This is my last blog for 2024. As the Thanksgiving weekend closes and we enter the December holidays, there’s a lingering nostalgia for the end of many things. The hardest part is letting go.
I have to say it, as it’s the elephant in the room. Yes, there will be a new president, and a lot of changes will rock my world and your world. The day after the election, I was teaching a Yin Yoga and Meditation class. In the first asana, “Sukasana” (Easy Pose), I asked the participants to unfold their legs and do the opposite fold of what they normally do. It’s uncomfortable in the beginning, but it’s also healthy to balance the body by doing the opposite of our habits. First we become aware of our habits, and secondly, we can grow and be more resilient as we work through our discomfort in the asana. Letting go is a powerful tool.
Our mode of thinking is also a habit. I noticed this afternoon, as I struggled to put a latch lock on the door of a chicken coop, my mind was looking to blame others for my “suffering”. I didn’t have an electric drill, so I had to hammer the nails into the pressed plywood, which was ungiving. I pounded and pounded with mighty effort and I wasn’t making any effect. I blamed my friend who put the “wrong” lock on the door. I blamed the Home Depot employee who sold me the wrong kind of nails. I blamed Bruno for dying. I noticed my thought pattern of blame and the resulting resentment and frustration.
There was about an hour and half left of natural light, and I had to fix this problem. I needed to install the latch to protect my chickens from the two humungous and fearless raccoons I saw last night. I need a man to do this work, or someone with strong shoulders and arms. My neighbor Alvin and his wife Dora helped me. He brought over his power drill and the job was done in less than ten minutes.
Incidentally, I met Alvin the summer of 2018, the year Bruno died. Alvin saw me walking a white German Shepherd, Batman. He recognized the dog. He asked if it was the same dog of the Frenchman, and why hadn’t he seen him for a while. I told him about the fatal accident, and his face was in shock. Since that day he and his wife have been wonderful neighbors and friends to me.
January 15th, 2024 will be seven years since Bruno died. I have an inkling there’s some truth to the cycle of 7 years. In Kundalini yoga, the belief is the consciousness shifts every 7 years (https://serpentine.yoga/the-7-year-cycle-of-consciousness-explained/.) Rudolf Steiner also had a theory for the 7 year cycle (https://beduwen.com/2015/01/29/seven-year-cycles/.) Noting also about the cycle of 7 in the natural world as in:
- 7 days in the week
- 7 notes on the musical scale
- 7 directions (left, right, up, down, forward, backward, center)
In the past, nearly 7 years, I have been learning about surrender and letting go in a profound way in my body and consciousness. I’ve been weathering some health issues and a shift in my consciousness has been helping me heal.
There’s also something about this clip from the 2003 documentary, “Born Rich”, by Jamie Johnson that fits into the puzzle of making connections between juxtapositions of different realities and surrender. Jamie Johnson is an heir of the Johnson & Johnson wealth.
Rich kids do not choose to be born into that privilege. Some of them, interviewees in the film, have accepted their “occupation” without thinking too deeply about their circumstances. But Jamie Johnson was different. He interviewed his family, friends and acquaintances about being born rich. What they all thought and felt were taboo for polite conversation or any intimate dialogue. I am far removed from that society, but what he revealed about that world and what resonated with me, in his words below, are the humanness of hiding and wanting to fit in whilst breaking from the mold to be your own self.
Here’s a transcript starting at: 1:04:33
Replace the words “rich” and “privilege” with finding love, living love, losing love, and redefining love. I’ve inherited some hard stuff and some good stuff too. What I’m earning is experience and learning to cope with change by letting go and knowing the wisdom of surrendering without resistance so that I am able to move towards positive changes.