Teaching Your Children About Spirituality

I've started to think that no matter how much you don't believe in God, His name still crops up in the vernacular, and the collective conscious. For example, today, when the sun came out after a day of torrential downpours, I thought, "Oh no! God is a Yankees fan!" Now that I see the Phillies are winning, I'm thinking maybe He's a Phillies fan. Or maybe God is one of those un-American dudes who prefers soccer to baseball. Maybe He's not even American...but if He's not, why would he let George W. in on the secret about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

Regardless, it is certainly easy to slip into God-talk, and, as demonstrated above, it is just as easy to slip into really irreverent God-talk. (Honestly, my guess is that God is so devoted to the Mets, He doesn't even know who's in the World Series...)

However, I've been spending some time with my friends' children lately, and I realize that you have to choose your words carefully, especially if you are spending time with children who don't belong to you. Having penned the highly useful "5 Web sites to Develop Your Child's Spirituality" and as a committed and spiritual yogini, I'm certainly not advocating telling anyone under the age of 10 that God is dead. (I'd say the 11th birthday is a good time to introduce Nietzsche). But as anyone who's ever yelled "F(*K" in front of a toddler can attest, it's easy to slip up.

Last week, I was hanging out with a friend's six-year-old son who wanted to know why Bar Mitzvahs happened at 13:

Me: Because the Bible says so.

Him: Why?

Me: Because that's when the people in the Bible decided.

Him: Who are they?

Me: Uh, the people in the Bible.

Him: But WHY?

Me: I don't know. That's why some people think the Bible is made up.

Oops. I'd like to hope he doesn't know what "made up" means but given the highly skeptical nature of his questioning, I doubt that's the case. Either way, I vowed to be more prepared the next time I was confronted. Sure enough, we were eating dinner the other night and he asked, "Is Hell a bad word?"

"Well," I replied. "It is sometimes. It's a not a good place."

"What is it?"

"Do you know what Heaven is?"

He nodded.

"Well, Hell is the opposite of Heaven."

"Ah, so it's where you go if you don't believe in Heaven."

I was stumped, and tempted to reply, "No, if you don't believe in Heaven you just live a fuller life on earth and then decompose when you die..." but instead went with an emphatic, "Um, kind of..sure!"

"But," his wheels were spinning. "If God is everywhere....he's not in Hell."

"No. I guess not."

I was still brainstorming a way to make Hell not seem scary when he hit me up again. "God is everywhere and everything right?"

"Yes!" This made sense from a yoga perspective, too, and it was better than distracting him with Dante, which had been my back up plan.

"Ok, fine." He looked seriously perplexed. "There's something I don't get then. Who's that..I mean...what's that...uh, do you know His son?"

I choked on my breath for a second. Did I personally know God's son? Why..yes! In fact, He loved me, or so I'd read on a bumper sticker in Florida. I replied evenly, "You mean Jesus?"

"Yeah! That's him. Jesus. I don't get how if God is everywhere and everything, he had a son. You can't have a kid like that. You need a human parent to have a kid."

Determined not to screw up, I explained, "Well, he had his mother. Mary. She's a human."

I thought I was saved. But he was too smart. "You need two parents. The Dad can't be everywhere and everything."

Think fast, I willed myself. "That's true, usually you do need two parents. But that's why Jesus is a miracle. He was born even though it shouldn't have been possible, so it's a miracle. Have you heard of miracles?"

He nodded enthusiastically, then paused. "Yeah. Like if you had a Chinese twin..."

"Excuse me?"

He tilted his head. "I mean a Japanese twin."

"Um..."

"Connected, I mean."

"Oh! You mean a Siamese twin." I was lost.

He clapped his hands and nodded eagerly. "Yeah! Two heads...one body! Now that's a miracle!"

Dutifully, I explained to him that Siamese twins actually have two bodies. But in hindsight, I think it's probably ok that I told him the Bible was made up.

Learning to Love the Lost and Broken

I've never been much of a materialistic person. I hate shopping. I don't like fancy things. I don't think wealth is important. But ever since we've been reading the Yoga Sutras for Teaching Training, I've been overcome with feelings of non-coolness with non-attachment.

After first reading the Sutras on the subway, the first thing I did after I got off was go to Bloomingdale's--just to look around--at things. My second stop was Sephora, where I tried on make-up, even though before reading the Sutras, I never wore make-up. At first, I thought my behavior was really strange, but now, I see that it was entirely essential in order for me to really understand the Sutras.

