If you live in the dark a long time and the sun comes out, you do not cross into it whistling. There's an initial uprush of relief at first, then-for me, anyway- a profound dislocation. My old assumptions about how the world works are buried, yet my new ones aren't yet operational.There's been a death of sorts, but without a few days in hell, no resurrection is possible.”
~Mary Karr, Lit: A Memoir
“The death of a dream can in fact serve as the vehicle that endows it with new form, with reinvigorated substance, a fresh flow of ideas, and splendidly revitalized color. In short, the power of a certain kind of dream is such that death need not indicate finality at all but rather signify a metaphysical and metaphorical leap forward.”
~Aberjhani, The River of Winged Dreams
~Aberjhani, The River of Winged Dreams
Almost everyone's favorite part of a yoga class comes at the very end of the practice with savasana or final relaxation. Savasana is also known as "corpse pose." Lying on the back, arms and legs outstretched, we spend several minutes in stillness as a way of integrating the practice that just transpired. Although it is often conceived as a pose that happens after a movement based practice of hatha yoga, it is actually an very important part of the entire practice. As the name suggests, it symbolizes a letting go of our tight grip on the body, mind and emotions. Although the body grows increasingly relaxed, it isn't necessarily a time to check out or fall asleep, but to rest into a deeper level of awareness and recognition of a wider field of presence that exists. It is the death of our clinging to the ego as the basis of reality and opening to a life beyond our conditioned experience. In this way I see it not just as a time for integration, but also disintegration. Practicing like this we can begin to experience and appreciate the natural cycles of life--within which, death plays a part.
We don't necessarily like to talk or think about it because we all carry a certain amount of fear around dying or losing someone/something that we love. However, the paradox that exists is that we can't live unless something dies. The mystery of death lives within us. My seven year old son has begun to ask a lot of questions about death and dying and the more we discuss it, the more clearly I see that it is a way for us to understand how to really live. That involves cultivating a practice of letting go as well as facing both our fears and our longings. The Sufis have a wonderful saying: Die before you die. That is, each day allow yourself to feel your mortality and contemplate losing life (loved ones, possessions, job security, etc) and let go a little at a time so that when the time comes for the "final" death you will know how to surrender. We get stuck in thinking of death as a finality or end rather than as a transition into something else. Like my son at the same age, I can recall lying awake in bed and thinking about dying and wondering where "I" would go once I left this body; this earth. Although I could not articulate it, I had a sense that I was far more than my body or even the one thinking the thoughts. I have spent my entire life seeking to know that "self" that I was able to sense at such a young age. All of the spiritual and mystical traditions speak of death as a passageway and although forms change something eternal which is neither created nor destroyed remains.
Mindfulness teacher and Vietnamese monk, Thich Nhat Hanh teaches several meditation techniques including eating, walking, breathing, and smiling in order to develop the skill of present moment awareness. Like many Buddhist practitioners, he also practices a meditation where one sits-witnessing a dead corpse. This may strike you as intensely morbid, but it is such a direct way of remembering our impermanence and recognizing the transient and fleeting nature of reality. Ultimately we share the same fate. Perhaps we don't have to make regular trips to the morgue in order to practice this type of mindfulness, but there is value in contemplating life and death in other ways.
Another possibility comes to us through mythology or teaching stories that speak to what it is to be fully human. They serve as roadmaps to the shared human experience and can help guide us with their timeless wisdom to navigate current day challenges. Stories of death and rebirth occur across cultures. One such story that I recently read is The Myth of Inanna. Inanna is the Goddess of Love and Queen of Heaven. An abridged version of the story goes like this: it begins with the words: "From the Great Above she opened her ear to the Great Below." Inanna was called to make a decent to the underworld where her older sister and Queen of the Underworld, Ereshkigal, lived. Ereshkigal's husband died and she was going to witness his funeral rites. Before she departed, Inanna gathered together seven things that she refers to as "me" to take as protection--things like a crown and many jewels. She instructs her faithful servant on exactly what to do if she doesn't make it back from the underworld in three days. Inanna descends and has to pass through seven gates and at each gate is asked to relinquish each of her protective identities. After meeting her dark sister, Inanna is killed and then her body must be rescued from the underworld by two creatures that were fashioned from the dirt of her father's fingernail. Her corpse is released but in order to pass out of the underworld a sacrifice is required. She must provide another body in her her place. Her husband, king of heaven, who appeared not to miss her, was chosen and the myth continues. . . .
Like dreams, all of the characters in a myth can be seen as counterparts of our own psyche. For many of us, like Inanna, our understanding of ourselves and the world is limited by our roles, identities and experience. In modern times many of us are called to this descent process through depression, illness, loss, divorce, addiction, or even a more general sense of dissatisfaction. St. John of the Cross named the experience "the dark night of the soul." We are called to let go of our rigid identification with ourselves and the world; to strip away the masks that offer a false sense of safety and protection. Ereshkigal is really just the repressed or neglected part of Inanna. If wholeness or true integration is to take place within the psyche, then similarly our own dark counterpart must be encountered and the passageway between conscious and unconscious (upper and lower worlds) must remain open.
