Is This Heaven?

Nah, it's Massachusetts.  Sorry.  But, I could easily see spending the rest of my living days there.

Laurel and I recently attended a workshop at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.  For those who aren't familiar, Kripalu is the Holy Grail for those who practice yoga, we've wanted to go there for years.  For some perspective, imagine you are going to the Vatican, Mecca, Jerusalem, whatever holy place is important to you, and how giddy you would be to go there.  That was how I felt as we set off on our journey.

"Appreciation Instead of Expectation"

The beginning was difficult, as is often the case, "you can't get there from here".  We started out at 4 in the morning, finally arrived at 2, and our room wasn't ready.  We finally got to our room at 4 in the afternoon, 12 hours of travel, tired, sweaty, and irritable.  To be fair, they were very clear up front, you can check in at 2, but rooms may not be ready until 4, so I had no one to be angry with other than life itself, which did me absolutely no good, or me for poor travel planning, which again, does absolutely no good.  Not a great start to our trip to nirvana, but it was time to start appreciating and put my First World problems aside.

"Returning to Your True Nature"

The workshop we chose was led by Jillian Pransky, a very seasoned and accomplished teacher, who uses yoga, meditation, and mindfulness techniques to help us develop our spiritual health and wellness.  We spent four days in classes with 30-40 other people, absorbing what Jillian had to say, and also doing yoga, meditation, enjoying nature and having great conversations along the way.  I would never try to put into words what Jillian does or how she makes it such a great experience, but the main technique she uses is called "LARLAR".  LARLAR is an acronym for:

• Land 
• Arrive
• Relax 
• Listen 
• Attend
• Respond

The first LAR, Land, Arrive, Relax, was perfect for me based on the start.  I needed to land in my space, get grounded after a long journey.  I needed to truly arrive, find my breath and get centered.  I needed to relax, and it's really much deeper than that, I needed to find those areas of my body that hold the tension, that instinctively don't relax.  Maybe, just maybe, my "flight in" was a perfect way to start this workshop.

We practiced, we learned techniques and tools to grow, and we had an incredible amount of fun.  Laurel and I were so impressed with Jillian and her capabilities, we bought her book, and we've started looking ahead to our next adventure with her.  I can't recommend her enough.  She brings such a wealth of knowledge, she gave us so many tools to work with, and she brings her message with warmth, sincerity, and humor.  

"Shiny Happy People"

Recently I saw a show that brought up the song "Shiny Happy People" by REM.  I never really paid any attention to the song, but I decided to watch the video on YouTube.  I would challenge anyone to watch it and not be incredibly happy afterward, even if it is fairly silly and trite.  It's just a fun video to watch.  This song resonates with me as I think about my time at Kripalu.  Some various anecdotal experiences from my time there:

• When we first arrived, there was a young lady walking a large Poodle, named Poodle(how appropriate!), and she asked if we would mind petting her dog.  Her dog was old, 14, and if she sees people, she wants to be petted.  Of course, we loved the opportunity to pet her dog.  When we were leaving, there was a man walking the same dog.  Same request.  We found out that his daughter worked at the bookstore and couldn't get away to walk her dog, so he was doing it.  Again, we loved the opportunity, a perfect beginning and ending to our trip.
• There was a group of deaf people sitting at the one table near us every day for breakfast.  They were signing to each other each morning during breakfast, smiling, laughing, it was a beautiful sight.  As Laurel pointed out, it was supposed to be a silent breakfast, so yes, they were probably violating the rules, but I just find sign language so beautiful, I simply enjoyed seeing their conversations.
• I saw Rolf Gates.  I wish I could say I met him, because I so desperately wanted to thank him for starting me on my spiritual and mindfulness reading journey.  Seven or eight years ago, I read "Meditations on Intention and Being", and then "Meditations From the Mat" (OK, I read them out of order), and I was hooked.  Since then I've read several Stephen Cope books, Jack Kornfield, Michael Singer, Thich Nhat Hanh, Max Strom, and many others, a wealth of wonderful books and stories about being present, finding your dharma, living your true life.  These books have meant so much to me, and someday, I'd love to thank Mr. Gates for starting me on this journey.  Someday.
• Kripalu has several programs going on simultaneously and overlapping, so the campus was vibrant and alive the entire time.  There was a menagerie of people, all ages, race, ethnicity, just a melting pot of people on their own individual journey.  
• Kripalu has several technology-free areas.  For the most part, we saw little use of computers, cell phones, anything while we were there.  It was so nice to escape technology even for a few days.
• Probably partially because of the dearth of technology, or because of the type of people who come to a setting like this, people were so nice.  As noted, there are lots of programs, lots of people, and as you'd pass by them, they'd smile, say hello, hold the door for you, thank you for holding the door for them.  People were so intentional, I have to believe part of it is where we were, but also no one was "doom scrolling" on their phones.
• They have a beautiful labyrinth, winding through many small trees, it creates such a peaceful, introspective time to reflect, I've done labyrinths before, but walking one in such a natural setting carries a special meaning.
  
