Perugia Sunset

The view was stunning. The center piazza of Perugia sits on a precipice. As the sun set, there I stood, at the edge of the Saturday night hustle and bustle, along the promenade of a veranda which overlooks all of Umbria, Italy. The twinkling lights of the homes and cars, all the tangible stuff which make up our relative world, were perfectly juxtaposed against the natural hills and valleys created by something absolute, something bigger than ourselves. Lucky me. I had a birds eye view of that undulating cycle on the move—sunrise…sunset—which holds our relative and absolute worlds at the midline. Just as it should be. Perfect.

Put Pocket

Put Pocketer (def.) Twenty or so reformed pick pocketers trawling London’s streets and subways putting money into the pockets of unsuspecting people.

This week marked the eighth anniversary of 9-11 and I was struck by the high number of “put pocket” stories. Tales about ordinary people who “never forget” the generosity exhibited by total strangers in the wake of tragedy. Strangers whose kind acts and selfless helping hands gushed in to fill the deep crevasses created by the awesome tragedy. As an example, the evening news featured a kula started by 30 or so folks impacted by 9-11 who each year take on a project to rebuild an area struck by tragedy or disaster. This year they estimate 500-600 people, mostly former recipients, joined in to resurrect a boy scout camp site that had been ravaged by a tragic lightening storm. Goes to show we can catch all kinds of things, not just the flu, from each other.

And, it’s not only outrageous calminities like 9-11 which pick our pockets. More often it’s just the monotony of work or our never ending to do lists (nittya karmas) that deplete us. So this week we used our practice to play with balancing out the effects of life’s “pick pocketing” with a little “put pocketing” of our own:

• Focusing on our physical alignment to create thoughtful crevasses into which prana flows and puts energy back into the body.
• Partnering together on asanas to validate that ultimately we are in this together and when we join forces we can put each other up to new heights. (and, yes….I did go so far as to place Josh Groban’s song “you lift me up”. I have no shame.)
• Replenishing our pockets through the simple act of taking one hour and fifteen minutes for ourselves so that when we take our yoga off our mats, we too have something to deposit, not for recognition, but more or less on the sly simply because we can. It’s often the mickies we slip to each other unnoticed, such as glances, words or deeds, which have the greatest impact.
  

So why not, as Joan suggested at the end of class, make put pocketing our off the mat an home work assignment? Try it out. See if it works. Validate for ourselves what ancient yoga texts ask us to consider—it’s in the put pocketing, where you place your intentions, make inroads and take action, into which Sri, the abundant power that makes up the energetic world around us, fills in the space and reveals her promises. There is always more. The gift is that it is up to us to make choices which put Sri in the right place (or pockets). To this choice, Namaste!