When I was a little kid—about nine or ten—I remember a teacher giving a talk in school assembly which struck me very profoundly. The teachers often told little stories in morning assemblies and I invariably tuned out or tried to listen and found them boring and God-y in a way I couldn’t relate to. But this one was… strange. And I think about it to this day.
The teacher sat on the edge of the stage and told a story about someone making a beautiful drawing in charcoal, while a little boy watched and gasped at how lovely it was. The artist said, Would you like to keep it? And the boy said, Yes please. So he told the boy to look at the picture, really look at it and take it all in—and then he started to pour water over the drawing, so the lines were washed away and the paper disintegrated before the boy’s eyes.
I was quite disturbed by this. I felt my heart throb. I thought it was so sad to have something so lovely and then to seemingly destroy it; sad to not keep it and save it, and wasn’t it a little mean of the artist? But some part of me understood. I got it. The picture would forever be in the little boy’s mind, even as he grew up and grew old.
Today I took a walk in the park with an old friend. It snowed heavily last night, and by the afternoon, New York had already done that thing to snow that New York does, which is to somehow make it dirty and drippy and kind of gross in a way that any city dweller will be familiar with. The sky was overcast and it was very slightly drizzling; the entire park was pretty much monochrome, with tiny scraps of muddy color showing through. It was a good walk and we laughed in the cold, and off went my friend to get her train home.
I started walking back through the park and the white and the black and the grey. And as I got to the entrance, where you can see out over Brooklyn and beyond, I saw a peachy beginning-of-color in the sky, in the distance: The sun was setting. I hadn’t even been aware there was any sun today. Within moments, the world went from grey to beautiful glowing pink—the whole sky lit up suddenly with this incredible glow. What could I do? I stood there and watched. A man waiting at the traffic lights next to me also stood and watched and neither of us cared whether the lights had changed.
I was about to reach for my phone to take a picture, then remembered it had run out of batteries. Damn, I thought. What a photo that would’ve made! I would have liked to keep it.
And of course, I remembered the story of the charcoal picture. I thought, You’ll just have to look at it and love it and let it go.
I wonder sometimes if our culture of selfies and photographing everything and showing photographs of everything is partly an attempt to “keep” things? To pretend that life isn’t transient and every moment isn’t melting into the next one? (Note: I’m speaking as as a dedicated Instagrammer and occasional selfie-taker.)
One of the things I am most deeply grateful for, from my yoga practice, is the ability—okay, the beginnings of an ability—to be present. I remember times in my life which I knew to be important to me where I was not present; acting in a school play and switching off until it was over and then thinking, I wish I could do it again, so I could be there. You know that one?
Yoga constantly emphasizes being present, and I think for quite some time I didn’t fully understand what this meant or entailed or would feel like. It took a lot of practice (physical and mental) to be able to get past my mind’s chatter, even for a few moments; to arrive at that peaceful, relief-feeling of, “Oh. Here I am”. I meditate for twenty or so minutes every day, and maybe find this feeling for a couple of those minutes. It is worth it, for me—to be able to watch the sun set, and let it go.
I’ve talked about loss and heartache lately. In terms of living one’s life fully and being aware of its inevitable losses, I feel strongly that being as present as I can be in times of joy is the only way to fly. Yes, it is more painful, in one way, to be fully present when things are wonderful, because if you are living and loving to your heart’s capacity, or at least as far as you can stretch, you might feel that you have lost more when those times are gone; that you let the gold of the moment move through your heart and your veins and into your finger tippy tips, and now in this new present, you are not there any more. Ow. It is painful. I find it incredibly hard to not try to reach for what is lost; to somehow dive after what has passed. But can you imagine what a loss it would be to have avoided being there with yourself and the world in beautiful, happy times? To have skipped giving presence your best shot? You would miss the sunset in the snow.
There are ways of working within yoga practices like asana and meditation that can develop our sense of now-ness, for sure. The two verses from Master Patanjali’s ancient yoga sutras that are the most key to this, for me, are these:
Atha yoga nusasanam (1:1), which can be translated as “Unity happens in the present”. And, Aparigraha sthairye janmakathamta sambodhah (2:39), “When one does not cling, true understanding of life comes.”
But I have also found that letting yourself go a bit by giving yourself a break can do the same thing. Laying on the couch and eating some really good chocolate (or some really bad chocolate) and not stressing out about whether it’s “in line with your practice” or not can help; as can allowing yourself to drop the worrying for a second while you walk around the park. It’s really about whatever letting things go looks or feels like for you. I find that these are often the times that life sweeps in, with breathtaking delicacy, and reveals its humble, magnificent beauty.
—Peace, peace, peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment