Turbulent times

Holiday trees with white lights

I saw these pretty trees draped with white lights as I rode my bus to the coffee shop last week. I know that now Thanksgiving has occurred, one day I will notice that all the white lights have changed to blue ones. The city does it every year. I much prefer the white lights, but it really doesn't matter; they are all festive and what people want to see. 

Given the wet weather, I thought I might not get to take my usual Saturday hike with my friend Steve, but after we received a full inch of rain on Bellingham Friday night, I went out on Saturday morning pretty sure that we would take a walk around the harbor (which we did) since all the trails would be more than a little soggy. We started out with low dark skies, but no rain. Before we had traveled three miles, however, the rain started. And it rained. It blew the rain sideways at times, and we struggled back to our cars after having gotten really soaked. No matter: I ended up with more than five miles and 13,000 steps, so it was a good morning.

The best part of the weather was that the cold, foggy days that we've endured for the last week are now gone. The temperature is moderate, but the feeling that winter is just around the corner now dominates. And of course, everywhere is decorated with Christmas cheer, and I see plenty of smiles bestowed even by the people I see on the streets.

Yes, even those homeless people whom I see out there trying to stay warm and dry, even they seemed to be in a fairly good mood, when I walked by their encampments yesterday. I suppose they are not as clued in to the suffering and turbulence going on in the rest of the world right now, since they are busy dealing with their own difficult versions. I have a nice warm and safe place to come home to every day, so the weather is not so critical to me. I can get drenched and still come home and change into something dry, making my encounters with bad weather much less of an adventure. Life would be so different if I had to live without a home. 

And with all that is happening in the world today, right now, if I spend too much time contemplating humanity's ills, I get bogged down in it myself, and tend to forget to look up from the news and regain a better perspective. I have long believed that much of our pain and suffering can be mitigated by getting good exercise and practicing yoga. Overnight, the Syrian dictator Assad was toppled and fled to parts unknown. The Middle East is in extreme turmoil. I read the news this morning and reluctantly pulled away to write this post. I did wonder where yoga that is practiced here in the West originated, so I looked it up.

Yoga is a method for restraining the natural turbulence of thoughts, which otherwise impartially prevent all people, of all lands, from glimpsing their true nature of Spirit. Yoga cannot know a barrier of East and West any more than does the healing and equitable light of the sun. —Paramahansa Yogananda

I have practiced some form of yoga for most of my life. When I was a young person in Boulder, I was introduced to several different yoga teachers who held classes and seminars for the public. I well remember one female yogini who filled a classroom with people like me, sitting shoulder to shoulder on the floor. In those days, I could easily sit in the lotus position, but now I use a meditation bench which allows me to do a version called virasana. The main thing about sitting in meditation is to keep the back straight. 

If you want to know more about yoga, especially hatha yoga, you can find plenty of information about it online. Start with learning about asanas, the body posture used as a basis for most physical and mental exercises.

An āsana (Sanskrit: आसन) is a body posture, originally and still a general term for a sitting meditation pose, and later extended in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise, to any type of position, adding reclining, standing, inverted, twisting, and balancing poses. 

Ooops! I got off onto a long sidetrack by reading for too long about it all. Well, I do need to finish this post so I can continue with the rest of my day. Just reading about yoga, even without practicing it, seems to make me feel better about life. And I do spend some time in meditation every morning, meaning I don't want to get too carried away here and forget about all the rest of my morning practice.

It is the beginning of the winter season, in just a few weeks we will have our longest night (in the Northern Hemisphere) and shortest day. Some people get really SAD during this time (that would be Seasonal Affective Disorder) because they miss the sunshine. Since I make a point of getting outdoors almost every day, it doesn't seem to affect me that much. Plus, I love to snuggle down into my comforter and fall into a restorative sleep every night. I feel very blessed not to have much problem falling asleep, but there are times when I wake and cannot get back to sleep right away. I usually practice some breathing exercises to help, and it almost always works. At least, I awake without having been aware of falling asleep.

A Christmas hot chocolate

I found this picture in my catalog of times past, taken two years ago by my friend Melanie. I think we might have been having a bit of alcohol under all that whipped cream, but I can't be sure. I like the festive feeling in the air, and although I no longer use a mask whenever I go out (that's the blue thing under my chin), it could have been taken today. I was a mere youth of 80 at that time, though, and I now officially two years older. How time flies!

Well, my dear friends, that will have to do for this morning's post. I must get up out of bed and start the rest of my day, so that I will be ready when John gets here to take me to breakfast. My dear partner still sleeps next to me, and the day beckons. I do hope that you, dear friends, will have a wonderful week ahead and that we will meet here once again next week. Until then, I wish you all good things.