The Yoga of Morning Practices April 2023

     I recently started doing some new morning practices. I have a habit of collecting habits. I don't always know what drives me to do this, but I have a new theory that habits carry us through times when we'd otherwise be overwhelmed. Historically it has always been easy to be overwhelmed, simply by needing to have a job and showing up responsibly to it day after day, and with integrity, ready or not when on so many of the days you are without opportunities to [pleasant preferred activities go here], but lately they've made maintaining equanimity, optimism and cheerfulness even more challenging what with a three year Global Pandemic Lock down; an insane right-wing clown President threatening to return to unseat the in equally unhelpful establishment-beholden current President; the victory of a global elite of one percent of the top one percent to cause the will of the mass of humanity and logic itself to be defied on a daily basis by opposing the most basic public policy positions through distraction, disinformation, distortion, confusion, and polarization by its communications apparatus and corporate/governmental "partnership" (a euphemism for "fascism") including censorship of unauthorized opinions which contradict the interests of the wealthiest, justified by deranged resentment of the insane clown President. Do we want publicly funded health care, or the freedom to go bankrupt when faced with a major surgery or illness? Do we want gun laws that prevent mass shootings? Do we mind if we spend $100 billion (in a time of social austerity) in an uncontrolled experiment to "overextend and weaken" nuclear armed adversaries without provoking World War III through an accident or via unexpected escalation? These are not hard questions, and a clear majority of respondents in the most recent polls prefer the path of sanity and well being, but Democracy is so busted that even the clear preferences of the mass of humanity that responds to polling data matters little to the decision making process.

    This is to say nothing of the fact that we are in a moment that armies are shelling near the Largest Nuclear Power Plant in Europe at this very moment, forcing its cooling system to be powered by emergency diesel generators so it doesn't cause the worst nuclear accident of all time. What could possibly go wrong? And what's more, the emergence of Artificial Intelligence has become so rapid and the consequences so unpredictable that leading voices in the Tech world including the President of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Apple Computers co-founder, and the Chat GPG CEO have all become so terrified by the unimaginable implications of its emergence that they have jointly called for a minimum 6-month moratorium in "training" AI systems. You can only imagine how horrifically close the machines are to developing a superior sentience that intends to wrest control from the foolish humans that has so frozen their rush to riches in its tracks. And not to just pile on but to include important points that might otherwise be crowded out, may I simply state that the World Economy seems by all accounts to be on the edge of a collapse that will impoverish billions of additional people and the consumption of fossil fuels and floods, droughts, storms and global temperature extremes are rapidly amplifying. I'm not trying to be a Downer,  I'm just a guy with a lifetime habit of facing (and now periodically doom-scrolling) unpleasant facts. My nervous system finds it harder to be unaware of them and know they are out there, than to push them out of mind entirely.

    So anyhoo, as I say, I started doing some new morning practices, partially in response to the pressures of living in a moment of history where reliance on the usual societal stabilizing forces:  the intellectual voices of authors and universities, the calming influences of history and tradition, and the implicit values of the market economy and education that suggest that circumstances in our world are comprehensible through analysis and our lives are controllable through forging goals and making systematic disciplined efforts to achieve them-- all these pillars of support now seem insufficient to meet the present moment.

    And personally, I'm getting older, closer to the end than to my beginning most certainly. I note the ways that time has distorted my once-youthful features. For the longest time, people were surprised to learn my real age because I appeared to be ten years younger (or something). No longer. In the mirror, my hair is grey and thinner than it was when they did that. My face puffier, the corners of my mouth cruelly sag in a resting frown. I remember a time when I was a young guy and it was my time. It was like being a dinosaur in the age of the dinosaurs. And like those dinosaurs, I remained fully unaware, and uninterested in what an advantage it was to be young, even less so being handsome, which pictures tell me I was. I didn't get the memo I was in, and I it was only through inference that I learned I was out. It isn't always a meteor. that lets you know. Clues can trickle in. At one point it was common for me to being mistaken by my young students in a moment of absent-mindnedness  as "Daddy" and even "Mommy" before they would catch their own mistakes and laugh. Now it is not unknown for me to be called "Grandpa" in the classroom and "Sir" in the grocery store. Clearly there is not much time left to waste.

    Another big recent catalyst for change in my own life was the sudden death of my Dad at age 84, which left me with a similar sense of identity transformation. One of these changes was brought about, I now realize, by my decision to follow the direction of the Tibetian Book of the Dead (to be honest, I didn't get that far into the book, but the internet web pages about the practice of 50 Days of Mediation on behalf of the soul of the deceased were more useful as a roadmap for navigating the time after his death.)

    I decided I would start each day on arising before dawn (the time when I was already in the habit of journaling and doing Yoga). with time on a meditation cushion imagining behind my closed eyelids that his spirit was ascending--somewhere, somehow to wherever the spirits of the once living go.

    I had, and have, a feeling about my Dad that he was a good guy who did not get seen in crucial ways in his family of origin when he was a boy and that wounded him most, if not all, of his life, and all, if not most, of mine, not co-incidentally since my Dad was--him--a guy who didn't know the way out of this problem any better than I did.  I did have some crucial advantages, though:

    1) I probably connected a little better with my Mom than he did with his. My Mom seemed to need my advice occasionally and confided in me some. His Mom may have with his other siblings, like Aunt Judy, I think this was a long-standing grievance for him. I think it was a huge advantage which I took for granted until this moment, that as a child I was always sure my Mom respected my opinions. 

