Quiet, as a Presence to Lean Into
WHO ARE YOU TODAY? WHAT MATTERS TO YOU RIGHT NOW?
"The only thing that comes to mind right now is the beauty of quiet and slowness. I think the world is very fast, too fast, too overwhelming, and to be alive is to force a slowness. Don't fill it with stuff. I keep thinking of that Japanese philosophy of "ma," has been like my whole life lately. "Ma" is this idea that the space between objects, the space between people, the space between forms, is pregnant with meaning. That "empty space," empty in a Western sense, but in Japanese philosophy is full, is a presence.
And so I think about the quiet as a presence that I want to lean into. It's pregnant with meaning; I may not understand that meaning, but it's important, and I need to sit with it. Even when I want to fill it. Even when I'm uncomfortable with the silence. Even when I feel like I'm not being productive or I'm not doing something I need to do right now, I need to sit down and let it happen and wash over me, because it means that I'm beyond my function in a society, and I'm just a person here right now."
—Toyin Ojih Odutola in Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso: A Portrait of Artist Toyin Ojih Odutola
JUST A FEW THINGS
This will be my final week until the new year. Swing by and practice with our ragtag crew of self-paced, self-practitioners:
Practice (in person) on Wednesday (12/15) & Thursday (12/16) mornings —> Please register.
JOIN THE LAST CLASS IN 2021 THIS SUNDAY, December 19 at 10:15 AM. It’ll be a guided, sweaty, fun-filled, in-person stroll through Ashtanga Yoga’s Primary Series. SIGN UP HERE. (And ping me if you’d like to join us remotely!)
Looking forward to seeing you in 2022!
FULL MOON happens this Saturday—Dec 18th at 8:36 pm Pacific time—within the Mirgashirsha nakshatra, the deer’s head—ruled Mars and the famously elusive deity known as Soma—brother of Agni, also known as the Moon, whose most illustrious distinction is the famous exlixir of the Gods, the nectar which drips from the Sky and gives immortality and transcendental luminosity.
RESONANT FREQUENCIES
They say it’s blanketed in a greenish glow, this ‘Once in a Lifetime’ comet, called Leonard, will be viewable in the evening sky after sunset on December 14. Astronomers are waging that December 17 will be the best day to see it. | The Weather Channel
Currently listening to Music for Living Spaces by Green-House. “The intention of this project is to facilitate the connection between humans and nature. Instead of perceiving nature as something that's separate from us, or outside of our homes, we can recognize nature as something that is within us and in everything we do in our daily lives. You don't need to have access to the great outdoors to feel connected to the environment.”
Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk's new visionary epic, The Books of Jacob, is about the 18th-century religious leader Jacob Frank—“He bragged about defiling the Torah with his naked buttocks, encouraged his followers to break all sorts of sexual and dietary taboos, and eventually persuaded many of them to be baptised into the Christian church. His many disciples worshipped him as a prophet and wrote his visions and utterances down in a book called The Words of the Lord.”
Look, if ducks are performing the “Quackskrieg Bop” on Dee Ramone’s grave at Hollywood Forever, you can do just one simple sun salute, capiche?