These aren't the kind of thoughts that will evoke the superficial kind of happiness that many are seeking and content with, but they will provide that wider perspective that fosters the kind of awakening that may enable us to decipher what is most important in this moment, day or life. Death and destruction are necessary in terms of the life of relationships, work, the body, and creativity. Just as we are moving toward winter--the darkest, coldest time of year where nature affirms this death principle, it is a reminder of our own process of transition and change. It is a good time for us to ask ourselves--What in my life needs to die so that I may live more fully? What can we let go of now in order to create the space for something new? This could be excess material belongings, deleterious thoughts or beliefs, particular relationships, or addictions that anesthetize us--anything that keeps us from facing the parts of ourselves that we most fear losing. Another way of thinking about this is to answer the question: What are you willing to give up in order to have what you really want? We must be willing to give up certain things in order to gain others. Loss of any kind may involve pain or grief that we fear feeling. But suffering is also one of the greatest teachers of compassion and gratitude.
Another possibility comes to us through mythology or teaching stories that speak to what it is to be fully human. They serve as roadmaps to the shared human experience and can help guide us with their timeless wisdom to navigate current day challenges. Stories of death and rebirth occur across cultures. One such story that I recently read is The Myth of Inanna. Inanna is the Goddess of Love and Queen of Heaven. An abridged version of the story goes like this: it begins with the words: "From the Great Above she opened her ear to the Great Below." Inanna was called to make a decent to the underworld where her older sister and Queen of the Underworld, Ereshkigal, lived. Ereshkigal's husband died and she was going to witness his funeral rites. Before she departed, Inanna gathered together seven things that she refers to as "me" to take as protection--things like a crown and many jewels. She instructs her faithful servant on exactly what to do if she doesn't make it back from the underworld in three days. Inanna descends and has to pass through seven gates and at each gate is asked to relinquish each of her protective identities. After meeting her dark sister, Inanna is killed and then her body must be rescued from the underworld by two creatures that were fashioned from the dirt of her father's fingernail. Her corpse is released but in order to pass out of the underworld a sacrifice is required. She must provide another body in her her place. Her husband, king of heaven, who appeared not to miss her, was chosen and the myth continues. . . .
Like dreams, all of the characters in a myth can be seen as counterparts of our own psyche. For many of us, like Inanna, our understanding of ourselves and the world is limited by our roles, identities and experience. In modern times many of us are called to this descent process through depression, illness, loss, divorce, addiction, or even a more general sense of dissatisfaction. St. John of the Cross named the experience "the dark night of the soul." We are called to let go of our rigid identification with ourselves and the world; to strip away the masks that offer a false sense of safety and protection. Ereshkigal is really just the repressed or neglected part of Inanna. If wholeness or true integration is to take place within the psyche, then similarly our own dark counterpart must be encountered and the passageway between conscious and unconscious (upper and lower worlds) must remain open.
These aren't the kind of thoughts that will evoke the superficial kind of happiness that many are seeking and content with, but they will provide that wider perspective that fosters the kind of awakening that may enable us to decipher what is most important in this moment, day or life. Death and destruction are necessary in terms of the life of relationships, work, the body, and creativity. Just as we are moving toward winter--the darkest, coldest time of year where nature affirms this death principle, it is a reminder of our own process of transition and change. It is a good time for us to ask ourselves--What in my life needs to die so that I may live more fully? What can we let go of now in order to create the space for something new? This could be excess material belongings, deleterious thoughts or beliefs, particular relationships, or addictions that anesthetize us--anything that keeps us from facing the parts of ourselves that we most fear losing. Another way of thinking about this is to answer the question: What are you willing to give up in order to have what you really want? We must be willing to give up certain things in order to gain others. Loss of any kind may involve pain or grief that we fear feeling. But suffering is also one of the greatest teachers of compassion and gratitude.
This month we will be celebrating Thanksgiving and entering into the holiday season, a time that can be bittersweet for many. I propose a simple practice of opening ourselves to the remembrance of the fleeting nature of reality by approaching our days this month with greater compassion and gratitude for each moment--as it arises, lives for a time, and dissolves. Make gratitude a priority each day and let the people you love know that they are special to you and why. Practice letting go a little each day and by all means, if you don't have time for a full yoga practice, take 10-20 minutes for savasana a couple of times a week.
Here is a link with a very basic description of savasana: http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/482
And this is an interesting article that offers a slightly deeper explanation of corpse pose:
http://www.iyengar-yoga.com/articles/savasana/
Here is a link with a very basic description of savasana: http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/482
And this is an interesting article that offers a slightly deeper explanation of corpse pose:
http://www.iyengar-yoga.com/articles/savasana/
Whoever Brought Me Here, Will Have To Take Me Home
All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.
This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile,
I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?
Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.
Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home.
This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say.
I don't plan it.
When I'm outside of saying it,
I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.
~Rumi
