Lets see if I can pull this segue off: New Years Eve, early 80s I saw Blondie perform at a club in NYC. Inebriated logic wandered me to the side of the building outside, to a huge pile of trash bags, where I unzipped and began. Twenty seconds later one of the trash bags starts to move. Its not a trash bag. Its a human being wrapped in a trash bag who Ive been peeing on. Thirty + years later the scene remains vivid in my recall. The biting cold, the drunken relief, dissonance, the dribbling over my pants, the fear and revulsion, the sense like never before that THINGS ARENT SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THIS. I had been outraged plenty but mostly second-hand -- assassinations of Kennedy, King and Lennon; never like this, where I was a player. Ashamed that I had participated in something that wasnt my fault but was, as a member of the human family, my problem. One of the endless dots that in retrospect shape a life. * JOIN ME THIS NEW YEARS EVE AT YOGA SOUP For a Party, an Expedition, a Prayer, a Feast and a Dance. Well meet at 8:30 with empty stomachs. Well do some light stretching, nothing sweaty but certainly deep. Well make our beds from blankets and mats and pillows. Well light candles. Well breathe together for some time, 75-90 minutes. The lines between breath, prayer, past, future, me, you and life will blur. This kind of breathing is intended to take us beyond ordinary thinking consciousness. Many substances can do that but there is nothing like our own breath moving us beyond invisible borders and unconscious limitations. When Scrooge awoke from the madness of his past, his first realization was I know I dont know. Welcome to your new life. * Ill breathe and pray for Eric Garner and for the officer who took him down because my celebration of life must include all parts of my connected human family. My mind might not want or be able to do this so I will defer to the intelligence of breath. In plain sight, in full view, the message loud and clear: I cant breathe. I know lots of folks, myself included, who feel at times short of breath. Who feel as if life is squeezing the life out of them against their will. Ive discovered that gathering with people, going deep inside in non-ordinary ways, heals us. Reminds us of something other than the race were running or the pain were clinging to. Reveals the obstacles inside that create and sustain the obstacles outside. To see whats in the way of a true, full breath, thats a good way to enter a new year. * After were done breathing, well stay in the room. We wont be in a rush. We will have made provisions to not be in a rush. Well stretch again, in the same way, which now will feel different. Well move at a pace thats true for each of us, fast or slow it doesnt matter. Truth matters. Well move toward our food. Our last meal of the old year and first meal of the new year will be clean, healthy, delicious, celebratory. Well start there, where we are, the only place we ever can start. Well eat and drink, talk or not, dance or sit, wherever the truth moves us. We cannot eliminate bad food and bad thoughts. We can choose not to reach for them. * Unbound from prior agreements that no longer serve us is by definition to become something else. Well wrestle with that in our hearts and minds and bodies. New paths will be established. And then, fragile and vulnerable, the true gateways toward real, true and lasting strength, well re-engage with our lives, our loved ones, our challenges. With clarity we return to ordinary, miraculous life. * Hope to see you there. Happy New Year. Love, Eddie Ellner * New Years Eve with Eddie Ellner & Friends. 8:30 until. Breath & movement, prayer & dance, food & drink. $70. $60 if you sign up in advance. $55, if you bring a dish to share and/or help clean up. Yoga Soup 28 Parker Way Santa Barbara
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 21:04:09 +0000
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