  

"Returning to Your True Nature"

OK, here's where I went a bit negative based on an incredible positive.  My God, the beauty all around us.  A beautiful lake, rolling hills, filled with huge trees, walking trails everywhere, you couldn't look in any direction without seeing nature in all its glory.  I then thought about where we live, and another song came to mind, "Big Yellow Taxi", or at least one line from the song, "Paved paradise, put up a parking lot".  Where we live, they are bulldozing everything, all the fields, trees, habitats for animals, are gone.  Just houses and apartments for as far as the eyes can see.  It was so relaxing and peaceful to be immersed in nature, even for such a short amount of time.

The best part, of course, is I got to share this journey with the person I love more than anything else in the world.  She was the one who started me on this journey, we have traveled it together for the last eight of our 42 years, and I look forward to further adventures at Kripalu or wherever our spiritual journey takes us.  Laurel, yoga and nature.  Almost Heaven.

The Four Horsemen of the American Apocalypse

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free"

"Give me your white, your rich, your hate-filled racists yearning to discriminate"

Where to even start?  This has been going on for years, this country has been gradually sliding backward, and while there are many of us who can take credit for it, I think these four hate groups probably should get their fair share of credit.  Again, not sure where to start, but I'll start at the top, and I'll keep it brief, since I'm sure many of you don't want to listen to me rant:

Moms for Liberty

Similar to many hate groups, this group hides behind the premise that they are just looking out for our children.  But some of their methods and rationale are really quite questionable:

• Bullying teachers and administrators into resigning if they don't acquiesce to their ideals of proper teaching.  One of their major topics is teaching compassion and empathy in school because we wouldn't want our children to have any compassion or empathy for their fellow students.
• Book bans and book burning.  There is a wealth of great literature they are opposed to, but they are particularly focused on any books that relate to the LGBTQ+ community or the history of racism in this country.  A sampling of books that they've had banned:

I've not read two of the books, but I have read "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison.  She is one of my favorite authors and is an exceptional writer.  But yes, she does use the framework of our racist heritage quite a bit in her books.  Maybe if we ignore it, it will go away....

Just a reminder, book burning was a major tool in Nazi Germany to suppress critical thinking, but then again, we don't seem to learn from history.  You'd have to read, of course.

Christian Nationalists

"Organized religion is the cause of most human suffering and evil"

I can't take credit for that line, it comes from Charles Russell Lowell in the 1800's at the height of slavery.

I'm still baffled by this one.  I remember years ago, Sandy McConnel preaching at Westminster Presbyterian Church and saying the American flag does not belong on the altar at church, no flag belongs on the altar.  

Quite frankly, mixing religion and country is un-American, this nation was built on religious freedom, and more importantly, it's blasphemy and sacrilege.  Anytime I hear about "God and Country" services or Christian Nation, I cringe.  I would have thought that we would have learned from Nazi Germany, which also espoused "God With Us", but then again, as noted above, we don't really seem to want to read books, particularly history books.  