You see, in order to understand non-attachment, you have to have something to detach from. I had avoided material possessions, but not because of yoga or deeper philosophy. The Sutras say that the world is a playground, and we have to use it to understand ourselves. Only then can we step away from the world and see our true selves. I wasn't necessarily in the world, but I hadn't made a conscious decision to step away from it, either. Even the Sutras say that self-denial for the sake of self-denial doesn't count for sh*t.

It made me think that maybe, my awesome brother, who is somewhat more into material possessions than I am, might actually be further along on the yogic path. You see, when I graduated college, he gave me a really expensive pair of sunglasses with the advice, "Growing up means having something expensive, and being able to cope if you lose it or break it." For the past week, I have been trying to convince people that my brother and the Dalai Lama are totally on the same wavelength.

Last night, I got evidence that this is true. One of my teacher trainers told a parable that she said had truly shaped her life. At an ashram, one of the students has the job of cleaning his guru's room everyday. The only possession the guru has is a tea cup, which he loves dearly. Unfortunately, the student breaks the teacup. Mortified and devastated, he goes to his guru to report the bad news.

But the guru is not angry or even sad. Instead he says, "Don't worry. I only loved it because I knew it was already broken."

The point is, we take care of things knowing full well that they're going to break or be lost. We love them because we know it's impossible to have them forever. My brother, immersed in a good taste, not only picked the same rose tinted Ray-Bans for me as Gwyneth Paltrow had, he also picked out the same the moral that is contained in an essential Buddhist parallel. Genius.

I, on the other hand, have spent most of the last 10 years trying to avoid truly loving or owning anything (people, possessions, places) because I don't want to admit that they're already broken and lost. Unfortunately, this kind of attitude leads to a lot of boring, spiritually stunted time in the Playground of Life.

And the point isn't about clothes either. It's about everything that falls under the Umbrella of Achievement. It doesn't actually matter if all my clothing comes from clothing swaps. But it does matter that I find some way of entering a relationship of non-attachment with Success.

Again, I have my brother to thank for getting the wheels turning. On Thursday, he asked me to take him to his NY State Road Test in the Bronx so he could finally get a driver's license. Granted, I am the only "under-employed" person he knows. But I was still very flattered...and also very nervous, a sentiment I tried to hide by suggesting we play "I, Spy" while we waited in line. (The fact that he agreed to it for at least one round was the biggest shock of the day.)

Then, his turn came. I got out of the car and made a break for a local playground to find a bathroom, filling my mind with positive energy and thoughts of perfect K-turns and spacious areas for parallel parking. Turn on your blinker, check your mirrors, glance in the blind spot... I repeated in my head. But then I realized something. While I wanted him to pass, I didn't really care if he didn't. I was just so excited to be the one who got to take him, to be the one marveling at the cleanliness of public toilets in the Bronx while he paused at the 4-way stop signs down the road.

I thought back to my own road test, and it occurred to me that I'd probably been immensely worried that my dad, who took me there, was going to be annoyed and disappointed if I failed. But of course, this was not the case. That is not what parenting, or loving, is about. Loving is the honor you feel when you get to be a part of someone else's journey--when you get to be something slightly more than a passive witness for a few moments in another human's existence. Pass, fail, lost, broken....whatever. I was, briefly, indifferent to the outcome.

(I'm sure the fact that the park bathroom had toilet paper and running water contributed to my happiness. After all, if the world is your playground, it doesn't hurt to have one with a nice bathroom...but we get to learn from Nature, and I don't think Punjali would judge me for being.....relieved.)

Anyway, all my spiritual growth was nice..but for naught. He passed the test. We had a dance party in the car. And I waited 25 minutes before shrieking at him for texting while being stopped at a red light.

He was not pleased. "You really to take a breath and pause before you scream at someone like that," he told me. "You need to think about the tone of your voice, and whether it's really necessary."

I think I have a new guru. Bring on the teacups.

It's Moby Dick, It's an Albatross...no! It's Handstand!

I'm now at a point where I am (proud?) to announce that while I can balance in the middle of the room in a handstand for a few moments once I've been assisted, I still can't kick up.

I went to a new teacher today, who after giving me a spot up, exclaimed in surprise, "You're very strong up here. Just give it more momentum." She didn't offer a spot when we went back for our next handstand, and after she came over to watch me pathetically kicking, I explained, "Handstand is my White Whale."

