Thankfulness, Mars shining brightly, and Puṣpaka
Moon is waxing. Things are happening. Spacecraft yoga practice? Tasty playlists.
Hello, my name is Spiro.
You may or may not have heard from me recently. I am currently living in Northern New Mexico, teaching yoga in Santa Fe and hosting a radio show in Taos.
These days I look like this:
THIS NEWSLETTER CONTAINS information about the yoga program in Santa Fe (Spacecraft yoga, Mysore room), a radio program from Taos (Radical Light Transmissions), and some musings about the sky (Eating the Sky) featuring current astronomy, astrology and holidays.
I won’t send these missives every week, although maybe every other week. There will likely be sections so you can opt-in or opt-out of the particular of the newsletters. Not everyone around the world will care so much, for example, about the where and when of my yoga-related classes each week. But I haven’t figured out how the blossoming Substack features work yet. Hang in there and bear with me, please, thank you.
To contradict myself only slightly, over the next few weeks you may receive a small flutter of notifications and emails while we get our new newsletter systems sorted out and into place.
SANTA FE MYSORE ROOM
Upcoming (in Mountain time)—
WEDNESDAY (12/06): 7-10:30am
THURSDAY (12/07): Full Moon (No class) 🌝
FRIDAY (12/09): 8-10:30am
GUIDED CLASSES
SATURDAYS [Like tomorrow] 8:30-10:15am at Yogasource—in-person or online!
I consider the gestures, awareness, and breathing of contemplative practices, particularly those within the pliant and adaptive scaffolding of ashtanga yoga, to hover sweetly within a liminal zone containing qualities similar to a folksong. These practices work like a well-known ditty, and we can walk into rooms around the world and sing these songs.
These folksongs are often treated like mantras within particular zones containing effort and grace and specificity and repetition, steering and uplifting in their transformative and reminiscent qualities. These spaces in between a folksong and a mantra offer a liminal zone worthy of exploration and nuance.
There’s a lot more to share on the cosmic stability of transformation and discernment within the practice of yoga. Stay tuned.
"The step into space is a step into the unknown, a change as drastic as the transition from water to land." —William S. Burroughs, The Adding Machine: Selected Essays
I’ve been calling the yoga practice pop-up in Santa Fe “Spacecraft yoga.”
(an immersive, exploratory practice group)
Reservations only. Remote participation is available, too. If you’re interested in practicing, please contact me the day before.
Why call it Spacecraft?
on space
Sun Ra famously reminds us that, “Space is the place.”
For William S Burroughs space was an obvious direction, a hyperobject, an answer to his famous, at least in certain underground worlds, existential dialectic—
Q: “What are we here for?”
A: We are “here to go!”
When we continue this line of inquiry, “Well, where exactly are we going?” The answer then is clear—
A: “Into space.”
The yogic traditions of India open up different questions and answers—ones that are more subtle, questioning both reality itself, the density of the world outside, as well as the notion of an individual self, or selves. They offer tools for deconstructing our perception of the world out there and any discrete, fixed notion of self.
Our word ‘space’ is commonly used to translate the Sanskrit term ākāśa, which can also mean æther or sky. In Samkhya this denotes the subtlest of the five elements, often related to sound and thus to the human sense of hearing and the ear.
on craft
Craft is clearly crafty—cunning, clever, resourceful. Often coupled with the arts—arts & crafts—it’s a term used to describe less-than-exhalted creatives, tradesmen, hobbyists…nonetheless, making and building and repairing of things. Makers.
We can pry at the term a little more deeply by looking at similar English compound words, e.g., stagecraft, witchcraft, warcraft, statecraft, kingcraft, and hovercraft.
Finally, and perhaps most obviously, a craft is a vehicle. Something we can ride on or in.
