Some Swamis are Fat E-Book

Ava Greene

• Herausgeber: Ava Greene
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Some Swamis are Fat

Leseprobe

copyright 2012 Hula Cat Press

all rights reserved

cover art and design by Ava Greene

technical assistance by Fann Aquinaldo

back cover photo by Joel Markman 1999

No part of this book may be copied, reproduced, or used in any way without express permission from Hula Cat Press or the author.

The names and characters in “Some Swamis are Fat” are fictitious, used for literary purposes only. Any similarity to actual living persons is coincidental.

Library of Congress no. 2012947131

ISBN 978-1-938691-09-6

ISBN: 9781938691089

At least 15% of the proceeds from this book go to protecting wilderness, wildlife, all creatures, and oceans from human violation, insensitivity, and ignorance.

P.O. Box 510058

Kealia, HI 96751

[email protected]

To Dad

you are my sunshine

With sincere thanks to Kathleen Frederick for encouragement to publish this book, and for her sound editorial advice.

&

Mahalo Ke Akua

—ONE—

EXPLORING THE DAWN

“Exploring the Dawn,” I thought, “my next book.” Two doves in the courtyard immediately took flight. “What I need to do for the next part of my life is explore the dawn.”

I must do this.. I’ve explored every other part of the day and night—I practically own two a.m. But I’m fried. And so are my owlish excuses. It will take me a while to get to the dawn. There’s something about writers and the middle of the night. It’s called silence.

I have here a photo of Mark Twain that was taken by Alfred Steiglitz in 1879. Just knowing the two of them were in the same room that day is nice. These were cool guys. The photo is striking—who knew Mark Twain was handsome?—and somehow represents why I must explore the dawn….they explored their “dawns. A new dawn is always in us, but we must constantly find it. My strategy is to go to the actual dawn to somehow access that elusive metaphysical one.

And so, as I meditate on my miraculous life, I find in the mailbox today a brown governmental envelope from the California State Tax Board with a check inside for $803., from two tax years ago. I looked up at the ceiling, “What do you want me to use this for?”

“Write,” was the answer. It seems indulgent succumbing to fun. But you wonder where the resistance comes from.

Loving one’s self is the journey. Like loving your pet or your car. Loving your digs, your friends, your life’s work. Loving anything. Yet we ride around in these selves with either exterior or interior neglected most of the time.

We aren’t taught to care for ourselves. In school we should learn less about algebra, less about frog innards and past wars, and take on: Nutrition, Solar Power, Capitalism vs. Ecology, Parenting,.(Dismantling Big Pharma might be useful, and Bicycle Maintenance.) Why do we have to wait till we’re grown-ups to figure out how to live? Past Wars would be an elective, along with Chemistry and Trigonometry.

When you compare the physical condition of our hospitals to that of our schools, there’s the tell-all. The salary of doctors to the salary of teachers. When you compare what’s on television to what’s outside a kid’s apartment door, no wonder everyone chooses the virtual experience.

One of my ultimate Earthly pleasures this past year has been teaching yoga…not unlike swimming in a clear turquoise bay with your eyes open underwater, marveling at the blues below and the sun-streaked powdery yellow above. Teaching yoga is a wonderful glide between the real, the sensual, the finite and the infinite. We often leave our skin and merge into softer, intuitive realms. I love the peculiarities of each class, each little group—that day, that hour—with no agenda, just open souls. We expand within our bodies, alone in the safest way. Quietly, we’re striving and learning, then resting and releasing. And when the hour-and-a-half is over, we’ve been somewhere.

It’s an honor to be presented with open souls. There’s no past or future, just today’s energy and today’s calm. And the money that comes in the mail from the yoga studio seems more like a gift than a paycheck.

THE WRONG SIDE OF DAWN

March 14, 1999 - 3:20 a.m.

The dawn I explore is always through the back door, the three a.m. or four a.m. entrance. Usually under heavy lids, intangible guilt, and a curious thrill of the moment. So far, that’s been my trajectory.

My angels and demons usually square off around one a.m., then they joust wildly until I finally collapse. The angels steer me straight as they prep and prime me for resistance, take care of me, distract me from trouble like an older sibling. But they’re only victorious before we get to the battleground. If temptation makes it past these sweet gatekeepers, and knocks, I fling open the door. And then I want everything NOW. There is no tomorrow, no consequence. I’m Everything Anonymous, The Moment Anonymous, Twelve-Step Everything. My yins and yangs charge each other over certain chocolates and cookies and late night ice cream. And once these wars start, my devils win.

But last night, as I settled like cement into my downy bed, I decided to let nature take its course. If I’m a burn-out, then a burnout I will be. If I never attain the yogic pedestal of perfect lifestyle, I shall be the un-yogi who wrote about polarities.

I decided that this vision I clutch in my psyche of my optimal self is not who I am. It is who I was. Yet when I was that younger, fresher entity, I was clutching a different perfected vision of myself, the vision of who I could become. In other words, I’ve never actually been who I really am at that moment.

And that is what I’d like to do now.

THE WRONG SIDE AGAIN

March 17, 1999 - 2:25 a.m.

“Diary of an Un-yogi.” I didn’t eat sugar for five years. I’ve been eating it again for three months now. I don’t even like it, but am letting myself do this. It’s the other side of something… like that other side of dawn. And it’s these other sides that tug us psychologically, through which we somehow carve a path called “my life.” It’s a balancing act. And it’s probably more fun to be the clown up on the high wire than the perfect ballerina.

So, if the ducks are out of line—the sugar, the bedtime, the creative voice making up new phraseology—guess I’ll just take the ride and trust the destination.

When I was seven and eight and nine, I wanted to take acrobatic lessons. Instead, I was given piano lessons. Periodically, I’d pitch the A-word again. The response: cello lessons. And choir practice.

“Horseback riding lessons,” I pleaded. The response: clarinet.