"Ah, it's your albatross." Now, at a first glance, I guess this sounds like a mixed metaphor, or maybe my yoga teacher wasn't an English major or a Brearley girl and just didn't realize the difference, but as an English major and a Brearley girl, I feel compelled to over-analyze this apparent mix-up and assume that the poet (aka yogaworks teacher) deliberately made her word selection to convey an important message.

So I started to think: What are the differences and similarities between Moby Dick and the Albatross? Both are the catalyst for endless, hopeless maritime misadventures. Both lead the protagonist on a quest. Both ultimately hold the protagonist as an emotional and physical prisoner. In both cases, the sea creature in question replaces religion for the protagonist.

But the differences seem more important. For example, Moby Dick attacked Captain Ahab, inciting him to seek irrational revenge. The Albatross was just flying through the sky minding its own business when the Ancient Mariner shot it down for the sake of sheer gratuitous cruelty. Ahab won't stop hunting for Moby Dick, but has a choice. the Ancient Mariner can't stop wandering because he's being punished for his act of irrational self-sabotage. Moby Dick is elusive, but the Albatross is hung around the Ancient Mariner's neck. He just needs to find a way to unshackle himself.

In looking over that last paragraph, it still seems more appealing to view handstand as a White Whale...after all, it's not like I view my inability to kick my feet into the the air as punishment for something. However, after deeper consideration, the Albatross makes sense. Thinking of handstand as some abnormally large sperm whale that might show up or might not and might kill me or might not shoves handstand into the realm of magical thinking (which is already filled with unrealistic goals like cleaning my room, getting enough sleep and steady employment.) Thinking of it as the Albatross implies that it's always going to be with me, and I'm not going to get to go home until I figure out a way to deal with it. It also puts the responsibility back on me, because I'm the one that shot the bird in the first place.

The other nice thing about the Albatross metaphor is that with Moby Dick, if I find him, all I get is revenge and triumph. If I can repent for my sin of killing the albatross, I get freedom. (We'll ignore the fact that what the Ancient Mariner really gets is the right to die...although maybe if there is an afterlife, it's just like being upside-down...) More to the point, the Albatross is an impingement to personal spirituality (Instead of the cross/the albatross...etc.) Shirking the burden of the Albatross also necessitates a constant awareness and practice, while Moby Dick just has be found. (Being honest, as messy as my room is, I would never find him.)

To that end, after class, the teacher came to talk to me about my albatross. She gave me some exercises to do for my weak psoas muscle that might enable me to get the momentum I need to kick. They don't look super fun or easy, but I think they are probably more manageable than watching your fellow sailors die of dehydration before getting kicked off the boat and wandering the ocean in state of eternal damnation. Although if next week is a bad as this week, I might get to experience that, anyway...

I'm Not Meant to Feel Like This

The first time a yoga teacher ever impacted my life beyond the mat was in frog pose (pictured above.) Frog post is a kind of split, it is is really painful, and at my yoga studio in college, we ended every class doing it for about 5 minutes. Ouch!

But one day, as we were all crouched there with burning legs, my teacher said, "I know this hurts, but imagine this was It. The rest of your life was just going to be frog pose forever. How would you find a way to bear it--even enjoy it. If this was life, how would you make it work it for you?"

It's a philosophy I've used many a time after that, but rarely on the yoga mat. Every time I'm in some really horrendous situation that's causing me tremendous pain, I think, "imagine if this was life. Imagine if there was no way out. How will I make this bearable?" In short, I've endured all kinds of crap by telling myself to imagine that there was no way out, that was I was stuck, and I'd just have to find a way to enjoy it.

This method helps one develop a solid, sarcastic, self-deprecating sense of humor, but I'm starting to learn that it does not actually help one to be remotely happy. What's happy about pretending that life is a series of miniature entrapments in painful positions? Nothing, I guess. But it still never occurred to me that I had a choice, until tonight.

Teacher Training Weekend 6 was wrapping up, and we were going over poses that are safe for beginners. Suddenly, for no reason, I turned my friend and whispered, "what happened to frog pose? I haven't done a frog in, like, 4 years" Apparently she had never done a frog pose ever so I forgot all about it until my teacher started mentioning poses one should never teach, because they were so dangerous and rife with possibility for serious injury.

