Yoga and The Living Work

We all begin naive. 

And skipping we are learning

until we are locked

into a halt 

of our own self-made direction.

 

There we discover ourselves

newly awakened, 

scared and scarred,

privileged and lacking,

distressed and self-soothed 

enough to acknowledge

only we can be responsible 

for the naiveties in our past,

where mistakes were made,

ours and theirs

and we are nevertheless

confined here and now together

to this cruel and playful fight.

 

Some follies realized on sight.

Others began as success,

then laid latent

and soured with time.

Innocent and natural

Always frictionary 

Always inevitable.

Mis-steps are irreconcilable 

for any other 

but one’s own.

Arrest is yours too.

Try on behalf of another

to preserve them of their darkness;

drag them to salvation

and you’ll darken yourself,

damaged both sides.

 

Yes we may forgive each other

And often we should 

be so generous and more.

But reconciliational healing 

lies in the eyes of the forgiver,

not in the hands of the forgiven.

Instead of crying on our birthdays

 

Let us make a cake

fold in a wish,

and bake it 

of our heart’s private kitchen.

Wrap it before it spoils,

and go off to foreign land.

Taking it out there,

sit down and 

let the one wild wind

blow down our wishes

and then, yes, eat it too.

 

For only then will the flame 

glitter on within

all life’s precious bodies

wrapped up in this wrestling

of right and wrong.

These moves left undone

risk our bitterness.

And only the sweat 

from our good work

defends darkness impending 

and evades our bright future together. 

 

The punishment of bitterness 

is the worst kind,

for the actions it pilots 

and the disillusion it ensues.

This is no solution.

 

We are each integral 

space-holders.

We are each boundary makers.

We are 

ever rule breakers

inadvertant though it seems. 

Dilemmas ripple out

and shake the world 

into our likeness.

This is our responsibility.

 

Don’t we all want only to stand

embracing one another and gazing 

into the promise 

and what potentials 

wait in the beyond?

 

Don’t we all want

to remember

peace in the middle,

and opportunity above?

This is our pursuit.

 

Currently we discover ourselves 

possessed by and in posesion of 

of enough instruments

with which to write out story anew.

 

Let’s put yourselves together.

Lift up our mighty pens,

and make our essential revision today.

 

Let’s trace an ancient coastline 

in the inky law of nature.

Leaving behind 

the savage blow of our past

There’s life to renew now

And learning heals wounds.

 

Blessed be our scars

for the essential memories

they record and report

to us, not to them.

For your scars are

your scars and not theirs.

 

Fight until all of you

is freed for your ability 

and in spite of your need 

for the false relief 

of your own righteous justice.

This is your fight. 

May your re-write be attuned

to your fresh heart’s narrative.

A battle must be fought within you

with a warrior spirit 

else it be laid falsely

from within and onto another.

Self discovery is eminent. 

 

Let’s lock our own horns

before we sound them off,

A great shedding of our struggles.

We each hold the only and only key 

Which frees all others.

Turn it around 

in the crack of your heart

and deliver us to the present.

The levity therein 

offers a superior view 

of this peaceful now

and the promising when light. 

As each life is a tragic threat to peace

and the highest promise too.

 

Living is pleasurable.

Pleasure-seeking is not 

lucky enough to deliver 

each of us on a single silver platter.

Letting go of this past hurts 

but the load of old pain

is just too heavy 

to carry it out

into a better future.

 

May we let go of the past 

and act in honor

of the plain, planed, present movement

toward the tomorrow we will create

together for ourselves, 

for each other, 

and for this living world 

we can never unlove.

 

May we support one another 

in this critical effort to surrender. 

 

May we drop our painful past,

that it may compost and grow 

up to the present and the real; 

that our darkest, most precious, 

and most dysfunctional resources

be burned to nothing

in sacrifice

to a fresh bight place 

where our children may play. 

 

This work is skill in action

Our own work to do. 

We all need support.

We stand forever and always 

in support of this critical work.