lessons in courage started from her first words. When she came into the hall, we were in a facedown pose, so we heard her before we saw her. I remember noticing how stern and demanding her demeanor was, such a contrast from the softer, quieter, more welcoming tone she had taken in previous classes. That day, from the very first direction, she seemed almost angry. Even before we got to the heart of the class I noticed myself responding – I felt angry or agitated and I could feel some strength rising up out of me. And then at some point she said – I’m teaching you this backbend, but what I’m really teaching you is courage.

Her stern demeanor was intentional. She was giving us something to react against, to feel within ourselves, to find the inner strength that would help us do something we might otherwise shrink from in fear.

I went back to the Bhagavad Gita and searched the index for sutras about courage, but the word doesn’t even appear in the index. I found four sutras that mention fearlessness.

And then I realized – the whole story is about courage. The whole of the practice of yoga is about building the physical strength, the focus and acuity of mind, and will and intention to be courageous. Arjuna’s war is both literal and metaphorical. He is called to take up arms to fight unjust rule. But he also faces the challenge of being courageous enough to change himself – to seek out the good and learn to let go of the bad. That inner struggle is often set out as the real story of the Bhagavad Gita, but I don’t accept that fully. We can’t only focus on changing ourselves.

Right now we need the courage to change the world around us.

We've just celebrated July 4 with all the hoopla and jingoism that comes with it. My facebook feed is full of dissidents and critics, rightly decrying the white supremacist origins of our country. Calling out the fact that "our independence" was really independence for a few white wealthy landowning men, and it was built on the eradication of one group of people and enslavement of another. 

I often struggle not to feel cynical about our democracy. But this year I feel a kind of gratitude to live in a country where we can fight together for something better.

 

I am drawing strength from yoga and meditation, but also from the beautiful courageous people in our world, lighting the way forward.

With love, gratitude and solidarity.