Buzz

Do say the bees will return,
And with them, seasons.

This bee was trembling. Can you see it–it is all of a blur…

Admittedly, the camera (my iphone) is not the best equipment…but I tell you, it was truly trembling.

Below and behind it, the tide was coming in on the lake, and little waves were splashing, making it feel, if I closed my eyes, like I was near the sea.

Stars about my head I felt
About my Feet the Sea–

Except that it did not smell like the sea. The lake has a clearer scent, less salt and rot, and does not smell nearly as translucent to me as the ocean.

(Can you tell how much I miss it?)

There is something to Sina Queyras’ fear about the bees–recently, whole colonies of bees have been dying off. This has been named “colony collapse syndrome” and has caused considerable concern. Recently, a primary cause of this in honeybees has been identified–the parasite Nosema ceranae (Microsporidia). Researchers were even able to cure a colony of infection which is good news.

One clover, and a bee.

of course.

Except that honey bees are not the only bees–and the Franklin’s bumble bee (Bombus franklini) is now, perhaps, extinct. And many other native bees are threatened. And less you complacently suggested that the Franklin’s bumble bee was never particularly common–take note. Dr. Robbin Thorp, an entomologist professor (emeritus) at UC Davis regularly censused bees, and the Franklin’s bees were among the 10-20 most common species. (Though perhaps you might not be convinced by that, had you not known that there were upwards of 20,000 species of bees across the globe).

Last time Dr. Thorp saw a Franklin’s bumble bee was in 2006, when he saw a lone worker at Mt. Ashland.

Blip.

Another species vanished and I bet you didn’t see it coming.

Where man is, nature is bereft.

A Political Interlude

I am following Iranian Student @Change_for_Iran on Twitter. The last post was:
“we have to leave, it’s not safe here anymore! wish us luck!”

I am one of Iranian Student’s 24478 followers.

Everything is superimposed upon everything else.

my eyes, like the Sherry in the Glass,
that the Guest leaves—

I really appreciate being able to read Iranian Student’s posts—it is the experience that I always feel I miss with things happening elsewhere when I read the news. I feel as though something of the inside is out. I do not feel very useful. I am worried about Iranian Student.

We’re fearing that their Hearts will drop—
And crush our pretty play—

I am reading the protests, the marches and the repression from people “on the ground” and deeply inside of it. I can read the anxiety, confusion and excitement. It, at some level, resists synthesis and evaluation because it is immediate.

I am also, of course, reading our country’s recent history as well. Part of this is searching for a direct connection—how is what is happening there related to what is happening/happened here. A clear attempt to reflect back to the self—and to blame. (Like how the label “Axis of Evil” created the environment for Ahmadinejad to push more repression).

If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly

I am not the only person—many people have pointed out that things might have been different in this country if folks had had the cajones to rise up in protest in 2000.

My first reaction to this was—yeah—what a lot of cowards we are. But my second reaction brings out the social anarchist in met—the election was not stolen in the way that people suspect Admenijad of stealing Iran’s election. It was robbed through the action of the Supreme Court—and institution that was built up directly out of manner in which the citizens of this country voted over the thirty years prior. And Bush was re-elected. His presidency was not directly the result of repressive tactics (although, there were some arguably dubious moves made…) in the way that would invite a mass uprising.

(I am full of shit…a moral coward—I am just too comfortable to put myself at risk.)

I am, apparently, a social anarchist. I believe our country is too big for true democracy. I am tired as hell of paying the price in environmental degradation, poverty, and lack of education, because of other peoples ignorance and unwillingness to do the hard work of learning.

Perhaps I am just an insular piece of work.

And when I think of the Civil War, I must remind myself what the threat of succession did to this part of the world.

I know it is more complicated that I imagine.

At any rate. I am still getting Tweets from Iranian Student—and I am getting more nervous for all of the people demonstrating because the Ayatollah is essentially threatening to crackdown. He has clearly decided to throw his cards in with Ahmadinejad.

So I’ll keep checking up and hoping that something shifts and we don’t have to watch a lot of people hurt over the next days and weeks.

If you are annoyed by my overthinking yoga, then skip this

I have fifteen minutes to write this.

Other things, dear, other things call.

The other day I was practicing yoga and all the voices of all the teachers I’ve had or read were inside my head. I turned them into a river.

But it was not enough. I had to give it up—my husband and children’s bodies and faces floated up in my mind and I could not help but grieve over time. Over that moment that I was not with them.

