After practice this morning, I met a man named Douglas. Douglas was collecting for a homeless shelter in the city of Compton, and he had set up his chair and table outside a neighborhood drug store where I had stopped to purchase some bandages--you know, the small variety that come with adhesive and cartoon characters for minor scraps and cuts. As I approached Douglas' table, he looked me right in the eyes and smiled, the kind of smile that is difficult to walk past without returning. My first thought: A good salesman. But I also thought his smile was genuine, and his eyes were clear and bright, and I could tell he had something to say. We exchanged good mornings, and Douglas asked me if I were familiar with the shelter he was there collecting for. When I told him that I had seen other people like himself collecting for shelters outside of various markets, he was quick to tell me that all of these organizations are not the same. Douglas wanted to be sure that I heard about this particular shelter and how it had saved him and helped him to set a new direction for his life. During our short conversation, Douglas confessed that he had been an alcoholic, and he had been living his life too fast. A roofer by trade, Douglas said that one day he had heard a voice tell him to slow down. The next day, he took a bad fall from a ladder. Pulling back his sleeve, Douglas showed me a scar running the length of his inner left forearm. You could tell immediately that it had been a serious injury, one that had required more heavy-duty bandages than I was headed into the store to buy.
According to Douglas, that injury is what has saved him. Not directly, mind you, because until very recently, he has not had much feeling in the arm, hand or fingers. This has made it difficult for him to return to work. Hence the shelter and his second chance. Douglas says he is intent on finding new work. He told me he misses that regular paycheck. Who doesn't, right? But he also told me that while he is flat broke and should be feeling desperate right about now that, instead, he feels blessed. He told me he feels richer than he would if he had a million dollars in the bank because he says he has found a place that has restored his sense of belonging.
Driving home, I got to thinking about the recent deaths of two celebrities: the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman and the activist and folk singer Pete Seeger. I was thinking about these two celebrated men, their lives, their artistic contributions, and their deaths coming during the same week all the while reconsidering Douglas' notion of belonging and place and his admitted battle with addiction. While Hoffman, ultimately and regrettably, seems to have surrendered his art and his life to his addiction, Seeger, conversely, used his art and his activism to fuel a long, rich life and the causes, or battles, he was passionate about influencing.
In the final pose before savasana during a flow class I attended last week, after Seeger's death but before Hoffman's, our teacher--who I swear is a skilled and mystic DJ able to spin music to match the movement and mood of his asana instruction--played Neil Young's song "The Needle and the Damage Done." Was it prescient in light of Hoffman's death Sunday? Who's to say. The theme of our teacher's flow class last week centered upon how the work of asana and breath can change our bodies--how we stand, how we hold ourselves, the postures we come to assume while sleeping in bed. As the asana and breath work change our bodies, our teacher instructed, they also change our minds. Meaning our thoughts begin to change; they, too, react to the new ways we learn to move our bodies, the new ways we are learning how to breathe, and the ways in which both movement and breath work together to release feelings and emotions that we have stored, sometimes, in the deepest parts of ourselves. Lying there engaged in the final pose--half-pigeon pose (eka pada raja kapotasna), a hip-opener--I was struck by the line in Young's song "I've seen the needle and the damage done, a little part of it in everyone, but every junkie's like a setting sun." As tragic as this line is--the song, after all, is an ode to those musicians Young knew who died by heroin overdose--I felt its beauty, in the way that beauty can reveal truths, whole truths, including the parts we learn to conceal in our minds, and hearts and bodies. Those same parts we learn to stop denying and attend to in ourselves on the mat, and take with us, if we are lucky and willing and able, out into the world.
Like Pete Seeger did.
In the wake of Seeger's death, I have learned much about this man who used his music to heal the world. Stamped upon the face of Seeger's banjo was the mantra he lived by: "This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender." Somehow, Seeger learned early the power of community, what anthropologist Margaret Mead is famous for having said about the power inherent in people coming together. "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." And change things, Seeger did. The quality of school children's lives, the health of rivers, the safe return of soldiers from combat. Participation was Seeger's admitted religion. He said, "It's what's going to save the human race."
I think of another line from another song by a another very popular musician, Elton John. I think of this line often because it is more hopeful than the line the poet T.S. Eliot penned about life being long. Elton John wrote: "I have to say, my friend, this road goes a long, long way. And if we're going to find the end, we're going to need a helping hand." This song is entitled, "Salvation," but it could just as easily be given the name of Pete Seeger's self-professed religion, "Participation."
Celebrity and money in the bank are no guarantee--no band-aid--for our demons. I have lost too many friends to untimely death--too many by their own hand. Setting suns all. I'll think about Douglas on my mat again tomorrow, and I will hope that he sets his sails for the future in the direction of community and Pete Seeger's religion of participation. I will hope that he continues to tell his story so that one day he will discover that he has let it go, released it in the way we learn on our mats in yoga to let go of the knots of energy--our samskara--that hold us captive by taking up space in our minds, and hearts, our hips and our lungs, our bodies and our souls. One of the characters in author Wally Lamb's latest chef d'oeuvre We are Water ultimately learns that tap, tap, love wins. Pete Seeger's machine may have been a banjo, but it was fueled by love. Like that ribbon of highway he made us proud to have under our feet, Seeger was always in the process of proving to us what love can do. It seems to be what we need to fight our demons, to learn forgiveness, and to continue to move in the direction of participation with ourselves and the world around us. It's a good band-aid to have on hand.
