...except last week. In spite of the weather we had, I wonder if it's possible to not fall in love with Barcelona. It's a place that can't be overly hyped. I thought for sure it could never live up to all my friends' raves and exclamation points, but it's an irresistible place. We spent a lot of time staying in out of the rain, but barely saw our room - we were out early every morning, going from breakfast to breakfast, of course... in the pauses between rain storms we walked and walked and walked - barely made it to any monuments because of course many of them are outdoors, but we made sure to go to the Sagrada Familia and the Casa Gaudi. I confess I'd never wanted to see either one of these (or any Gaudi, in fact) because they look so awful in photos. But there we were, and I didn't have the cojones to come back from Barcelona saying we didn't go. Neither one of us was excited to get on the line of a kazillion people, but we did it, and it was amazing. How something so incredible can take such a lousy picture, I don't understand. So if you're like me, and scratch your head when people go on and on about Gaudi and all you see is a bunch of enormous buildings that look like they were hand made by a fourth grader on Adderall, those buildings really do amaze in person.
Enough, though, about things everyone sees and everyone loves...obstacles are what great trips are made of, and they started before I even left the house. My horoscope said traveling on the 14th was a very bad idea. I got up around 5 that morning, giving myself a ton of time before the bus at 7:05. Triple checked all the things and documents and money I needed to take along, and even had a cup of tea with Sandra, who woke up to see me off. We walked up the driveway to wait for the bus, and spent some time chatting about the sunrise. 7:05 passed. 7:10 passed. 7:30 came around and Sandra went back inside and I walked down to the next village of Ventorros to maybe hitch a ride to Malaga. When I got there it turned out I wasn't the only person left behind by the bus. An old woman I'd met before was out there, and me coming along gave her someone to commiserate with about the bus not coming. She said it was probably that they were working on the "main" road and were taking an alternate route. Anyway, I had 3 1/2 hours to get to Malaga airport and the road was closed. My companion was irritated at having to go into town anyway, because it was just to send money to her son in prison who was being extremely demanding and she eventually decided to go another day. Luckily she is a very nice person and stopped someone to give us a ride to the turn in the road where I could hitch a ride to Velez Malaga, then get bus to Malaga and then a bus on to the airport. I did all of this, which took about 3 hours, so I was pretty excited to get to the airport on time. On the way there I was lucky enough to see one of the sweetest things imaginable - as we passed a man on his scooter he turned a corner and we could see two little lambs tucked into a blanket in a milk crate riding on the back.
The magic of hitch hiking just can't be explained - if you haven't been lucky enough to hitch hike a lot in your life I recommend it. It's probably about one hundredth as dangerous as people think (maybe less), and amazing things happen hitch hiking. Something about being out there, relying on strangers, and of course you only meet strangers cool enough (or wacko enough, I'll admit) to pick up hitch hikers. If you want my psychological self defense class I'll hook you up. Email me. Do not even think of emailing me your safety concerns - you're twenty five years too late and besides, you're wrong. These days I only hitch if I'm really stranded, but way back when I used to go everywhere that way in Europe, and not only did I learn all about self defense (of course), but I got to experience a kind of freedom that seems to be gone with the wind these days. I never see students hitching anymore - everyone is so scared of everyone else. When I was 16 I couldn't fathom deciding to stay home because I didn't have a car or a lift. No one could've convinced me to live like that - always worrying about people hurting you - I thought it was a crock then and I still do. And I get to tell stories about outwitting people with guns - so there. Last time I hitched a ride outside of Austin (long story about a yoga retreat with some seriously over zealous people - a fate worse than hitch hiking in Texas!) I got a ride with two young filmmakers who had always wanted to pick up a hitch hiker but had always been too scared. They were great and it really made their day (and mine, obviously, as I got to where I wanted to go). So it's rare these days, and usually sort of inconvenient, but it always turns out pretty amazing.
The flight to Barcelona was interesting - first time on Ryan Air. I'll just say that is definitely the airline of choice for people who enjoy hitch hiking as a means of transportation. Gives the expression 'bare bones' new dimension. But having said that, I'm in Spain, so the people working the flight treated everyone like gold - I used to say that Texans were the friendliest people you could ever meet. Sorry Texas, but you've been relegated to a distant second. And no, it's not up for discussion. How on Earth can a country that has been through the ringer so many times produce such an incredibly copasetic mood? In the States we have so many things easy, and we manage to be complete assholes way too much of the time. Go figure.
Barcelona airport, ditto. Nice people, it's clean, information is easy to get, and the lady (there's one working the airport train in NYC but she is awfully mean) helping people buy their train tickets was as nice as can be. And the train and subway tickets are integrated so you can use the same card for each, they just subtract more credit for train rides. NYC are you listening? Maybe no one who works for NYC transport has ever been allowed out of their cage long enough to go to Europe. Someone should go and take notes - they don't even make millions of people per year remove their shoes to go through airport security AND SOMEHOW THEY"RE NOT ALL DEAD. Hmmm...must be because only one jerkoff in the world would've ever put a bomb in his shoe. Seriously, America, it's embarrassing. I won't even get started on how fast the lines move and the general lack of needless frustration in traveling in Europe.
Then again, we don't post signs in Catalan, which has probably led more than one traveler to take a long walk off one of the short piers in the port of Barcelona. I speak French and Spanish, so looking at Catalan made me feel, for the first few days, as if I were reading something out of focus. I couldn't retain anything anyone told me if it contained any proper names. There was a lot of smiling, nodding, and asking the very same question several times just to make sure the answer seemed to have the same amount of syllables. When it started to pour down with rain that pretty much solved the problem of trying to get to a bunch of specific places and we enjoyed many random cafes and bars. I do believe that each and every one was the best cafe or bar I've ever been to.
Leaving Barcelona was another matter, as we'd rented a car but neglected to buy a decent map. And for some strange reason we decided to just wing it with an assortment of small maps that if you put them all together would not have covered all the ground we wanted to cover. We suffered the consequences of this decision, of course, which led, as usual, to some tension and to some wonderful unplanned side trips.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Traveling With Mom
Next Monday I'll be meeting my Mom in Barcelona! My Mom is an amazing traveler, and so was her mother. My grandmother was widowed relatively young, and I really don't have all the facts on her travels - only what has come up in conversation over the years, but maybe one of my relatives will see this post and give me some more history. Mom, yeah, you're the number one suspect for that job. Back to my grandmother...I know she took her daughters on extensive trips all over Europe, including Greece, and Spain during Franco's dictatorship. This has produced both serious and hilarious revelations about my mother - including an instinctual distaste for Catholic cathedrals dripping in gold in the middle of terrible poverty, and her incredibly endearing stories of touring Greek ruins. She still can't talk about Greek ruins without breaking out laughing about getting guided tours of what amounted at times to a single remnant section of a single column of what was at one time a great temple. What I love, of course is that these were her favorite tours, because she got to use her imagination to fill in what those places must've been like.
What was amazing about my grandmother, too, was that she traveled all over South America solo, in the sixties, collecting folk art. If you've traveled in South America even in the last 15 years, you can imagine what it must've been like then. It's not easy now, depending on where you go, unless you fly everywhere. She also traveled a ton within the United States, buying land high up in the Rockies in Crested Butte, Colorado back when there were a couple hundred people roughing it up there. She had 3 daughters and one son. Three out of the four have traveled extensively, doing everything from living and working in Argentina during the Dirty Wars to studying in France (back when France was not at all the place it is today) and then there's my uncle who, after decades spent without running water or electricity high up in the Rockies in a log cabin, now travels to more places than I can keep track of in his converted tug boat.