And isn’t it nice there is such a gorgeous metaphor available for me to steal—Kali, come on over here and sit with me awhile.

Since that interrupted practice, I’ve been busy.

There’s a start…you like that? Who isn’t busy, inside and out?

Again…since that interrupted practice I’ve been angry.

I have, as I’ve said, hard nut of anger. Sometimes it is (to extend the metaphor to beyond its natural range) cracked and the anger comes out and wraps all over me.

Luckily, I am better at not letting it swallow me, as much as bathe me, so I am able to move about some.

Not very “yoga” of you.

I want to practice a great generosity of spirit.

I want to move with grace on every level, instead of with this physical and emotional clumsiness. I want to use fewer words, not more.

But I cannot help myself.

I do not know of any other practice that allows me to balance myself physically, cognitively and emotionally (as well as other ways…). I thought for a little while that I’d give it up, start training for ultra marathons again—and maybe I will. But probably not. That kind of training doesn’t cut it, fabulous as it is in many ways, doesn’t get at what I need.

And this pisses me off.

Here is a specific: reading a recently acquired text on yoga practice I stumbled upon yet another list of things that a woman should not do when menstruating—no vigorous practice for 3 days, no practice at all for the first day. (The other suggestions: no inversions, no backbends….) And of course, sequester yourself in the menstrual hut so that the menfolk in your life do not risk coming in contact with you. You are unclean.

Perhaps this is unfair—underlying much of the talk about yoga during menstruation is based on the idea of the direction of energy: of apana. During one’s flow, one wants the energy going down (based upon Ayurvedic theoretical considerations) and inversions, for example, impede this.

I suppose I am not knowledgeable enough to really debate this—but reading this in yet another text written by a man made me put the book down. I feel as though things like this are said, recommended, become part of the discussion about yoga because people are unwilling to really dig and ask, where did this come from? What we receive from teachers and text are culturally inscribed and originated out of some form of cultural context, and honestly, I suspect the ideas about menstruation were inscribed by men speaking theoretically rather than by women speaking experientially. Whether or not the theory was emerging out of menstrual taboos or simply out of the Ayurvedic schematic of energy flow, I am loathe to accept any rules in this area. I want to make my own discoveries.

(I should admit that added to this basic experiential versus theoretical concern arises my cursory readings of academic texts about tantra—including David Gordon White’s somewhat controversial suggestion that the fluids of the yogini were the ultimate goal of tantric practice—)

But really, what am I resisting here? It is not these discussions about menstruation. In fact, it might be obvious to you that that little bit above is a diversion.

For me all sorts of things are laid bare.

It is easy for me to create diversions because I read a lot. And I overthink things. If I go back and read seminal texts—The Yoga Sutras, The Bhagavad Gita—all of the other elements slip away. I miss much, I am sure, in these readings—my cultural context is different, I am reading translations, I am missing all of those things that at the time were weaving through these texts. But I suppose, this is the same thing that happens when I read anyone’s work, Emily Dickinson for one, living in a context very different than my own.

That doesn’t mean Dickinson’s work is out of my reach, it just means that I will read it in a different way. I will also discover different things as I read her work after reading about her, about her context and the texts she read.

So, I suppose with the Sutras and the Gita.

Acheronta movebo

Yoga is a way for me to move the deep. Dig into upwellings. Burn through…burn through what? Burning is what I visualize during meditation. Burning to ash, then wind, then integration, and nothing.

Move the deep

What does it mean to lay bare in a communal space? What is necessary for safe passage?

I began with the voices of my teachers–and that is where I’ll end, because that is part of what I’m trying to understand. I am not ready to practice entirely upon my own, but I have become a little bit afraid of the space between teacher and student. I am arrogant and resistant and uncomfortable (STILL) in my own skin and this is part of the problem.

Whatever. I am out of time, or more than that.

The Quail Diaries has its own site!

I have moved The Quail Diaries to its own wordpress site:
The Quail Diaries.

What I mean to say

What I mean to say is there is nothing so wondrous as the evolutionary brilliance of our own electrophysiology; and nothing so mysterious as a sky full of crows, all cawing, all connected to me by history and context but utterly other.

What need have we for X files and what the bleep do we know simplicity when what is inside and out is far stranger and more complex.

They knew it.

The post below

makes me feel anxious and sick to my stomach.

This post is not about princesses

Naturalistic explanations are more magic than a resort to supernatural intervention.

This is, according to Slavoj Žižek, an attraction of the murder mystery genre–the banishment of the supernatural makes the story more wondrous by far.