    2) He grew up in a time before therapy and vulnerable self-reflection were an option for men. I don't think he ever had a therapist, though I do remember him filling out a computer optical scan survey of personality test questions once. I remember thinking it must be some interesting new fad.

    3) He grew up in a time before psychedelics. At least a time a suburban Dad would have tried them. Say what you will about their long-term value, but getting even a glimpse behind the veil to the experience of consciousness without ego, without the opaque narrative of category, causality and consistent object permanence is enough to loosen the rusty bolts that keep us unable to be released from fear-fueled fixed perceptions that like feelings of grievance and fixed hostility that you can never quite get as caught in once you've even done, say, one supervised Ayuasca workshop.

     It's not that I've always been free of problems that someone from the outside would have been able to see--I spent a lot of time feeling stuck in suffering that I was in trouble for something I'd done by being naive, foolish, and defective. It's pretty easy to actually confirm this fear by being preoccupied with these thoughts and then failing to notice basic stuff--like what's going on around you.

    . . .which is why I used to be so comfortable alone as a haven from excessive fear that I was going to mess up in front of other people. . .which is why I started, for example, running when I was 16, before the "jogging craze" had even started. I was pre-Steve Prefontane. I remember running in leather shoes with heels, penny loafers. I was like a feminist in the 19th Century, not letting a little thing like being marooned in a time decades before the popularity of my cause would have made it fashionable, get in my way. 

    So after my Dad died, I was able to do something I had never been able to, previously--which is, to sit on a cushion for 20 minutes or more each day and meditate. Meditation, like drinking a glass of ordinary water, is something I never developed the inclination to do--so distracting were my cravings for flavor, for richness, for content, for the sweet feedback of benefit, or at least some modicum of immediate pleasure. 

     The difference was, I did it not for its own sake--but "for" my Dad's eternal spirit. My Dad, dead, had become all his ages at once to me, 7, 17, 36, 56, and 84, plus others in between and earlier. I felt protective of him as the protector of the deserving but neglected young person he was, the intrepid and to me noble and charismatic and handsome courtroom icon he seemed to me when I saw him through the eyes of my own childhood. and the patched together, pugnacious, diminished, UBER-driving/computer ad selling home entrepreneur he was at the end. He'd softened in some ways, but was still proudly opposed to those he scorned, refusing to accommodate, understand or reach out to relatives (such as adult sons and daughters, nephews, nieces and grandchildren) who didn't go out of their way to show their love or respect. He would never meet you more than halfway. In this he was not unique, or even uniquely inflexible. He hurt. And hurt people hurt hurt people. Hurt people in particular hurt, hurt hurt particular people. I tried my best to meet him however far as was necessary, and we got along better at the end when we both knew we were getting older and there wasn't time or extra satisfaction for proving one's self right in regard to the other. I started to be able to see that even if he couldn't give me what I'd always needed from a Dad, that I certainly could afford to give a little of what he'd always needed once I got my legs under me in my 50s. It wouldn't hurt me to do that, I somehow discovered, and it didn't

    It also lightened my burdens. Instead of feeling worried and aggrieved in his presence, I felt a bit useful, and a bit appreciated by him and probably just as importantly, to myself. 

    After he died, I also made a discovery I didn't expect, when I could sense people reaching out to console me when I told them my Dad had died. I felt almost guilty to realize that I had no need of condolence. I instead almost felt myself instantly wanting to give this extra portion of well-wishing back to them since the words "my Dad died" had brought them back to their past losses but not mine. For me the loss of what a Dad would have given to me happened when I was 9 or so. His death at 84 left me feeling--and I hesitate to say this because it's feels a little rude--more self-assured, more comfortable in my identity, less troubled, and more free to be "in the moment" every day of my life. I took over who he was. He lives in me, we're each other now, I'm both me and the carry on of him. I see myself in the mirror and sometimes it looks essentially like I'm seeing my Dad. I do look more like him on the surface and in essence from his salt and pepper hair coloring to the walk I learned from him, to the Dad-ness I see in my own face.

    And in the 50 days of daily meditating, working to elevate his spirit to. . .(where? to what?) to freedom and fulfillment, maybe, I suddenly had a meditation practice after an adult lifetime of having no use whatsoever for one. 

    And once I had one, I started modifying and substituting other daily practices including daily 1-2 minute breath retention exercises on arising, at the YouTube direction of Dutch cold-endurance advocate Wim Hof. And after that, I follow it with a daily Yoga Nidra guided meditation session, then journaling, Yoga, and before leaving the house, a daily 2 minute cold shower.  I was driven by the sense that I could lose my old way of trying to win, and switch my attention out of niggling thoughts and into some somatic sense of calm, sometimes with my eyes momentarily closed.

    Doing these things every day has replaced my longstanding inner conflicts with something more dependably equanimous. It isn't that anything is that much better in my life, but the life itself feels simpler. For instance, as a teacher, my classroom still has the kind of mess, confusion, conflict and defiance, that seems to come with the territory, but because my inner critic is diminished, I don't let those things amplify  negative self-judgement in a feedback loop. I don't take the bait, and I instead switch my attention to what there is to love--around little kids, there's a lot. Why be seriously miserable, ever?  Why believe that determination will control anything? It won't. But children who are seen consistently and generously will feel seen and act more kindly, and free from need to act out. I could say this a million times, and it will seem too simple to be true, to impossible to put into practice even if it were, but it happens when you somehow switch the background to the foreground where you hear your thoughts as incoherent noise, and your sensation of peace and compassion rooted in a bodily experience as real. That happens in the stuff I do before I get to school, and I get better mornings. Rule of School: When a day reaches 10:00 and it's still good, it usually ends up that way.