When my mother wasn't able to travel far (she did have three children), living at our house was an experience in imaginary travel. Don't get me wrong - my Mom wasn't some travel version of Martha Stewart, planning neatly garnished international meals or buying figurines and plates from around the world to populate a bohemian chic suburban home - she was more like Anthony Bourdain being left in a bedroom community outside of New York City, alone all day with three kids, sometimes slowly going out of her mind with boredom, sometimes achieving this rather quickly. Our decor was telling. We had a terrarium coffee table, a blinding orange sofa, a kitchen table covered in piles of bills and paperwork, and for a time we even had red polka dot stickers of various sizes decorating the kitchen cabinets like some feverish hallucination. Basically, we had everything different from what would usually be found in our suburban neighborhood. Nothing matched, particularly, but each piece had a little story. Mom was addicted to General Hospital in the early years of my life, but one day just gave it up. Later she'd watch Yoga With Lillias!, Richard Hittleman and Jack LaLanne. When the Jehovah's Witnesses came to the door my Mom would invite them in for coffee just to have some adult company. My mother being the least religious person you could hope to meet, I can only imagine what they must have discussed. We knew the Fuller Brush man very well, too. I can still see his face and smell his heavy cologne. He had a large mole next to his nose and a big, dyed black pompadour. He had a great voice - it was really deep and rich and he talked in that salesman type of lingo that knew no statements that couldn't be ended in an exclamation - "Well hello there! How are we today?!" They would sit and drink coffee but I'm not even sure if she ever bought anything. She must've. But if I was her Fuller Brush man I wouldn't have cared - she was by far the most promising conversation in the area. Our neighborhood wasn't a gold mine for sparkling personalities. Being a kid I just had a kid's perspective, but I also had access to the houses of my friends and those of some of our neighbors, and at 5 years of age I knew there was something wrong in our town. The place was full of bored women who dealt with that in the usual ways. Craziness, alcohol, medication, crazy hair styles, fashion addiction, anorexia, perfect wife syndrome, I'm too far gone to care syndrome, yacht club syndrome, over mothering, under mothering...and that doesn't cover the mafia wives, who lived cloistered away behind high walls in properties right on the water. Who knew what was happening there.
So my Mom was crazy bored, which led to many made up adventures around the neighborhood, around town, eventually to Florida, Puerto Rico, Saint Croix, France, and beyond. Sometimes she'd just yell, "Kids! Get in the car! We're going out!' And we'd drive around, going down every driveway posted with a "Private! Keep Out!" sign, every private beach road - anywhere forbidden, basically. Years later, traveling in France with Mom, she'd saunter past every "privé" sign, joking that it was okay because she knew Monsieur Privé very well. It was hilarious then and it would be impossible today. I'm forever grateful for Mom's irreverent approach to travel. It meant that we got to see places we never could've had access, but more importantly because it taught a gloves-off approach to seeing the world. It made everything an adventure - when we had tea or meals out of the house or out of the country my Mom was never the mom who would ask people to accommodate the staid palate of American kids. And I don't remember complaining about eating unfamiliar foods because we didn't know it was an option. If, for example, friends of my parents showed up for a Sunday afternoon get together with a box of Greek pastries, we were offered some. If we were rude enough to say we didn't like it, we got a look that said, "I'm sorry you're so dull and Americanized you can't appreciate anything." Being accused of being overly American in our house was a big insult. Maybe the biggest. This, despite the fact that we really were a very American family. My Mom's father was Scottish, but besides that we were just plain old American. Thank God no one ever told my parents that! They would've gotten the cold shoulder big time. And of course I'm kidding that my parents didn't know we were American, but my Mom had lived in France and my Dad had gone as far as two years of grad school toward being a Modern European history professor. They were determined not to live as if the rest of the world didn't exist. Products that were verboten in our house: Cool Whip, Cool Aid, Jello, soda, candy bars, Velveeta, Fluff, Hamburger Helper, Froot Loops, tuna casserole, etc. Anything overly processed and/or fake, aka American. Anything spelled with a K instead of a C was the devil. My Mom would shake her head in disgust at the ads in magazines and on TV for foods like Pringles Potato Chips, or Betty Crocker cake mixes. You know, I wish more Moms had done that. Even as teenagers, the phrase, "I've been eating too much fast food lately" never ever passed our lips. Just not an option - the lowest we would allow ourselves to sink in food quality was diner food, because diners qualified as a small adventure, and adventure was a major factor in all decisions, great and small. A good adventure could mitigate the sin of drinking Nestle hot cocoa, for instance, with it's toxic little fake marshmallows. In fact, that hot cocoa could actually comprise part of an adventure (a great conversation with someone interesting, being stranded after getting lost, etc) - drinking that nasty stuff against your will would add interest to any story. After all, it was something you'd never be shameless enough to say you liked. How American would that be?