Unfortunately, we seem to want to use the Bible as our weapon of choice against anyone who we don't agree with.  It would appear that Christian Nationalists never turned the page once they got to the end of the Old Testament and read about Jesus and particularly what he said in the Beatitudes.  Might be worth a Google.  No, they'd prefer the God of the Old Testament to smote those who don't look like us or worship like us.

Fox News

Easily the one of the four that I despise the most.  As I've noted before, you'd have to put a gun to my head to get me to watch Fox "News".  While there really isn't any real news anymore, it's all slanted to whatever side the news outlet is on, Fox News has to be the lowest of the low.  They don't just mix in propaganda to support the current administration and the far right, they blatantly push racism and hatred for anyone who is different from white, Christian America. 

They start most segments with catch phrases like "This is going to make you angry!" to get the base riled up.  Years ago, they declared that there was a "War on Christmas" to stir up the Christians in this country.  They jump on any news item featuring a transgender athlete to tell us about someone who won a 100 yard dash in Bumfuck, Nebraska, and how our children will never be able to compete in sporting events ever again because of the proliferation of transgender athletes.  They try to tell us that immigrants are running rampant in gangs, killing people and eating our pets.  The sad part is, as we've seen where we live, old, white people sit around all day watching Fox News, and they believe the shit that the talking heads tell them.  

You know, it would be great if they'd ever supply some facts about the overwhelming majority of mass shootings are committed by white males in this country, not any minority or immigrant.  Yeah, I'm pretty sure you won't ever hear that on Fox News.  Instead they make killers like this, heroes in our country:

While immigrants in this country live in fear of deportation, we allow people like this to roam free.  If we really cared about a safer America, we would be deporting white men instead.  Oh, wait....

The good news is Fox News has become the training ground for the current president's cabinet.  There are at last count 23 former Fox News personalities in government, I'm sure they are all very qualified.  They recognize that wearing brown suits, eating Grey Poupon, and going to the Met are bad, but taking bribes from foreign countries and stealing from the American people are good.  Check the box, they are qualified to run our government!

Republican National Committee

This one is probably the hardest one for me.  I spent all of my adult life until 2016 as a devout Republican, pretty much voted straight party for 36 years or so.  I'm not sure if they changed or I changed, but I doubt I ever vote for another Republican unless some of the good ones like Adam Kinzinger or Liz Cheney come back.  Still not a fan of Democrats, but they at least seem to care about their constituents.

I wish I could say that the Republican Party I voted for has changed, but I'm not so sure, maybe I was just too naive.  They obviously are owned by the NRA, so we will never see any type of gun legislation in this country.  Again, worth a Google, take a look at which politicians the NRA funds and how much money they give.  And they are clearly beholden to the rich in America as evidenced by the tax laws and spending bills they propose.  

What I find really interesting is that many of them make no bones about it, they come out and say that they really don't care about the poor or even the middle class.  I'm not sure how people are going to be able to live a normal life with the wages they are making and the cuts to health programs like Medicaid.  There have been some recent public comments that are truly amazing to me, by Republicans like Joni Ernst and Mitch McConnel.  Funny thing, when I heard Joni Ernst say, "Well, we are all going to die", I imagined her channeling her inner Creasy (Denzel Washington) from the movie "Man on Fire".

So many people want to blame the current president, but let's be real, he is obviously who we want.  He's a racist, he's not very bright or well-read, he throws temper tantrums like a child, he insults people like a middle-schooler, he is corrupt, he has no regard for women, but he is who we decided should be our president.  While we rooted for Ralphie in "A Christmas Story", we voted for Scott Farkus.  If we look in the mirror, he is the one who is looking back at us.  As my dear friend Dave Carr quoted recently from the cartoon strip "Pogo", "We have met the enemy, and he is us".

I remember years ago, one of the funniest episodes of "Modern Family" had Phil Dunphy committing a huge error in judgment, clearly not realizing what a faux pas he committed.  Of course the episode was meant for humor.  It wasn't meant to be a rallying cry for this country.

Editor's Note:  I have a follow-up post coming, highlighting what I'm thankful for in this country.  Of course, none of the Four Horsemen.