"Russian split is one," she told us emphatically. I'd never heard of it, but when she demonstrated, my jaw dropped. I pointed and squeaked, poking my friend. "It's frog! It's frog!"

So, lesson learned: The next time you are in a position (life, mat, otherwise) that feels really painful, instead of telling yourself you're trapped and forcing yourself to like it, find someone who can will tell you that agony is actually a bad thing, and mandate that you never do it again.

Namaste.

A Pirate's Life: Downloading E-books for Free

When I read in the New York Times that the E-book version Dan Brown's new hit had been uploaded to piracy Web sites and was now available for free, my first thought was: serves those idiot publishers right for giving Dan Brown a book deal in the first place.

No, I'm kidding. My first really popular article was about Miley Cyrus and I understand that everyone has to make a living. However, it did get me thinking about how much piracy would prohibit publishers and authors from actually making that living. (By "publishers and authors" I mean the ones that aren't already doing it for free on the Web.)

So I wrote up a post for Popmatter's Re:print, thinking about whether the E-book threat was really as big as the MP3 threat:

"There are people who would prefer to carry a book with them, but the ability of that handful of people to sustain an industry is unlikely. And it’s going to be the new authors, the literary fiction writers and the memoirists who need to find other methods of distribution. After all, when you compare a publisher’s arbitrary decision to print someone’s first novel with the release of the low-budget movie Paranormal Activity, which was only produced because online users demanded it, the differences are glaring. But is it possible to imagine a world in which readers get to commission books?"

It turns that this article was also popular, although not quite in Miley territory. However, I think it's the only thing I've ever written that shared on social media sites by someone other than me. I was overly delighted about this, perhaps because, as my 9th English teacher once said, "it's a dull subject, you've got to get your kicks where you can."

But enough negativity. Let's pretend this is an omen of the dawn of a yet-to-be-determined new era for writers (aka bloggers) (aka people destroying the industry) (aka is she done, yet?). To infinity, and beyond!

The Wired Warrior: Move into Fear

Yoga doesn't want to destroy your anxiety. Yoga just wants to have a nice open dialogue with your anxiety. "The Wired Warrior," will be devoted to facilitating that dialogue. Every few days, I'll be sharing work-related and real-life-related dilemmas, with an explanation of how yoga can prevent you from breaking things and hating people.

I was talking to a former co-worker tonight about her new job and she mentioned that she's starting on a three month trial period. "More reasons to just be nervous," she explained.
"I'm sure it'll turn out better if you try not to be nervous and just do your work," I suggested.
"But being nervous is a big part of my personality," she protested.

I totally hear her on this. Fear is a big motivator for many people, and constant fretting can be as natural as breathing. But through careful observation of my own work habits, I have noticed that worrying about the future, or things that are not immediately in my control, has a negative effect on the quality of work I do. Constantly worrying that I might lose my job in 3 months would almost definitely lead to me losing my job in three months.

It made me think of something my teacher-trainer Kara Sekuler said this weekend. We were practicing handstand, and she told us, "Move into your fear. Don't try to conquer it--it's too hard. Just move into it." For many people, myself included, handstand is the White Whale of the yoga practice. Whether it's kicking up, not looking like a banana once you're up there, or trying to balance off the wall, everyone has a challenge. For many people, myself included, an entire class can be tainted by concern about the handstand practice.

As it turns out, the handstand practice can also be tainted by fear about the handstand practice. Take someone like me. If someone helps me up into handstand, I can balance fine. But I cannot kick up to wall to save my life, or anyone else's. Once I got so mad that I threatened myself by saying, "your mother will die if you don't kick up into handstand." I didn't do it. (Sorry, Mom.) On the downside, I no longer believe in mind over matter, although on the upside, my mother is still alive.

It's not that mind-power and will aren't important. But my problem was that I was trying to conquer my fear of handstand. Clearly, since I can balance once I'm up there, my fear isn't really of handstand. My fear is about kicking myself up. By focusing on "conquering the handstand," I was able to keep being sloppy and weak when I kicked, because I distracted by trying to force myself towards the final pose. Similarly, for most of us, the big worries, i.e, will I lose my job? will I get promoted? will anyone ever visit this site? distract us from the little worries that we should be focusing on, i.e, does this sentence sound right? did I fact-check? are there any typos?