So you get the picture - my Mom's everyday life is quite an adventure, and she has passed that on to us. I will be sure to update you on any adventures we have that are legal enough to be posted. As for the rest...use your imagination.
What was amazing about my grandmother, too, was that she traveled all over South America solo, in the sixties, collecting folk art. If you've traveled in South America even in the last 15 years, you can imagine what it must've been like then. It's not easy now, depending on where you go, unless you fly everywhere. She also traveled a ton within the United States, buying land high up in the Rockies in Crested Butte, Colorado back when there were a couple hundred people roughing it up there. She had 3 daughters and one son. Three out of the four have traveled extensively, doing everything from living and working in Argentina during the Dirty Wars to studying in France (back when France was not at all the place it is today) and then there's my uncle who, after decades spent without running water or electricity high up in the Rockies in a log cabin, now travels to more places than I can keep track of in his converted tug boat.
When my mother wasn't able to travel far (she did have three children), living at our house was an experience in imaginary travel. Don't get me wrong - my Mom wasn't some travel version of Martha Stewart, planning neatly garnished international meals or buying figurines and plates from around the world to populate a bohemian chic suburban home - she was more like Anthony Bourdain being left in a bedroom community outside of New York City, alone all day with three kids, sometimes slowly going out of her mind with boredom, sometimes achieving this rather quickly. Our decor was telling. We had a terrarium coffee table, a blinding orange sofa, a kitchen table covered in piles of bills and paperwork, and for a time we even had red polka dot stickers of various sizes decorating the kitchen cabinets like some feverish hallucination. Basically, we had everything different from what would usually be found in our suburban neighborhood. Nothing matched, particularly, but each piece had a little story. Mom was addicted to General Hospital in the early years of my life, but one day just gave it up. Later she'd watch Yoga With Lillias!, Richard Hittleman and Jack LaLanne. When the Jehovah's Witnesses came to the door my Mom would invite them in for coffee just to have some adult company. My mother being the least religious person you could hope to meet, I can only imagine what they must have discussed. We knew the Fuller Brush man very well, too. I can still see his face and smell his heavy cologne. He had a large mole next to his nose and a big, dyed black pompadour. He had a great voice - it was really deep and rich and he talked in that salesman type of lingo that knew no statements that couldn't be ended in an exclamation - "Well hello there! How are we today?!" They would sit and drink coffee but I'm not even sure if she ever bought anything. She must've. But if I was her Fuller Brush man I wouldn't have cared - she was by far the most promising conversation in the area. Our neighborhood wasn't a gold mine for sparkling personalities. Being a kid I just had a kid's perspective, but I also had access to the houses of my friends and those of some of our neighbors, and at 5 years of age I knew there was something wrong in our town. The place was full of bored women who dealt with that in the usual ways. Craziness, alcohol, medication, crazy hair styles, fashion addiction, anorexia, perfect wife syndrome, I'm too far gone to care syndrome, yacht club syndrome, over mothering, under mothering...and that doesn't cover the mafia wives, who lived cloistered away behind high walls in properties right on the water. Who knew what was happening there.
