Already Great

Gotta put this resistance art from @camizeadotcom forever on the blog because it’s so damn important — and so damn true. 

I have fiery novels to write about the jarring experience of returning to the US last fall after six years of relative political sanity in Switzerland — and promptly watching my fellow Americans somehow, shockingly, and against their best interests, re-elect a fascist felon (and his oligarch bros) as President.

That story remains half-written, largely because even these three months post-election I feel nothing but 

🤬
😤

 and 

🤯

 toward anyone who could’ve possibly voted for this dude again, knowing all we know. There’s nothing yogic or compassionate about all those feelings of mine — and I’ve got very little grace to offer, especially after these first 11 days of an administration that seems hell-bent on setting our democracy (and the world) on fire. 

I know I’m not the only one. I see a lot of folks stepping back or going silent on social media as a protest to the conservative tech bro takeover, and I totally get that. Sanity, right?! Hopping off the MAGA chaos maelstrom for your mental and emotional well-being. It’s real.

But I can’t tune out. We owe it to one another (and the planet) to stay engaged. We have to keep abreast of what this miscreant and his cronies are doing in the world. 

And yet — and yet — this wannabe-dictator so driven to wreak havoc and create suffering is still, f**k, somehow a fellow child of God. Sigh. Anyone who can figure out how to reconcile all that and find grace somewhere in the midst of the world-burning going on is welcome to come sit by the fire and teach me a few things.

Until then, I’ll be over here checking the news while smoke streams out my ears. 

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu. 

 May all beings, everywhere, be safe and happy and free from suffering.

(Even that guy. Maybe he’d spew less hate in the world if he hated himself a little less.)

Leave your politics out of YOGA!

Woke up to this Trump voter screaming at me over the interwebs the other day. 🤦‍♀️ Sorry, Karen. I will not.

First of all: Yoga IS political.

Any teacher who tells you otherwise doesn’t know what they’re doing.

Waaaay beyond a workout, yoga is an ethical system, a spiritual discipline, a way of being in the world grounded in compassion and non-violence and the reality of interdependence.

When you really practice this sh*t, when you realize it’s so much more than just stretching, when you let these radically-loving yogic ethics pervade your every breath, then of *course* it’s political.

And, honestly, that’s why there are so few yoga teachers who’d really vote for Donald Trump or support imperialist war or condone the recent violence against trans kids in Texas and gay folks in Florida.

Many (most?) of us vote blue. 🗳 Because those very ethics of compassion and non-violence and interdependence make it clear the Christofascist lens of the modern-day GOP is completely incompatible with a yogic way of being.

Second: girl, it’s a free yoga class. On YouTube. Where there are six million other free classes you could take instead.

So if my politics turn you off, close the window. Click away. 🤷‍♀️

Or even better, stay awhile, and see if you can learn a thing or two about the meaningful, life-changing Eastern philosophy that’s behind all this bendy stuff to begin with. ✌🏼