My thoughts on building a mosque close to Ground Zero

Here's what I think:

• The TERRORISTS responsible for the atrocities of 9/11 should be tried and punished to the fullest extent of the law.


• The actual Ground Zero site should remain as a symbol for our sorrow as a well as a reminder of the preciousness of life and our need for solidarity.


• Muslim fanatics do not and should not serve as representatives for Islam on the whole.


• While I agree that violent acts committed in the name of Islam are often reported in the media, I choose to believe (in an optimistic act of faith) that the vast majority of Muslims neither condone nor do they in any way wish to be associated with such acts.

In other words, I choose to believe that the vast majority of Muslims are not so different than anyone else. My children go to school with Muslim children. If these children were in NYC along with their families and decided to visit a mosque that happened to be in the vicinity of Ground Zero, I wouldn't see any problem in that.

Again, this is solely an expression of MY opinion.

Coerced non-violence

This is actually kind of funny.

For starters, I am a real-life yogi. That means that I have by no means transcended to an especially divine level of existence. That being said, I am the first to admit that although I naturally believe in the yogic principle of ahimsa, meaning non-violence, there are just as naturally some minor exceptions to that rule.

Yesterday when I rolled out my mat in my bedroom, I noticed a fly flying about. Realizing that this guy was only going to land on me the second I was still, I decided he best be on his way to the other realm before I got started. Since the fly swatter was upstairs I rolled up my issue of Yoga Journal (which I know is sacreligious!) and decided to flatten him once and for all.

First I couldn't find him. And when I finally did: A swing and a miss! *damn*

"Ok, screw it," I thought and got started on my session. Lo and behold he hung out on my white closet for a while before going back to buzzing around me. So I paused between sequences and tried to nail him again as he sat on my overnight bag that lay beside my mat. Strike two!

"Whatever!" So I go back to doing yoga, and I figure that before I lie in savasana for my final relaxation I better end this once and for all. At this point, however, he wasn't anywhere to be found.

"I surrender." At this point, I could honestly see the irony in my actions and could do nothing other than laugh at myself. Sure enough, as I lay spread out on the floor, Mr. Fly landed first on my leg, and then my wrist, and then my hand... I figured I could use this opportunity for some vispassana inspired meditation, where you allow all sensations to be a part of your experience. So everytime he landed on me I thought silently to myself, "Fly on ankle. Fly on wrist. Fly on hand." And so on.

Once finished, I got up to turn off my music, and all of the sudden there he was: right on my white nightstand table, next to my cd-player.

With a smile on my lips, I turned off my music and left.

Crossroads

The pendelum can really swing in lightning speed from delight to despair. I think I'm at a crossroads and in withdrawal simultaneously. Interesting combination (written with a thick dose of irony).

So what am I learning, if anything?

Time off from the computer and shopping is starting to open my eyes as to how I am really feeling, and it's giving me the OPPORTUNITY TO FEEL IT. Sometimes fun, like when you see the beauty that surrounds you in everyday life and realize just how lucky you are to be alive, but far from always. As I wrote in my last entry, FEAR uninvitedly made herself at home recently, demanding much of my attention, but she's gone now and has been replaced by a stone on my chest named DREAD.

Now that I've admitted to myself that mindless Internet surfing and impulse shopping are just a way of filling a void with a temporary, surgary fix, you know, the kind that offers instant gratification and a quick burst of vitality soon to be replaced by crippling lethargy and lacking any form of nutrition, I can't go back to doing what I've been doing. So even if the thought of creating CHANGE entails dusting off FEAR and DREAD from the back of my emotional closet and bringing them out into broad daylight, I don't feel I have any choice; HONESTY has also gotten a hold of me and refuses to allow me to continue fooling myself into believing that I need my fixes in order to feel good.

HONESTY has placed me in front of my closet, filled to the brim with gorgeous clothes (most of them worn on perhaps one or two occasions at most). She asks me what more can possibly be on the racks of any given store that will offer me any more satisfaction than that I already own? She demands that I remind myself of how pleased I was when I found the garments, as though I were freakin-Columbus-discovering-America-himself, the same garments that now are lying deserted and forgotten in piles of lifeless fabric.

So getting back to DREAD: right now she's made herself all comfortable as though she were propping her feet up with a tub of Ben & Jerry's on her lap at the start of a SYTYCD marathon; in other words - she ain't goin' nowhere.

Because I really dread the hard work that lies ahead while I figure out a new direction.

On the other hand, there's no way I'm going to let DREAD drain me of my will to live my life to the fullest. So my only option is to actually get started.

And for that I'm GRATEFUL.

Picture from Google

Feeling of the day = FEAR

I'm considering changing paths. For years I've toyed with the idea every now and then, but call it part of having turned 40, now more than ever it seems as though it's more or less now or never.

For the time being I'm just throwing out some hooks. But that alone was enough to send me into a near panic mentally earlier today. When I started the warm up part of my mat session, I felt completely numbed by FEAR. I had no idea that FEAR had such a stranglehold on me. Above all, it's my FEAR of sacrificing economical security that's paralyzing me from taking action. It's my need for 100% guarantees that I won't screw up that is keeping me prisoner.

I hadn't quite realized what a debilitating effect FEAR had on my actions. Naturally FEAR'S strongest ally is DESIRE who uses her siren-like power to distract me from trying to transform my dreams to goals.

That's why I think my exercise in not buying stuff is just what I need if I'm ever going to manage shifting paradigms. By not distracting myself, or rather, by not stressing myself with endless consumption, be it material or virtual, I am giving myself the opportunity to find fulfillment in other areas.

And if I'm somehow able to find out a way to earn a living while being able to maintain a practice that allows me daytime workouts, well then maybe it's time...

Picture from Google

Blueberry days/daze

Day 2: Got home last night from a short trip to Skåne. For the first time in years my husband and I had an entire evening, night, and morning to ourselves. Very good for the soul...

No real abstinence from avoiding the computer or shopping, but I notice how frequently some thoughts arise, things like, "...maybe I should just...check this...price that...", but aside from checking e-mails and blogging, I am still on the wagon.

Maybe by slowing down I am allowing myself to feel my discomfort (the word pain sounds too melodramatic - I'm not exactly suffering). But as soon as I'm not doing something, I feel as though I should be doing something. And when I do something, if it's something I'm supposed to be doing, like work or household chores, I don't feel like doing it.

Today I took to the woods to pick blueberries. I'm not even one who considers herself a blueberry-picker, but I felt a desperate need to escape outdoors. With my eyes to the ground in the shelter of the damp, scented forest, I experienced a nagging desire to find some deeper meaning in my actions, as though my method of picking (or rather, my non-method) could somehow manifest itself into a blueprint to success in life.

But the only blueprints to be found were the ones left by my stained fingers. I found the whole thought process agitating actually. I decided that I just wanted to pick some berries - period. No divine revelations needed for the moment, thank you very much. So I picked and picked, and moved in silence as though in a trance. Two hours later my husband called to say that our son needed to be driven to a friend. At that point, I could easily have stayed another two hours - at least.

So basically I'm not doing anything at the moment. I even skipped mat pratice today (I'm blaming it on a sore hamstring that doesn't want to heal). I just want to vegetate, and maybe that's what I need for starters. The same way an injured person might have to be sedated at first, until the body can get things under control.

The blueberries were gorgeous, by the way, a lot of them as big as marbles.

Picture from Google