So my Mom was crazy bored, which led to many made up adventures around the neighborhood, around town, eventually to Florida, Puerto Rico, Saint Croix, France, and beyond. Sometimes she'd just yell, "Kids! Get in the car! We're going out!' And we'd drive around, going down every driveway posted with a "Private! Keep Out!" sign, every private beach road - anywhere forbidden, basically. Years later, traveling in France with Mom, she'd saunter past every "privé" sign, joking that it was okay because she knew Monsieur Privé very well. It was hilarious then and it would be impossible today. I'm forever grateful for Mom's irreverent approach to travel. It meant that we got to see places we never could've had access, but more importantly because it taught a gloves-off approach to seeing the world. It made everything an adventure - when we had tea or meals out of the house or out of the country my Mom was never the mom who would ask people to accommodate the staid palate of American kids. And I don't remember complaining about eating unfamiliar foods because we didn't know it was an option. If, for example, friends of my parents showed up for a Sunday afternoon get together with a box of Greek pastries, we were offered some. If we were rude enough to say we didn't like it, we got a look that said, "I'm sorry you're so dull and Americanized you can't appreciate anything." Being accused of being overly American in our house was a big insult. Maybe the biggest. This, despite the fact that we really were a very American family. My Mom's father was Scottish, but besides that we were just plain old American. Thank God no one ever told my parents that! They would've gotten the cold shoulder big time. And of course I'm kidding that my parents didn't know we were American, but my Mom had lived in France and my Dad had gone as far as two years of grad school toward being a Modern European history professor. They were determined not to live as if the rest of the world didn't exist. Products that were verboten in our house: Cool Whip, Cool Aid, Jello, soda, candy bars, Velveeta, Fluff, Hamburger Helper, Froot Loops, tuna casserole, etc. Anything overly processed and/or fake, aka American. Anything spelled with a K instead of a C was the devil. My Mom would shake her head in disgust at the ads in magazines and on TV for foods like Pringles Potato Chips, or Betty Crocker cake mixes. You know, I wish more Moms had done that. Even as teenagers, the phrase, "I've been eating too much fast food lately" never ever passed our lips. Just not an option - the lowest we would allow ourselves to sink in food quality was diner food, because diners qualified as a small adventure, and adventure was a major factor in all decisions, great and small. A good adventure could mitigate the sin of drinking Nestle hot cocoa, for instance, with it's toxic little fake marshmallows. In fact, that hot cocoa could actually comprise part of an adventure (a great conversation with someone interesting, being stranded after getting lost, etc) - drinking that nasty stuff against your will would add interest to any story. After all, it was something you'd never be shameless enough to say you liked. How American would that be?
So you get the picture - my Mom's everyday life is quite an adventure, and she has passed that on to us. I will be sure to update you on any adventures we have that are legal enough to be posted. As for the rest...use your imagination.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Where does Reality fit in yoga?
I read that article yesterday about the New Age guru who is on trial for 3 counts of manslaughter after 3 participants in his sweat lodge ceremony died from exposure and heat exhaustion. I can't stop thinking about it. The article was a perfect snapshot of spirituality in the United States. It's made up, day to day, with the common thread being America's current motto in all things holy: Whatever Works (read: whatever sells). It's not about seeking to understand the great mystery, or even just learning to be with the great mystery, knowing we most likely can't understand it. It's about placating people and telling them anything we can think of to ease their fears. And the money? Like taking candy from a baby. Dude, Reality is so yesterday.
What happens when 'teachers' act as if there is no underlying reality and just make shit up day after day, with the benchmark for the quality of their bs being whether it sells or not? This: some people will find this squishy logic very appealing, and some will pay lots of money to get teachers to answer their spiritual questions in such a way that the paying customer always comes out looking good. If the 'student' (read, client) is rich, they want to hear that they deserve it, karmically speaking, and should not waste time thinking about those less fortunate, who obviously need to take responsibility for their own bad karma (and pay to learn how to rectify their cosmic profile. Everyone should be rich once their karma is in order. Never mind that the 'teacher' probably doesn't understand karma in the first place). If they're poor, they want to hear they're on the verge of fixing that - they just need to pay the 'teacher' to bring out their inherent self worth, which will result in the world upping their net worth (for how could it not be so?). Don't bother reminding them that a majority of the greatest human beings have been, and continue to be, poor. Oh Amy don't be such a zero-sum pessimist! My wealth has nothing to do with anyone else's poverty! Never mind the fact that the world financial crisis is proving zero-sum pessimism is pretty right on. It turns out that if certain people and/or groups continue to get richer and richer, that wealth actually did come out of someone else's pockets! Stating the obvious? Not in this country, my friend.
In order to achieve your karmic makeover they will offer to: change your Akashic record, take you into past lives, cleanse your colon, excessively purify you of toxins that they mainly can't name, up your metabolic rate with intensive yoga practice (because clearly asana is the path to self worth - once you're hot, your worth goes up), send your nervous system into outer space with kundalini yoga just to prove they can, aromatherapize you, teach you the 7 habits of highly successful people, the four agreements, the secret, the 10th insight, the seven levels of hell, the 7 laws of happiness, 108,000 sun salutations... I sometimes imagine what it's like when several of these authors are in a room together. Are they smiling and chatting, secretly thinking, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, 4 agreements, blah blah blah...my 7 laws were first. Here comes the chicken soup for the soul guy! I should find out who's doing his PR these days." Really.