The thing is, you can't just conquer your fear of kicking. You have to deliberately and mindfully move into your fear of kicking, and you do that by forgetting about the end goal and kicking with the best form you can possibly have. It's a more manageable way to deal with whatever is blocking you, physically and psychologically. Kara also told me that my block was that I wouldn't really commit. (I told her commitment was impossible for me and that I could get a doctor's note to prove it.)

While it's true that I have fear of commitment, I found that moving into that fear slowly--not committing to a full handstand but just to kicking really well, was doable. For people who love to worry, it's hard to imagine putting the end goal aside for even a moment. But for people who love to succeed, it's probably worth a try.

Ralph Nader Kills Trees

A few weeks ago I was listening to NPR and heard that Ralph Nader had written a novel, a parody called, Only the Super Rich Can Save Us. When the book list came from PopMatters.com the following week offering Nader's book as a title, I found myself selecting it, largely out of curiosity.

In the book, Nader fictionalizes the super rich of America. The book stars Warren Buffet, who decides after Hurricane Katrina that the government stinks, and that he and other super rich people should save the world. He calls together a round table in Hawaii, and then the rich go on to change the world. Kind of a cute idea, I thought.

Then the book came. 736 pages. This is the man who said he was going to save the environment??? What the hell could he possibly have to say that would require the use of that much paper? So, yes: I opened to page 1 already feeling hostile. But that doesn't mean that I'm not completely unbiased when I say: Nader is a mediocre writer and a terrible humorist. Am I supposed to think it's funny that Warren Buffet drinks Cherry Coke every two pages? I'm not sure. But clearly, "How To Be Funny For Dummies," or whatever book Nader read to help him create this attempt at satire, advised him that quirks and repetition were useful devices.

What's worse, is that after he's done trying to be funny, Nader sinks his text with disjointed passages that sound like campaign platforms. Dude, we heard you the first time. We didn't elect you. Move on!

I need to be honest. I'm not that far into this book. If the radio show is right, Nader's going to suggest some ways that the super rich could save the world, which will be cool. But I already don't want to read anymore. I don't want to carry all 736 pages of it on the subway with me anymore. I also think it says something important about Nader's character.

Nader is a professional encroacher. First, he helps Bush win by stealing important Democrat votes. Now, he's stealing book deals from writers that can actually write. Everybody knows there's an acquisition freeze. Let the real writers get the book deals! (And if you're going to be a non-writer and write a book, at least get a ghost writer like the athletes do so your book doesn't completely suck.)

Did I mention I'm becoming a yoga teacher and giving up anger?

The Power of Kindness

I've always been a contrarian, so I knew that as soon as I threw myself fully into a Yoga Teacher Training, I was going to find it really hard to be a good yogini. I tried to stop it. When I felt the urge to complain about something, I would put my hands in prayer prose and say, "I am going to be a yoga teacher. And I have given up anger."

But as it turns out, as my training has moved along, I've been less sunshiney than I was all summer long. I've started to get annoyed at people on the train again. And people on the street. And people who are rude to me when I try to pay for things. But the other day, I walked into McNally Jackson Books and the person interrupting my flow was trying to give me a dollar.

It was a Tarcher/Penguin staffer promoting the book, "The Power of Kindness." As a marketing tool, they were just being kind.

This is me, getting my dollar:











The truth is, it did put me in a good, creative mood. I started to think that there might be hope for books, after all! I sat down at a table wrote very enthusiastic post for PopMatters/Book Bytes:

"Essentially, The Power of Kindness is using a marketing strategy that adheres to the principles of the semantic Web; thus, it suggests a glimmer of hope for the publishing industry. People have argued that print is dying because people don’t want to pay for reading material anymore, but suddenly, today, while clutching my dollar, it dawned on me. It’s not about money, it’s about the power of kindness. [read more here]"

Then I went on my merry way and decided to use my dollar to buy a delicious Dr. Pepper, something I've been trying to avoid in the recession.

Man at Deli: 20 dollars.
Me: Cool! Because I've got millions of dollars I'm just looking to throw away!
Man: Great. Throw it at me.
Me: I will.
Man: $1.25 please. And you go have a great day!
Me: Thanks! You have a great day, too!

(insert merry laughter here.)

I later learned that some people gave their dollars to homeless people. Oops. But I was glad that the dollar gave me back my urge to interact with my fellow city-dwellers. At least until the next Subway trip. NB: That yoga mat is cumbersome and gets knocked into a LOT.