According to Douglas, that injury is what has saved him. Not directly, mind you, because until very recently, he has not had much feeling in the arm, hand or fingers. This has made it difficult for him to return to work. Hence the shelter and his second chance. Douglas says he is intent on finding new work. He told me he misses that regular paycheck. Who doesn't, right? But he also told me that while he is flat broke and should be feeling desperate right about now that, instead, he feels blessed. He told me he feels richer than he would if he had a million dollars in the bank because he says he has found a place that has restored his sense of belonging.
Driving home, I got to thinking about the recent deaths of two celebrities: the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman and the activist and folk singer Pete Seeger. I was thinking about these two celebrated men, their lives, their artistic contributions, and their deaths coming during the same week all the while reconsidering Douglas' notion of belonging and place and his admitted battle with addiction. While Hoffman, ultimately and regrettably, seems to have surrendered his art and his life to his addiction, Seeger, conversely, used his art and his activism to fuel a long, rich life and the causes, or battles, he was passionate about influencing.
In the final pose before savasana during a flow class I attended last week, after Seeger's death but before Hoffman's, our teacher--who I swear is a skilled and mystic DJ able to spin music to match the movement and mood of his asana instruction--played Neil Young's song "The Needle and the Damage Done." Was it prescient in light of Hoffman's death Sunday? Who's to say. The theme of our teacher's flow class last week centered upon how the work of asana and breath can change our bodies--how we stand, how we hold ourselves, the postures we come to assume while sleeping in bed. As the asana and breath work change our bodies, our teacher instructed, they also change our minds. Meaning our thoughts begin to change; they, too, react to the new ways we learn to move our bodies, the new ways we are learning how to breathe, and the ways in which both movement and breath work together to release feelings and emotions that we have stored, sometimes, in the deepest parts of ourselves. Lying there engaged in the final pose--half-pigeon pose (eka pada raja kapotasna), a hip-opener--I was struck by the line in Young's song "I've seen the needle and the damage done, a little part of it in everyone, but every junkie's like a setting sun." As tragic as this line is--the song, after all, is an ode to those musicians Young knew who died by heroin overdose--I felt its beauty, in the way that beauty can reveal truths, whole truths, including the parts we learn to conceal in our minds, and hearts and bodies. Those same parts we learn to stop denying and attend to in ourselves on the mat, and take with us, if we are lucky and willing and able, out into the world.
Like Pete Seeger did.
In the wake of Seeger's death, I have learned much about this man who used his music to heal the world. Stamped upon the face of Seeger's banjo was the mantra he lived by: "This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender." Somehow, Seeger learned early the power of community, what anthropologist Margaret Mead is famous for having said about the power inherent in people coming together. "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." And change things, Seeger did. The quality of school children's lives, the health of rivers, the safe return of soldiers from combat. Participation was Seeger's admitted religion. He said, "It's what's going to save the human race."
I think of another line from another song by a another very popular musician, Elton John. I think of this line often because it is more hopeful than the line the poet T.S. Eliot penned about life being long. Elton John wrote: "I have to say, my friend, this road goes a long, long way. And if we're going to find the end, we're going to need a helping hand." This song is entitled, "Salvation," but it could just as easily be given the name of Pete Seeger's self-professed religion, "Participation."
r
doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/margaretme100502.html#oOqwv8mxLbx8HRUU.99
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/margaretme100502.html#oOqwv8mxLbx8HRUU.99
Never
doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/margaretme100502.html#oOqwv8mxLbx8HRUU.99
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/margaretme100502.html#oOqwv8mxLbx8HRUU.99
Celebrity and money in the bank are no guarantee--no band-aid--for our demons. I have lost too many friends to untimely death--too many by their own hand. Setting suns all. I'll think about Douglas on my mat again tomorrow, and I will hope that he sets his sails for the future in the direction of community and Pete Seeger's religion of participation. I will hope that he continues to tell his story so that one day he will discover that he has let it go, released it in the way we learn on our mats in yoga to let go of the knots of energy--our samskara--that hold us captive by taking up space in our minds, and hearts, our hips and our lungs, our bodies and our souls. One of the characters in author Wally Lamb's latest chef d'oeuvre We are Water ultimately learns that tap, tap, love wins. Pete Seeger's machine may have been a banjo, but it was fueled by love. Like that ribbon of highway he made us proud to have under our feet, Seeger was always in the process of proving to us what love can do. It seems to be what we need to fight our demons, to learn forgiveness, and to continue to move in the direction of participation with ourselves and the world around us. It's a good band-aid to have on hand.
Beautifully expressed, Sarah. And thank you for Wait, by Galway Kinnell. Spoke to me.
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