Karma and Konsequences

Weekend musings:  In yoga, karma works through the seeds we plant from moment to moment.  When we are kind to someone else, we plant a good seed within ourselves.  And if we are unkind to someone else, we plant a bad seed.  And seeds, at some point in time, will germinate and grow and bear fruit.

       "Since everything works through seeds then we finally  have a choice in the matter:
we can consciously and purposely design and build our own future into a garden paradise."
                                                           (How Yoga Works, p. 230)

This lazy fall Saturday morning was great to wake up to.  Some sun salutation stretches, a hot cacao smoothie, and chapters from How Yoga Works, with cats purring and dogs sighing nearby.  The pages look back at me while I read--that's always fun!

(Here's my own personal yummy cacao recipe; I've been enjoying this most mornings for several years.  It's a secret weapon for anti-inflammation, a good dose of magnesium, adrenal support, and morning energy.)

1 T. raw organic cacao nibs
2 T. Dandyblend roasted dandelion powder
1 T. raw maca root powder
2 heaping T. collagen hydrolysate (amino acids)
1 tsp. He Shou Wu
1/2 tsp. raw lucuma powder
1-2 T. raw coconut oil
2 drops Food for the Immortals stevia
2 1/2 cups hot chaga or gynnostema (Spring Dragon) or adrenal support tea
Blend for a moment in the Vitamix, get cozy with your critters, and enjoy!

And this is Gracie and Sam chillin' with me and my cacao.  Sam (he's half greyhound) got into it with a possum or squirrel, but he's healing right up.

I'm sitting in on a philosophy of yoga class taught by Anne-Marie Schultz, and she is the inspiration for beginning this blog.  It feels very odd to be writing personal observations outside of anything but a private journal, so this is a new journey for me.  I'm not exactly following the course instructions for structuring the blog, since I'm just sitting in, and I hope she'll forgive me that.

This semester is a heavy one--I'm teaching a managerial communications class, 3 business writing classes, and a technical writing class for engineering students.  In addition to these 5 classes, I also have a University 1000 class of new freshmen students to take good care of.  All in all, this adds up to a lot of prep and a lot of grading, so taking time to blog a bit seems like a huge luxury, but perhaps a much needed one.

After reading this morning, it was time to do some Native American smudging to help bring in the new fall season.  I keep a pile of dried herbs going outside from the herb garden, so there's always a steady supply of sage, oregano, chives, rosemary, thyme, and bay to go into the chiminea for yard and home smudging.  I smudge my whole body, too, while I'm at it, but I've found I can't breathe in very much of the smoke, so I don't stay in the middle of it for very long.

It's almost fall equinox, and the fall Italian kale is coming in nicely.  My son David spent a summer in Costa Rica farming right after he graduated from high school, and one of the things he learned from the head gardener he worked with was to fill edible gardens with DNA to give the plants and soil plenty of information about any healing needs.  So I try to do that, soaking seeds in my saliva before planting them, and adding water from washing feet and hands (there's a nice discussion of this practice in the Russian novel Anastasia).

(For me, it feels odd to take photos of daily life.  It seems to take away the focus from the actual experience, take the photographer out of the moment, and create a bit of disconnect between the subject and object; but I'm going to try it for a time and see how it continues to go.  I don't like the sense of "if I document it, it will be more real."  But on the other hand, I ask my own communications students to "document" their daily experiences by writing memos once a week of their own observations and processing of class readings; when they apply what they've read thoughtfully and specifically to what they observe in daily life and then tell tell their stories, it facilitates deeper processing and application.  It helps grow information into knowledge, and even knowledge into wisdom.)

Well, back to Saturday morning....  Some of my fellow monks are traveling for a few weeks in Ethiopia.  I would love to have been able to go with them, but, of course, there is work.  Here's a photo that just came through--I never realized what a beautiful country Ethiopia is; and they're finding the people there simply amazing (no surprise).  Evidently, the group has gone dancing quite a few times, so they must be having fun!  http://theooow.com

So my thoughts are with them as they travel.  And with my daughter in Panama, who is working on reforestation and helping the local community get personal vegetable gardens growing; and with my son, who is a senior this year at Baylor taking 18 hard hours while working 2 part-time jobs.  He sells open coconuts at the Waco Farmer's Market--they're an awesome drink!

I'll end out today's musings with some thoughts from last yoga class.  We touched on the differences between Essence and Soul and our compassionate "observer" and our ego/personality constructs. When I visualize these different aspects of our Selves, it helps me to think of the ancient Sufi metaphor of Essence being WATER, and each soul being a smaller body of WATER (like a lake or pond), and our personality/ego constructs being the ripples and waves on the surface of that pond.  I suppose the observer would be the part of us that is thinking about this metaphor.  The part of this metaphor that's comforting to me is to know that each and every lake and pond is made up of WATER, or Divine ESSENCE.

So my commitment this week is to become aware of good and bad seeds I am planting through my words and actions and even my thoughts.  Awareness brings a heightened ability to make good choices.

 Namaste.