silk mirth subtle, part ii

& what of that which is found in suspension . . .

silk mirth subtle, part the second . . .

every august, as we head out of the adirondacks back to city life, we make the obligatory visit to the roadside general store ... buying tokens & gifts to dispense upon our return . . . this particular time, i bought a balsam potpourri ( a little pillow filled with fragrant shavings) so that i could possess the sublime ... indulge in it anytime i want . . . no longer having to be sustained by random & elusive encounters ...

the potpourri sits in a compartment of my desk, a dull distillation ... an occasional whiff of which disappoints . . . i've tried to hold on to a piece of the divine . . . & in captivity, it is but a flat & hollow echo

'don't forget, if you fall, it is because you've stopped the kick' ... this 100th monkey reminded us, as once again we were cantilevered into tuladandasana, suspended by his urgings to push, stretch, defer to the details ... 'i know you think i'm picking on you all, but . . . the details, my friends . . . they are everything'

the details ... the essence of it all ... found there . . . in suspension ... we just have to access them . . . have to be willing to get lost in the pause ... without concern for where we are going or for how long . . .

and i think of otis:

at one point, the pump for otis' coy pond broke . . . the trickle of water falling over rock silenced; the water stilled . . . & so otis set about separating hose from motor, cleaning moss & silt from intake valve. once reassembled & back in the pond, the pump kicked back on & the flow resumed . . . until . . .

evening upon evening, repeated cleanings later, otis dismantled the pump & began to study . . . half-in, half-out of the pond, leaving screwdrivers and bolts, metal plates & pliers precariously strewn around the pond's edge, he worked as daylight dimmed . . . & one evening, he noticed the tiny plastic 'imploder' . . . no bigger than his fingertip . . .was broken. next, he set about procuring a replacement . . . searching the web, comparing prices, eventually placing an order. . . tracking the shipment, knowing precisely when it would arrive . . . then back on hands & knees, daylight still dimming, he recommenced fussing & fiddling . . . until the shiny white plastic mini-propeller slipped into place, filter resuscitated . . .

surely, i would have thrown my hands up in dismay, thrown the broken pump out in disgust, assumed someone else would need to repair it for me. i too quickly would have bought a new one full price & declared the pond a burden, draining my time and money . . . not otis; his near mystical ability to pause kicks in, as he steps back, takes note, does nothing right away . . . then, unafraid to explore, he begins immersing himself in the details, guided by the belief that he is able to fix what is broken . . .

bonnie, of the school of body-mind centering(R), refers to otis' process as 'sitting in the synapses' . . . waiting, observing, receiving ... & being willing to doing so, long after patience is spent ...

never is otis harried by another's sense of urgency, nor does he force a fix . . . he moves to a rhythm of his own . . . his process is organic . . . his destination profound

there is no need to run outside
for better seeing . . .
rather abide
at the center of your being
for the more you leave it, the less you learn
search your heart and see
this way to do is to be

these are the words of lao tzu, ancient chinese philosopher & author of the tao te ching, written more than 2,000 years ago . . .

the 'secret,' writes swami vivekananda, who in his book Raja-Yoga, speaks of reaching perfect bliss, eliminating misery, is . . . concentration . . . 'believe nothing until you find it out for yourself'

concentration . . .where you give yourself to the process, focus on the details . . . not something that comes easily in this fast-paced, break-speed world where we expect answers instantaneously, where quick fixes & externally imposed solutions are but a click away and shoulds & musts leave little time unclaimed . . . it is counter to our 21-century orientation to move at a more meditative pace . . . but, in fact, therein lies such sweetness . . .

in the pause . . . over time . . . with repetition, connections & answers . . . like cream . . . rise to the top . . . found in their wake: stability, clarity, potential

standing on one leg preparing for dandayamana dhanurasana, i hear this 100th monkey say, 'just focus on the kick for the first 5 seconds; don't even start the forward bend' ... & so i do . . . finding in the kick a truer balance . . . from which i can move with ease, go deeper, more fully into the suspension . . . & i stay . . . not wobbling, tilting or falling . . . my standing foot is calm beneath me; a mysterious lightness buoys me . . . 'if you have the kick', this 100th monkey says, 'you can balance forever'

so . . . go, now ... get lost in some details . . . & ... when you are ready, check back in for silk mirth subtle, part the third

xo

silk mirth subtle

my apologies, dear reader, for an unexpectedly long hiatus . . . this musing has unfolded according to a rhythm all its own ... & i have had no choice but to oblige ...

do note, it is a posting in two parts . . .

