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...

In the aftermath of the election, I started rereading the Bhagavad Gita. The Bhagavad Gita is one of the fundamental books for the philosophy of yoga and the hindu religion. But you don’t have to practice yoga or become a hindu devotee to see its applicability to our current moment. The Bhagavad Gita is a dialogue between two characters – Arjuna and Krishna. Arjuna is a young warrior who is compelled to go into a just war against neighbors, friends and relatives to combat unjust rule. Right before the battle begins, he is overcome with fear, sadness, reluctance and sits down on the battlefield, unable to go on. God – Krishna - appears to him in the form of his chariot driver and they commence a discussion about the importance of fighting an injustice and doing one’s duty. In the course of the dialogue, Krishna lays out the basic principles of living a good life, and entering into the moment with courage, leaving fears behind. I’ve read this book in the past, but typica...

It's been a crazy week - for the world and for me personally - so I don't have a theme or particular idea to explore. There have been beautiful moments and very dark sad moments. I was in Washington, DC on Wednesday when the first round of EOs on immigration were released. I spent a couple of hours at the White House protest on Wednesday night, along with a beautiful, diverse community who took over the street and chanted about love and support and connectedness. We heard from immigrants - why they came here, their hopes and dreams for themselves and family, why they were willing to risk so much to occupy the street and tell their stories. Then I went to Miami for 1 1/2 days to meet with labor and community leaders. It was beautiful to see the shared conviction that this is not our country, these are not our values. The desire to step up to support immigrants facing deportation. Then on Friday afternoon the EO barring refugees and migrants from targeted countries. It is hea...

There’s a lot in the philosophy of yoga about not being disturbed by dualities. It’s an important result of a good practice, and it is one we’re going to need more of in the coming weeks/months/years. It feels to me like a time when we need to hold certainty and curiosity both at once. Certainty – because Donald Trump is not only violating the basic standards of democracy but trying to tell us he’s not. Because authoritarianism can creep up on you when you adjust to incremental moves that limit our democracy. Because we might start believing in “alternate facts” if we don’t hold tightly to the certainty that what we know, what we saw, what we heard is reality. And then there’s the need for curiosity, which assumes maybe we aren’t certain, maybe we don’t know everything. I’ve been thinking about curiosity a lot ever since the election. I had huge flashes of anger and resentment at the people who voted for Trump right after, but pretty quickly that dissipated and instead...

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 element that conne...

Resistance is beautiful. If you’ve gone to any of the protests this week or ever before you know this is true. Resistance involves beautiful art, creative word play, music, community. It involves people coming together to articulate shared values and vision for how our society could be. It usually involves people taking huge risks to share their hopes and dreams for the future – people who risk more than most of us could imagine just to speak it aloud. And when they face their fears and take those risks, they inspire all of us to grow beyond the limited scope of fear and stand up for ourselves and those around us. I forgot how much I love resistance.  You know there is joy in resistance, but something I realized this week: joy is an act of resistance. If you’re reading my blog you know the last few months have been hard. I have been in a fog of grief and fear. I have let the spectre of what could be dominate my experience of what is . I realized t...