| Quiet friend who has come so far, feel how your breathing makes more space around you. Let this darkness be a bell tower and you the bell. As you ring, what batters you becomes your strength. Move back and forth into the change. What is it like, such intensity of pain? If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine. In this uncontainable night, be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses, the meaning discovered there. And if the world has ceased to hear you, say to the silent earth: I flow. To the rushing water, speak: I am.– Rainer Maria Rilke |
| Content Warning: this letter from Leslie contains reflections on personal loss, death in general, and the overall state of the world. [ 8 minute read ] |
| An Initiation into Intimacy with Death Today is the Winter Solstice. After the gradual decline of Autumn, the ground is now frozen, the leaves have fallen, we have arrived at peak darkness, the dormant pause of Winter, and the death of the year. Coincidentally, in just a few more days, it will have been 17 years since the Christmas Eve that my mom suddenly fell so ill that she couldn’t attend any of the holiday family events. And in another month after that, it will have been 17 years since her abrupt passing. I was 21. Since then, the dying of the year is forever tied to the most painful death I have experienced in life so far. Christmas cheer is always complex, and the increasing darkness on the way to the Solstice can sometimes hit me doubly hard. Nonetheless, over the years, I have come to feel that her death was not just a loss, but also an initiation. Learning to look directly at death and darkness, or even embrace them, has become an important part of cultivating the wholeness that we might be seeking through our yoga practice. I believe it would be wise to get more intimate with darkness, endings and death. This letter is an invitation for you to consider joining me on that journey. Death in Yoga Practice: Savasana Every time we do a formalized yoga practice on the mat, a cycle ends. Savasana, typically the final posture in an asana practice, is named in Sanskrit from the root word meaning “corpse.” In addition to simply resting, to me, savasana invites us into a symbolic and practical acknowledgment of the ending of a cycle. During savasana, I observe downward trends like the heat dissipating from my body, my heart rate settling back down, and the subtle decrease in muscle tension. All of this illustrates the natural impermanence of each episode of experience, and by extension, of my life as a whole. By practicing the death-like state of stillness and withdrawal from my external senses, I get an opportunity to contemplate my own transience as an embodied being. My felt-sense of both pleasant and unpleasant sensations arising and passing away during practice, and especially during savasana, calls me to more fully savour what I find to be sweet, and to take any bitterness in a long view, knowing that all things, good and bad, must pass. Death in Every Moment: the Breath Every time we breathe, a cycle ends. Looking at it on the scale of a lifetime, upon birth, we all kick off the adventure with our first lung-expanding inhale. And at some point, if we are granted the privilege of dying gently, one of our exhales will be our last. When I have the presence of mind and a moment to focus, I softly and gradually slow my cycles of breath and observe what it’s like as I extend and finish my exhales, lingering with my attention in the empty dormancy of the after-exhale, the tiny endings at regular intervals. You might try this for yourself as you fall asleep at night, as you settle at the beginning of your yoga practice, or as you wait a moment before you transition to school or work or home. Practices like savasana or simple breath awareness nudge me to acknowledge the fact that my time in this human body is limited. When I can connect to this truth, it brightens and strengthens my appreciation for life, and cracks me open to a deeper connection to its beauty. When I am brave enough to embrace these mini-deaths, the encounters spark the questions, What if this moment were my last one? Could I make peace with the life I’ve lived so far? If not, how can I live better? Death and The Pain of the World Integrating the grief from a loved one’s death is one thing. Attuning to the reality of your own death is another. Beyond that, there is a third call that I think would be wise to explore, which is facing the pain, death and loss of living entities, human or non-human, all around the world. Reading that, maybe your mind jumps to the several humanitarian crises transpiring across the globe due to supremacy-driven political ideologies, or exploitative labour practices in service of more capital for shareholders. I know some of you will have immediately thought of our animal relatives, or the larger interconnected web of being that includes all living things, and the animate, ensouled world where rocks and rivers have personhood, too. It is dark out there, but I believe that bravely witnessing the darkness has the potency to light up a fire in our hearts. An interview I watched recently was summed up by the host, Daniel Schmachtenberger, like this, “When we are actually open to the beauty of reality, there’s a sense of awe, and a gratitude, and a humility that comes with that. But when we’re open to the beauty-of-reality being harmed, which is in the factory farm, and on the war field, we also feel the suffering of others, such that it’s overwhelming. And the overwhelm in the suffering, and the overwhelm in the beauty are related, because if the reality wasn’t beautiful, you wouldn’t care. And both of them make you transcend your small self, and both of them motivate a sacred obligation – the protective impulse.” Just because death is inevitable doesn’t mean that we should ignore injustices that steal life or cut it short. I call on the truth of what Dare Carasquillo calls The Non-Dual Sacred, which they describe as “an ethos that holds nothing to be permanent, yet chooses kindness and collective wellbeing in each moment.” Loving Kindness at the Death of the Year This time of year, the annual death of the light with all its complications, has begun to feel like a familiar friend. It gives me solace to be reminded that endings – deaths – are just as much a part of existence as beginnings or births. Upon the Solstice, I’m reflecting by marking my wins, joys and achievements, but also mourning losses, grieving missed opportunities, and mindfully releasing failures. Looking back, can you see all that transpired, including the parts that were difficult, sad, or unresolved? What better way to enter the new year than integrating all aspects of reality – dark and light. Looking ahead, soon we will all feel the cyclical return of the light – the rebirth of the year. This past the month, at The Branches we’ve been emphasizing loving kindness, and offered a gentle introduction to metta practice – a practice of cultivating positive regard and universal friendliness to all beings. We think of this as the emotional foundation upon which caring action is based. If this letter has touched you, I invite you to connect to the awe and appreciation for all life, perhaps through death contemplation, or through metta. When you connect to the beauty of the world, what protective impulse do you feel called to act upon? Which aspect of collective wellbeing does your heart sing for you to support? If your yoga practice is the site of deepening interrelationship with the world, let this darkness be a bell tower. See you in your next savasana, Leslie Sources In this letter, I’m drawing from reflections on the talks and writings of Dare Carasquillo, The Emerald Podcast, Daniel Schmachtenberger, The Numinous Podcast, the poem “Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower” by Rainer Maria Rilke (translation by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows. Source: On Being “A Wild Love for the World“), and probably many more. |
The Branches 