& so it begins with a recent trip to a favorite style emporium to the avant-garde ... a confidante and i rendezvous there with regularity . . . treating ourselves to a touch of glamor . . . indulging, if modestly, in mixes & potions to infuse a hint of the mystical into our everyday

at the close of this particular explore, after kisses & wishes until next time, i headed off, the names of my purchases tumbling one over the other in my mind . . . mirth (a lip gloss) . . . subtle (loose powder) ... & ... at home, from a previous outing, silk (a powder blush) . . . subtle silk mirth . . . silk mirth subtle . . . i said it over and over - this tripling . . . distinct, clear, elegant . . . not sentence, phrase or clause . . . rather, an energy . . . sure, present, hovering . . . an ethereal delicacy . . . suspended . . . mid-air

'hold your body up' . . . sayaishii demands of us in our pre-dawn bikram practice. 'keep your torso light ... do not sink . . . you must suspend' ... i consider how much strength such lightness requires . . . i remember the cirque du soleil acrobat . . . jumping on his hands, yielding into the ground with each landing, only to push up into incredible lightness ...

the more you kick, the more you stretch, the more you stretch . . . the more likely you are to find suspension . . . for it is in that space between the kick and the stretch ... that suspension occurs . . . to relinquish the force in either direction in order to better grasp the suspension is to be left with nothing at all . . .

one recent morning, otis & i were leaving the park with the dogs when a whisper of balsam wafted up from the mulched path ... & was gone . . . vanishing as it appeared . . . leaving delight & wanting in its wake ...there was nothing to be captured from beneath our worn & muddied boots . . . i knew to keep walking, only then might it reappear . . .

when lulu was little, we would walk the drive of our adirondacks camp . . . looking under the canopy of ferns . . . for the fairies. . . a frond would sway . . . a breeze would give way to a rustling . . . the fairies were scurrying about . . . lulu and i would exclaim, 'ooh, i think i just saw a slipper disappear under that flower petal' . . . 'was that the flutter of wings?' . . .surely, the rational world would declare the absurdity here . . . that didn't matter to us . . . somewhere deep inside . . . in a zone of suspension ... still occurs a twitch of wonder . . . a little gasp of joy at even the remotest chance that little delicate fairies are going about their daily lives in and about their fern-covered houses .. & that lulu and i can pause long enough to allow for that possibility . . .

certain european medical cultures understand the body's circulatory system to contain isorings . . . zones of exchange . . . between artery and vein . . . where the blood is neither coming nor going . . . 'it is in the isoring that suspension occurs,' explains bonnie bainbridge cohen, founder of the school for body-mind centering(R). bonnie has spent a lifetime exploring the systems of the body, how and where they contain the potential for pause ...

awareness of these zones yields to calm . . . to a connection to space within one's being (physical, emotional, intellectual) where, bonnie tells us, 'you can find quietude & from there choose in which direction you will go'

. . . choose to not close off . . . not collapse . . . but rather, to suspend, observe, allow


. . . stones found on a recent winter beach ... one flat coal-grey, shimmering, another translucent plump, a third speckled celadon . . . on my desk, set on a washed aqua coaster, this tripling serves as foreground to the spare grace of a slip of dulled silver, a lost lighter waiting too in the sand that winter afternoon . . . les petits objets decoratifs . . .will they, when the moment of whimsy has yielded to the sure hand of practicality, be dismissed to the rubbish heap ... or ... will their space remain . . . touchstone to a precious winter afternoon spent at the beach . . . simply there . . . humble, innocent, evocative . . .

xxoo
cocoa