Unveiling
Yoga brought me into my body and this Liturgical calendar time of Lent starts with a reminder of the body: from dust we come and to dust we shall return. This is a kind of apocalyptic reality, and it feels like we’re in apocalyptic times.
What do I mean by this? Apocalypse is sometimes understood only to mean destruction, but the meaning of it is also “a revealing or unveiling.” This is also part of Lent, and of these current days. There is suffering and unfairness and death and destruction, and all of that should be seen, not hidden, pretending it is not. How else do we uncover what is most important, what is true and good and beautiful, the love that is greater than all of it, the love that is worth abiding in and walking forward with?
Today, I’m considering the body—my own and the great body of humanity, of nature, of the earth itself. In yoga philosophy there is a belief that when we come to a great unveiling, the dust is cleared from the eyes of the heart and we realize we are more than our body. Yet, I remember a time when my awareness of my finite existence, my fragility, led me to believe my body was betraying me. What story had I believed? When I could no longer do, I was worthless. When I’d come to the end of my own resources, when all the work seemed for naught because of the unfairness of the unpredictable results, what lie did I turn to?
I see this on a bigger scale now, too—the way I’ve believed that life should be predictable, that things and people that appear steady and that I’ve taken for granted will always be there, that fairness and goodness, not domination and destruction, should win the day.
I’m not great at pretending that life is always sunshine and roses, but I see those, too—sunshine and roses, that is. I was raised to understand that Lent is a time of giving something up, which as a kid seemed like quite a bummer. I’ve come to understand that it’s not about being good or making up for something bad. I’m not cleansing and really the sacrifice isn’t one at all.
I’ve come to understand that this kind of giving up is intended to remove the covering of dust, to remove the distractions causing me to hook onto one story that only sees the facade, and instead to reveal what is most important. This uncovering is meant to let me truly see the sunshine and the roses and all that is so beautiful, AND the particular suffering that I can be made available to care for. Maybe it’s not a bummer after all.
I am choosing to give up the constant barrage of news and social media as an act of resistance against chaos. I am choosing efforts to find peace within, because I very much want to be able to align with right action when it’s mine to do. I do not want to check out or become passive. So, I am choosing to take very good care of my nervous system and to hold my spiritual center as sacred. For me, this means I need to rest from constant information, to rest in general. It means I need to practice bestowing acts of kindness and patience and to receive joy and the glimmers of creativity that have become an antidote to so much destruction.
The wind has literally been blowing in my geographical region for what feels like weeks with nearly no reprieve. Some nights it sounds like a train is roaring through my backyard, and day after day, I take shelter indoors to escape the intensity of this wind that leaves me feeling discombobulated. Intense winds are blowing through the political sphere, too, threatening to blow my spirit into discombobulation. My question every day is where do I stay? How do I abide in steadiness and in love? Each little act of grounding my spirit in this feels like an act of rebellion against a world that appears to want me to abide in so much else.