Tuesday, November 16, 2010

STEPPING BEYOND WHAT LIES WITHIN

The soundtrack remains the same, Aretha singing I Say A Little Prayer, which is nearly a call to communion for me. I have the sense that Aretha and this song will continue to percolate through this writing.

Still perusing Hirschfield's Nine Gates, this time dipping into the chapter titled Poetry and the Mind of Indirection. Um. Yes, that would be me. I do dearly love to trip around the internet and other places of information just following a wandering path of inquiry.

"Attentiveness, and even craft, are not the same as will. Knowing and not knowing are equal parents to a poem [practicing yoga]; to learn from what lies outside the self requires stepping beyond what lies within."

I'm not yet sure about writing (my poetry is nowhere near this level of subtlety), but I do know that my yoga practice is always better, more emotionally and spiritually rewarding when I am listening to my body, and the energy of my fellow-students, and the instructions of the teacher ... and not stuck in my projection, even nano-seconds in the future, about how it will feel, how much I will be able to do, etc.

In a daily practice or discipline, it is knowing enough to be able to engage in the practice, and not knowing enough to really show up, be fresh, and get what else might be there for you. Stepping beyond your current body of knowledge and expectation.

2 comments:

  1. I love how you tie all the threads together to make one whole being.

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  2. I agree with Dreamfarm. After reading some of your blogs I find myself putting down the binoculars and taking in the whole view..If just for a minute..

    ReplyDelete

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