“What is the matter with the day?” said Wimsey. “Is the world coming to an end?”

“No,” said Parker, “it is the eclipse.”

And though I do not always agree with Žižek’s points, I do so often, and I suspect this naturalistic solution is the reason I am personally enamored of the mystery genre. In the naturalistic explanation is the wonder that comes from experience of the world as a place far more amazing because crop circles are the work of human artists, orbs are the play of light and digital technology, the sense of spiritual uplift from yoga is a neurobiological reaction and all beings that have lived, are living and, perhaps, will ever live, relatives all, are subjected to the nonprogressive forces of evolution. Even humans, no apex we, are still entwined–freedom from evolution would be a sad thing indeed.

To be honest, I have felt very angry lately. So, to some of you this is no surprise–”aren’t you always pissed off?” you might ask. And of course, I am–I have a core of anger that is hard as a nut. But, because of various events, one of the things that I felt was a foundation in my life–my yoga (and as I write this I must admit that my self-loathing is starting to peak out–yoga mom! yoga mom! it shouts)–has become problematic.

bracken exists; and blackberries, blackberries;
bromine exists; and hydrogen, hydrogen

What is currently a problem for me it the tension between 1) the (rather narrow) conception of yoga as the manipulation of the body and breath to manipulate one’s own physiology and neurobiology and 2) the broad conception of yoga as a practice originating in Vedic or Pre-Vedic times in South East Asia–one not focused on the body (although perhaps somewhat on the breath (?and here I get nervous, for what the heck do I know?).

Put that way, it seems a simple thing. But it is more complex, because of the word but also because of the people borrowing bits and pieces from this and that tradition and glomming it together to make…what???

Yoga is everywhere and I do not know what it is.

The moon which is the source of light, has a blue stain. Even I myself

am blue

I want a concrete definition of yoga for myself—I do not want to feel like an asshole.

What makes language so difficult. What makes this translation so unfortunate. The cats are walking back and forth and I have yet to say anything.

Once upon a time, there was a woman who heard the crows and looked up to see five chasing a bald eagle north.

No…

Once upon a time, there was a woman who was afraid of certain things

No…

Once upon a time, there was a woman….well really, it is me I am talking about. I am that woman, but you know it. And I am tapdancing around the issues.

Where is the woman in all of this?

She stands in the middle of a burning creation ground. She has fangs.

There are things I am not telling you.

0000000

quotes are from Slavoj Žižek, Dorothy Sayers, Inger Christensen (trans Nied), Brhannila Tantra (trans. Biernacki)

Kids and kitties, and suchlike

The baby next to me is 1 month old.

I think I’ve noted before, how, as children age (or at least as my children age, from my point of view) each little phase dies and is gone forever. I know this is not true. These bits are still there inside my children, but that little baby next to me gives me an ache that has nothing to do with wanting another child. One thing I learned with my second, that first baby is gone which the child emerges, the second doesn’t replace it, or become it, but becomes something completely different.

My children still smell the same–in a way, I should say, that is deeper than milk, more in the gut than baby shampoo.

&*&*&*

There are two cats–I may have mentioned one. She (or he), is very old and every bit of fur is tangled and knotted. This kitty has runny eyes and a runny nose. I keep going back to the kitty’s house to see the cat because I am very close to just taking him/her/it. But first, I suppose, I will talk to the “owner.” Last time I went, another cat wandered out to greet me. This is a black cat, certainly younger, with a large bald spot and scabbing on his/her/its back.

These cats have issues of discomfort easily solved.

Can you tell me what to do?

(I already know what I am going to do…shhh)

my children and some cats…do I wander?

Of course I do. And I give myself no quarter because at every moment there is my own private executioner, cutting me off at the knees.

Should I explain that to you or do you understand it implicitly? It just means that I will never be the parent I long to be. Never ever good enough for the perfect things my babies are. I cried during my son’s first week because, in part, I knew I would not live up to the perfection he was. (Of course, my hormonal fluctuations and lack of sleep likely had something to do with the weepiness. I was sure, during my daughter’s first week, that she and my son were going to die because he had croup and had to be rushed to the emergency room–hormones in part).

There you go…does that explain it?

And of course the cats. Whatever I do with the cats will never be the right thing. Never ever. It is just too bad I cannot be madder–it would help ease my own sense of failure, perhaps, or perhaps not.

At any rate. I must away, there are a million things to do and a million things to see and I am only just beginning, though I feel old enough to have been here before the earth was formed and naive enough to be one free of experience.