Each of these meanings of craft can be related to the practice of yoga. It is an art, but we are also tending to the body as an instrument, and it is a sort of vehicle itself. The human body is a vehicle, but a yoga room, a lounge, a temple and an aircraft are all small vehicles containing a handful of people sharing something together…in a space. And those vehicles take us somewhere, often together.
on spacecraft
“The medium spacecraft travel within, the scintillating ocean we call hyperspace, is good old outer space, but imagined as a substance, a thing, an object! It’s a peculiar and dangerous habit of western thought to picture a solid when we hear the word, ‘object.’ For me objects are all kinds of liquid. If hyperspace has any cultural roots, it’s in African philosophy and spirituality, as the liquid that acts as a door or portal: the Kalunga of the Kongo Cosmogram, the ocean between the worlds.” —Spacecraft, Timothy Morton1
I often use books that I’m reading as the names of, or working titles for, creative projects. For example, a few years back I was captivated by Roberto Calasso’s book, Ardor, on the Vedic culture that left no trace except its songs, its rhythm and sound. Ardor Yoga Lab was the umbrella name of my previous space, the Los Angeles Yoga Club. Ardor is a word sometimes used to translate the Sanskrit term tapas, or tapasyā, literally meaning "produced by heat." It is often used in Sanskrit literature to describe a spiritual seeker involved with practices that produce this heat, cultivating this heat for their alchemy, towards transformation.
When I encountered Timothy Morton’s wonderful new little book, Spacecraft, I knew I was on board. I simply began using the name (I did grow up in montage, collage culture). Consciousness is already inhabiting this body, right? And probably not singularly either, my body hosts an array of characters, urges, demands, personalities and spirits.
Morton uses the Millenium Falcon from Star Wars as an inspiration for the text. the Millenium Falcon’s cabin is an obvious starting point for working together in a shared space. Morton calls spacecraft “the space vessels of our imaginations,” and the beings within them share a directionality. Spacecrafts are “the things that ‘get us’ there.”2
But these crafts can be used in various ways.
“Crafts however are *parked*. You have to find a place to perch. Crafts are symptoms of wholes that are rugged, fuzzy, vague, porous. You can come and go. You can slip out from underneath.” —Spacecraft, Timothy Morton3
Morton is also refreshingly critical of an aspect of the Indian imagination that we often uncritically inherit as yoga practioners, the idea that any human —even gurus—can be all-knowing, “the human idea that humans are the masters is mistaken and dangerous.”
I asked my friend Zöe, a yogi and a scholar, about spacecraft in Sanskrit. She immediately noted the “famous one, one that belonged to Rāvaṇa in the Rāmāyaṇa called the puṣpaka-vimāna - ‘flying chariot of flowers’ -पुष्पकविमान”.
At some point we’ll joyfully unpack this further. The spacecraft Puṣpaka in the Ramayana was made for Kubera, who gets tidied up in most official historiographers as the treasurer to the Gods. Kubera was a tribal chieftain of the wild and unkempt, heading a kula of yakṣas and yakṣiṇīs—nature spirits (fairies) inhabiting wild places and vegetation and dwelling in trees and bowels close to water, with powers of rainfall, voluptuous beauty, and fertility. These spirits are gate-keepers and ‘world protectors’ associated with practices of tree worship, Indian plant magic, mūlakaraṇa (‘root-work’) and Nāgas.
So Puṣpaka was made of flowers, designed by the celestial architect Viśvakarmā. Nonetheless, Rāvaṇa steals the ride, and obviously, Sītā too. A subtext here is simply that Empire swoops in, and rekindling our imagination, reminding us that spacecraft need not be wed with Empire.
puṣpakaṃ nāma suśroṇi bhrātur vaiśravaṇasya me /
vimānaṃ sūryasaṃkāśaṃ tarasā nirjitaṃ mayā //
viśālaṃ ramaṇīyaṃ ca tad vimānaṃ manojavam /4
tatra sīte mayā sārdhaṃ viharasva yathāsukham // 3.53.29–30 //Puṣpaka, the sunlike aerial chariot I took by force from my brother Kubera, is spacious, lovely, and swift as thought. Use it to your heart’s content, shapely Sītā, in my company.
But this is for another time—just note that the spacecraft is ‘spacious, lovely, and swift as thought’!
My radio show is called “Radical Light Transmissions.”
