four regulars
one new student
teacher shared
brief philosophy
from yoga sutra
chanted OM
three times
began in downward facing dog
a few poses beyond
new student rolled up
his mat
and…left?
in the time it took him to
slip on his shoes and slide out the door
room transformed
from normal stretch
to
four caring minds
creating stories
to explain what happened
oops…I just created a story of my own
I really don’t know what thoughts were going through my friend’s minds
I did observe
teacher’s sudden departure from calm
to mixing up left/right and hands/feet
was her presence shaken?
after a few minutes she said…
I hope he’s alright
there was a bit of speculation from a few as we moved forward with our poses
reality was…
new student came
new student left
my challenge was to observe
all the many thoughts and stories
vying for attention in my mind
not only was I thinking about the new student
I was imagining stories for the teacher, too…
challenge
was
to
observe
and
still
hold
revolved
triangle
pose
There is no explanation you can give that would explain away all the sufferings and evil and torture and destruction and torture and hunger in the world! You’ll never explain it. You can try gamely with your formulas, religious and otherwise, but you’ll never explain it. Because life is a mystery, which means your thinking mind cannot make sense out of it. For that you’ve got to wake up and then you’ll suddenly realize that reality is not problematic, you are the problem.
~Anthony De Mello—Awareness
Does uncertainty or ambiguity give rise to making a “story?” For prehistoric humans, getting the story “right” was a matter of survival: a snapping twig could be a predator; lack of food required foraging and best guesses about what could be eaten safely.
Today, no sabertooth tigers. USDA has labeling requirements to identify contents and their contribution to daily nutritional needs. The ambiguity in current times is more existential, but creating our stories may still be about survival.
And the success of our storylines is mostly subjective. You don’t have to wonder if you survived the sabertooth tiger!