That is what was. This is what is. I'm most interested in what could be.
I'd like to be happy someday. I'd like to be unified. I'd like my stories to fit together into one book, bound together without disparity. I'm tired of telling this story and that.
Yoga teacher trainer S and I had a moment in front of the class this weekend. Sometimes I'm quiet and reserved in class even though I disagree. Other times I let that energy be apparent. I gasped in feigned shock when he told us that if we didn't focus our energy while we were painting our assigned Yantra then we would be stupid. I was pointing out that a teacher shouldn't call our work stupid.
But S rounded on me. He said, "Come on, Marie, admit that. If you make your Yantra from a place of mind chatter, it's just stupid. Your mind chatter is stupid. Isn't it? Isn't most of what you say in your mind just negative, self-critical stuff?!"
Man, he wanted to be right. He wanted my instant agreement that my mind chatter is full of negative voices that I'm hardly aware of. But I couldn't agree. Nor did I really want to explain my psyche to the whole class.
I understood what he meant - not to create from a place of superficial worry and self-restriction. A Yantra is a painting that is meant to also be a meditation, an offering, a performed prayer.
I could have said, "I'm not a good example." I could have said, "I've spent the last few years in a deep and extensive examination of my mind chatter. I hear it and interact with it at a level unusual for Westerners. My mind chatter isn't critical of me. My mind chatter is stories about life and reality."
Sometimes I'm quite amusing to listen to.
Ack. Writing. And now this has become a story. I started with one aim, one expression and these words have veered elsewhere.
I'll say it simply - I think it's up to you, reader. I don't think I can change this whole story from where I sit. The dance of narrative is a dance between teller and listener, words and story, signifier and signified. I think you have to bridge this gap that I can't.
Of course it is from my point of view. But that's the only place I can write from. I am reliant, even dependent, on my readers to participate in this construction of meaning along with me. Otherwise, my story does not exist, and my words are void.
4 comments:
Wait!!! So how did the story end? Did he wrestle you to the yoga mat? What happened?!
Oh. Sorry.
What happened...
I kept silent. He and I locked gazes and came to a mutual, unspoken agreement that we would let the moment pass. He continued on with his comments to the whole group about the process that should accompany Yantra painting.
Later, I asked several questions that helped him to better define his parameters - turns out any materials, any media, any size are acceptable.
I also asked him if he planned to grade them. (I knew he didn't. We're so not getting any kind of grades for this curriculum.) He laughed and admitted that no, he wouldn't and that contrary to his previous remarks, he would be gentle in his assessment.
I drove home the point. "Because you've mentioned that previously you were a 'trained painter.' And not just of houses." He got the humor and my underlying opinion, and left my own mind chatter out of it.
S may know yoga "at the energetic level" as he says about 205 times each day, but I know teaching. Too much so to let my ego be either an obstacle or a victim.
He's an odd guy, our S, very passionate and emotional and quite strongly opinionated. I don't agree with him easily; sometimes I get impatient with his teaching technique (he loves the sound of his own voice too much), but I like him a lot.
There are worse ways to learn things.
this blog entry is clearer than you give yourself credit for. this reader, also a writer, connected the dots AND empathized
and by the way, clutter of the mind is the best clutter of all. because it's yours through which to sift, not someone else's messy room you're obligated to clean up
Thanks. Good point.
I find writing to be one of the best ways to declutter.
(Yoga's also fantastic.)
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