It’s broadcast live from KNCE at the sattvic time before sunrise on New and Full Moon mornings. Recorded episodes are then uploaded to Mixcloud and posted here.
LAST TRANSMISSION
Called “New Moon in Gratitude—this moment, this fleeting dream” and aired on November 23, 2022. ¡LISTEN HERE NOW!
Click here to explore the full playlist. Currently, this is available without a subscription and features a full list of everything played and the timecode, with links to listen to, and usually to purchase the full piece and record. I purchase most of recordings that I play when they are available on Bandcamp, where artists receive relatively decent commissions. A small monthly subscription from you will help to support this project.
NEXT TRANSMISSION
Scheduled to air on December 8, 2022 at 4am Mountain time to resonate with the Full Moon. Click here to listen live worldwide on True Taos Radio.
My before-sunrise memories of India—and Mysore in particular—are filled with a sweet sensorium of uplifting sounds from mosques and temples and the streets outside my window, of people walking by or sweeping their doorways while singing sublime sounds of grace and hope and love. For many years in NYC, I enjoyed a daily 3am bicycle ride to the Sri Ganesha Tea & Book Stall, where I’d practice yoga and prepare chai. After practice I always played MS Subbhalakshmi’s popular shloka Sri Venkateswara Suprabhatham to get into the spirit of transforming boiling water into something sweet, shared, and delicious.
But I digress. I’m recalling the sounds of the chai stall because the cassette tapes I would play every morning are a huge inspiration for the Radical Light Transmissions. These were cassette tapes passed along to the stall, friend to friend, all recordings (including some amazing field recordings) of spiritual music from India—bhajans, shastras, shlokas, and spirituals.
When I returned to New Mexico I was inspired again by the Taos radio station, which happens to be stewarded by some dear old friends. KNCE True Taos Radio is a community-run, free-form radio station operated out of an airstream on the mesa halfway between the Mountain and the gorge bridge.
My friends were completely supportive of my proposal to follow a lunar calendar and broadcast a show that blends field recordings, drones, ambient, new age, noise, spiritual jazz, found sound, experimental, and soundbath recordings during auspicious times, mixed with personal incantations and armchair jyotish scryer screeds. It’s a tuning fork of sound and tones and songs I’ve stumbled upon in the preceding weeks that may aid in our journey into the near future, from new to full and from full to new.
The last New Moon transmission included sounds honoring the moon and Kali and Hanuman and featured excerpts from Kink Gong’s field recordings of a Muslim Ceremony. Kali Malone’s heavy hymnal new release, Does Spring Hide Its Joy (featuring Stephen O’Malley & Lucy Railton), really sets the tone, vibrationally for the strange and holy unfolding time for the following few weeks, which is now, up to the forthcoming Full Moon.
I share Jyotish reflections, focusing upon where the moon was at the time, against the backdrop of stars, as well as thoughts around the other planets that also may be tugging at our feelings and perceptions, individually and collectively (highlights of which are also mentioned below, under the section called ‘Eating the Sky’).
LISTEN HERE
or listen here…
A collection of armchair astronomical, astrological, and seasonal reflections that I’m still calling “Eating the Sky.”
In summary: This past New Moon highlighted an emotional tension, perhaps subtle, between a pull towards the sublime, and our densely persistent habit of everyday reality. We appear to be walking a tight rope, at least subconsciously, between revelation and damage control. We’re both moths-to-the flame, and micro-managing our default mode network, our inner petite bourgeoisie.
THE MOON
This past New Moon illustrated a difference between our contemporary time-grid, with the New Moon happening at a precise instant, and an older view that’s still pervasive in India, where the spirit of the time is defined not by a moment but by the rising Sun, called Amavasya. A subtle yet distinct tension may arise in our perception. Last week the moon was in Vishaka nakshatra at sunrise (Amavasya), but at the exact New Moon moment the moon had already moved into Anuradha nakshatra.
