Beloved friends,
There is an old parable which I bet you've heard: several blind men are describing an elephant based on what they are touching: the one holding the tail thinks an elephant is like a rope; the man touching the trunk thinks an elephant is like a spear; the man touching the trunk thinks an elephant is like a snake. This parable is usually used to explain that the truth is subjective, a relative thing, which varies for each of us based on our experience. If you view the events of this parable from an individualist perspective, everyone is telling the truth, but no one is correct. If you view the story from an interdependent, collectivist perspective, though, it says that each of us holds a piece of the truth, and that in combining our knowing we get closer to the truth.
I had a lesson about that this week in relation to my last missive The Delight of Removing the Downspout. I spoke enthusiastically about the pleasure and empowerment I'd found in this task, which involved a series of small problem-solvings, and used this as a launching pad to make some wider statements about the rewards of labor, which are, for a lot of people, important things to remember at this time in the world.
I got a lot of enthusiastic responses to this piece. A woman in Portland shared that recently, after her partner moved in with her, they cancelled her prior 2x/month yard care service and had a meeting with Lory at Bosky Dell Natives, who inspired them by speaking of transforming the lawn into a wildflower meadow as a series of small projects over time and by pointing out that "When you are out hiking and see things, you never wonder 'Why didn't nature plant that 6 inches in the other direction?'" I appreciated in this the embrace of unhurriedness, the pleasure of process, and the kind of wild order that often appears to the human eye as chaos. My friend sounded lit up about deepening her relationships with the land she lives on and her partner, and making more habitat for pollinating creatures in her neighborhood. Having recently left her job to study toward a career change, she has more time free and coming to this work feels joyful.
Another person shared that, after a summer in which her usual gardening had not been a priority because there was too much on her plate, she'd done a project at work preparing their garden deck for autumn, replacing the pots in their barrel planters. She taught a younger colleague as she worked, and the connective delight of this inspired her back into her garden at home. She brought the scraggly plants that were getting replaced at work home to plant in her own beds. She spoke of nursing them, of nurturing, and of this as an experiment in process, investing her time and energy in saving these struggling plants rather than tossing them and buying something healthy, handsome, and new. She spoke of rearranging her priorities to allow this work she loves.
Another person who reached out had quite a different reaction. She was the mother of a child under two, a farmer trying to fall crops planted, and one of her main tools was broken. She said that the sense of perseverance that I spoke of resonated with her efforts to repair her tool, but that my writing also left her feeling depressed because it was hard to imagine, in the demanding moment in which she was living, having the capacity to enjoy some of the things I spoke of. I got the sense that my words had found her at a moment in which life was asking for more than any one person could give, and it that it had felt like I'd suggested she try harder to enjoy the struggle. This broke my heart a little.
If you come to my yoga class, you'll find me teaching with incredible breadth. In lunge position you might rest your hands on the floor for gentle release. If reaching the floor isn't isn't comfortable or accessible, you could raise your hands on blocks or shift your front leg to just outside rather than inside your hands. If you want to intensify the release, you can lift your hands to your front thigh to focus your weight over your hips a bit more. You could bring your hands to your heart to increase strengthening for your back. You could lift your arms overhead and arch back for still more effort or to open your chest or belly. If your goal is to strengthen rather than release your legs, you could lift your back knee to activate the musculature. And often there will be one person who really had a DAY set up in a restorative pose, quietly mending because they need the medicine of stillness rather than the medicine of movement today. There is the capacity in my temple for all of this. My way is to meet you where you are.
It takes time to build a repertoire like this. I can't offer all of these options in a single session verbally! And even that paragraph-long list above is just a glimpse of what is possible in that one position! In a new class, I start with a couple of options. As those get familiar, I add more, and over time we build together, between us and hopefully within you, a great and varied vocabulary of possibility. In doing this, I aim to empower you, to share knowledge, to nurture your confidence, and to create between us a vast shared web. The ultimate goal of all of this is to bring you into greater wellness and harmony with yourself, to nurture your experience in being human, for your benefit and that of everyone and everything else.
These small essays are similar, though different: I am speaking of values and actions, of living itself. I speak from my knowing, of my joys and sorrows and choices. I am speaking for me – and to you. I hope to inspire you in your own living, but, oh, beloved, I don't think you should do precisely what I am!
I aim to encourage a life well-lived, for the benefit of each and all. When I speak of activism, for instance – that can be so many things. I had a friend and teaching assistant whose activism consisted of nonviolent resistance: dramatic, powerful public protest, putting her body on the line and getting arrested. We need that! I have a longtime student and friend whose activism consists of therapeutic support for people who have experienced traumatic loss due to social injustice. We need that! I have a bunch of yoga students who are schoolteachers, which is incredibly difficult and underpaid work. The choice to take this service on in life is a form of activism to my eye. We need that! It's all valuable. Different paths toward the same goal: a good world for all.
During the first term our current president served, when the folks in my Workshop for Living were feeling despair, I encouraged them toward activism. I spoke enthusiastically about how each of us contributing is what makes a better world and how any of us contributing will feel better for having done so. My friend the therapist I just mentioned? told me she felt awful that she wasn't doing the kind of activism I was speaking of. It was surprising to her when I said something along the lines of, "Honey, you are giving plenty, already, every day in your work. If what you need to do in your free time is care for yourself so that you can keep doing the vital work you are doing, that's okay."
There is no one right answer. We all have a piece of the truth. We all have roles to play in transforming the world we have, in which some people go hungry while others hoard enough to feed the planet, into a place of equality and care not only for all humans but for life as a whole.