Vishaka and Anuradha are related, coupled in fact. Vishaka literally means “entering the Heavens,” and Anuradha can mean “a tiny spark” or “a small flash of lightening.” Vishaka energies stand at the threshold of transformation and give great importance to this relationship to the sublime and eternal Self, while Anuradha energies acknowledge this but need to maintain decorum—like ummm well, that Heavenly stuff is great, but can I just get a tiny piece? The tensions between a wholehearted connection with the eternal to Anuradha’s sense of damage control and the need to maintain peace (even by means of extreme force, like NATO) rides high for the next two weeks.
NEXT: Full Moon occurs in New Mexico on Wednesday, December 7, at 9:08pm Mountain time in the Rohini nakshtra. (Our yoga rooms will be closed the following morning tho!)
JUPITER
Jupiter stationed retrograde on July 28, 2022, and then last week, on November 23, stationed direct. Yippee!
It’s not like the planets and stars dictate anything per se, they do however provide a system of prompts and dialogues that allow us to frame our perceptions and experience in other ways, and maybe provide new perspectives that allow us make sense of the tugs and pulls and impulses of life’s demands.
Let’s tune into the feeling that we are coming out of a deep sleep, even if it is the beginning of winter around Santa Fe, when one might want to stay inside and hibernate.
Since this backwards motion nonsense began in late July, I bet something in your life stymied, if you’re life is unfolding anything like mine. So now with Jupiter’s expansive, inclusive energies moving forward again, it’s a damn good time to look back and pull a few things out of the closest, or just be thankful that after many struggled over the past few months, there’s now a new ray of hope. Let’s nurture this!
THANKSGIVING
Thanksgiving is always a mixed adventure, but thankfulness grows and endures and transforms me.
MARS
Look east after sunset. Mars is currently shining bold and brightly in the constellation Taurus; its rusty-red color make is unmistakable and hard to miss.
Just this week, on Wednesday, November 30, 2022, Mars reached the closest to the Earth, known as a perigee, which is part of the reason why the second-smallest planet in the Solar System is currently so big and bright in the sky right now. It’s also at its highest point above the southern horizon in the night sky that we will see this year. Both aspects offer skywatchers an excellent opportunity to observe the Red Planet.
But the real show happens next week. Just as the moon is blossoming full around December 7-8, a beautiful lunar occultation of Mars happens concurrently.
Not only will Mars—the pusher of all friction and action—be in direct opposition of the Sun, but will also be visually eclipsed by the Moon and continue to retrograde until it stations direct January 12, 2023.
Fun times! Juicy reflections forthcoming. 🤔
INSPIRATION, SUPPORT, INSIGHT, THANK YOU—
So many folks to thank this week, including: Danny Castro, Merrie Martin, Margaret Mahan, Jodie Willie, Marcus Boon, Joshua Ramey, Erik Davis, Robert Moses, Juris Ahn, Melanie Jane Parker, Dustin Kalynuk, Brenda Sales, Janet Berg, Segway Emery, Roberto Maiocchi, Eddie Stern, Zoë Slatoff, Jerry Schartz, Toby Sifton, Dan Marano, Seancho, Sabbi Lall, Barry Silver, Ronnie Gale Dreyer, John Goldsmith, Tim McGuire, Wendelin Scott, Alfred Savinelli, Merrie Martin, Brenda Sales, Janet Berg, Tina Nyguen, Sonya Luz, David Costanza, Jennifer Amman, Gregory Peters, Brenda Baletti, Daniel Chamberlin, Jeff Lewis, Yes Plz, Yoga Education Collective, Yogic Studies, Ganesha Broome Street Temple, Kali Mandir Laguna Beach, Neem Karoli Baba Ashram and Hanuman Temple and many many more.
Timothy Morton, Spacecraft (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022): 8-9.
Timothy Morton, Spacecraft (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022): 9.
Timothy Morton, Spacecraft (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022): 17.
Feller, Danielle. "Puṣpaka in the Vālmīki-Rāmāyaṇa " Asiatische Studien - Études Asiatiques, vol. 74, no. 2, 2020, pp. 325-348. https://doi.org/10.1515/asia-2019-0043