So, as for what I said last week: oh yes, I believe that labor and problem-solving can be wonderful, empowering, creative things. But of course, that is easier to say when labor is a choice. I was choosing to take the downspout down. I knew I had a lot of options for support; I detailed them in the piece. I came to my work freely. I have not been a parent or a farmer, but I have supported many of them, and I understand that in both of those roles you will be asked for more than you have to give. The decision of when to give outward and when to give inward is a delicate and difficult thing. Sometimes it involves terrible choices, and sometimes it's simply grueling.
One of the things I was reminded of in the conversations that unfolded last week is how connection nurtures freedom and safety: I came to my project with zest partly because I knew I had a lot of support, and I had plenty of time to bring to it despite it being a last-minute project. My friend transforming her yard brought fresh joy to this with the addition of another caregiving adult to her household and the wise support of her local expert. My friend returning to her garden at home was inspired by the connection with another person at work. We are stronger and wiser together. It is easier to turn toward joy when we feel safe and when we have enough rest.
I have rarely known anyone with a child under two who felt they had enough rest or hours in the day, much less one with a farm to tend. Farmer mama, if you're reading this, my heart is with you. Of course you are weary; that is quite a moment you are living in. I hear your weariness and I honor it. I see the choices you've made: to live close to the land in nurture, to raise a child. Thank you. Those are a powerful service to life. My heart is with you in this difficult moment. I meant what I said: if your tiller still needs repair and you are local to me, I can think of a few places to ask for free help and I'm willing to do the asking. Also, there are some meditation and relaxation practices on my website, here, free for anyone, if that calls to you. There's a prayer flag for you on my altar. I'll be holding you in my heart.
There's only so much I can say at once. In yoga class, I can see each person and adapt for them, bring another blanket, suggest a variation, suggest a different practice entirely. In speaking broadly to anyone who might read as I do here, I can only do my best in any one moment. Some days I'm describing the elephant's tail, some days I am describing the warm wall of its fleshy side. I could never say the whole truth all at once in a single essay, and the whole truth isn't mine to say. It's all of ours.
I hope you'll keep reading to see how I say over time that our sorrow is as vital as our joy, our rage is as necessary as our gratitude. That asking for help is as important as trying on our own or offering help. Your voice is as necessary as mine. We're all vital components in the whole of the life of the cosmos.
Each week when I sit down to write I also sit down to review my photographs. The one I am sharing this week is gently related; I took it to share with y'all because it speaks to me of care. This is the path to the door of a healer who tends to me. This lavender bush has grown over the path, and rather than cut it back or stomp over it, people walking to the door have worn a desire path in the grass by stepping off the path to give the plant room to be.
Ahhhhhh.
Today I'd like to end with the prayer we chant at the end of my formal sessions, which I hope will echo what I have shared today.
May we know peace and wholeness
freedom and belonging.
May our cultivation of these
help them to grow within and spread beyond us
to serve the good of all.
May all beings everywhere
know peace and wholeness
freedom and belonging.
Love,
Dahlia
Resources
Communal Creation
At the end of my missive above I used the phrase desire path. Perhaps you know it. If you do not, it is a sweet one to learn; it refers to the paths that people create in shared spaces that do not conform to the routes laid out with intention. In the photo I shared today, the concrete walkway is the intended path, but people have chosen instead to walk in the grass beside the path to allow the lavender room to live. The little brown matted path in the grass there is the desire path. In creating trails on the land where we live, James and I watch for the desire paths laid by our more-than-human neighbors; the deer have already laid tracks down the hillsides, found good routes. Here's the Wikipedia entry on desire paths, and here's an article with lots of good photographic examples.
We Are the Life of the Earth
Eyes as Big as Plates is a collaborative project by Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen. It began by dressing people as characters from Nordic folklore and has over the years (it began in 2011!) expanded to become a process in which the artists travel to different areas and create sculptural costuming which embeds people, usually elders, in the landscapes in which they live. I'm contemplating these images to nurture my work in the autumn Workshop for Living The Story of Belonging (which began last weekend and which you can still join!) and so purchased one of their books. I am delighted to find that the book shares the values of my friend who took home the straggly plants from work: it centers process. In addition to holding many of the beautiful final images, there are many images and stories about the process of creation of the images. There's an exhibition of the images afoot at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis through October 25.
We are Not Alone
Saturday, September 19 is International Observe the Moon Night. NASA has lot of resources. Care to view our companion in space with me and many? In exploring that NASA site I came across a great resource, their Daily Moon Guide, "NASA's interactive map for observing the Moon each day of the year". So cool!
Resistance
No Kings: October 17
The next No Kings is a focus on voting early and making a voting plan. One of the best things we can do is simply to talk to one another about voting. One of the best things I gained from Rebecca Solnit's classic Hope in the Dark was the sense of how political engagement can be not the distasteful or othered thing it is often depicted as, but a source of belonging and pleasure; she says that "we can pursue our ideals not out of diligence but because when they are realized there's joy, and joy is itself an insurrectionary force against the dreariness and dullness and isolation of everyday life." The effort itself, even before ideals are realized, can be a comfort.
I'm nearing a year of small daily actions now. One thing that has kept me committed is the fact that I asked for support and witness, rounding up a pair of friends for a text thread devoted to these efforts. Recently I started to keep a spreadsheet on which I list my actions because I was finding that sometimes one of my companions would share an action and I'd wonder if I could join that or if I'd already done so? So I began to log them. If you'd like access to that document in order to join me, drop me a line.
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Thanks to Susie, Andrea, and BJ for their recent gifts! I'm so grateful.
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