Some people have amazing gifts. And learning about ourselves any way we can is hugely important. What upsets me is that it has become so commonplace for people to claim 'amazingness' that it is no longer meaningful. It's an unspoken requirement that people claim amazingness in order to attract students/clients. What if you don't believe it's 'amazing' that healing happens? What if healing is the natural result of seeking to be healed? What if the healing is largely a result of meaningful connection? In many cases the New Age falls way short of amazing - it still makes its bread and butter on women trying to find a good man. Oh wait, sorry - they call it seeking the love you deserve, not trying to find a good man. Sexism is alive and well in the New White spirituality, but it's been re-packaged and re-worded to fit your new cosmic profile. Pardon my saying so, but being labeled a 'goddess' is a rather poor substitute for real respect. I say this for a big reason that people hate to hear: women do the self-improving! Women take all those courses! Women do the praying! Women spend their lives on becoming the best person they can be before they die.Women are financing and validating this whole business! Men are usually 15% of any student base. So why are men the highest paid 'teachers', authors, gurus, healers?! Hmmmm, let's think...the highest priced gurus are men, and their clients are mostly women...see a pattern here? Images of churches presided over by men, attended almost exclusively by women come to mind. Yoga schools financed by many talented women but run by men, owned by men... Men writing self-help books (about what women need to do to be happy) that woman buy by the boat load...Turns out all that praying, rearranging the furniture, placing of mirrors, yoga practice, Akashic refiling, taping words to your water bottle doesn't actually fundamentally change your conditioning. What if trusting women turns out to be what we need to do to solve our relationship issues? That is much less glamorous work. Changing conditioning comes from observing how thing are (not the Disney version), absorbing that, and changing behaviour. For women, that won't include acting like a 'goddess' (although it is very funny to see them act that way) or running from yoga to pilates to Whole Foods and back every day. It will not be joyous and fun and liberating to absorb the state of our world - or to stop living in a way that is toxic and disconnected. Change is no walk in the park.
The article about the trial was written by someone who likely was astounded to learn that someone could let themselves be cooked to death in the vain hope of being heated into a successful, lovable, respectable person. But to anyone in the New Age community, it's not surprising that people will mistakenly believe that the more they are willing to 'let go' of (read, the more things you're willing to do even if you don't understand how they work), the higher the subsequent reward could be - should be (must be, according to Oprah and that flake who wrote Eat, Pray, and then Pray to be ME!). In fact I think a lot of New Agers, if asked about the deaths, might say something like, "That was their souls' journey" or the classic, "I'm just so glad I've attracted something better for myself than that." And there was probably some agonizing over cups of Yogi Tea (created by another self-proclaimed guru) and much exclaiming about how this tragedy does not properly represent New Age spirituality. (I sort of wish they'd just go ahead and call it the New White spirituality and get it over with. We're talking about the exact same values.) We need to do some soul searching, my fellow new age professionals, about this - we need to look at this and ask ourselves if it may have happened, in part, due to a general lack of humility. Do we say things to our students and clients that are not really true? Do we make promises we have no way to back up? Do we recognize the difference between being positive and being delusional?
Dying in a sweat lodge run by some white guy claiming to possess native wisdom when clearly he's a yuppie in khaki pants spewing nonsense on Oprah's couch is TOTALLY on the list of possible things that could befall you if you're in enough pain. I've been crazy enough to think about suicide in my youth, and I certainly bought my share of amulets and crystals when my life was just one train wreck after another. I've listened intently to descriptions of how strategically placed crystals could clear up my imbalances, how repeating ancient mantras could create a new groove in my soul deep enough to trump the broken record of pain I was living, to how prayer and letting go could transform my world from chaos to bright, clean, easy happiness. But the real message here, and this is so key, is that people will almost always tell you the solution is outside yourself, and the more it costs, the more actual value it holds (Deeppockets Chopra, anyone?) I cannot stand this disconnect anymore - just so my friends know clearly which side of the universe I pitch my tent - there is an underlying reality and it is good (water does always seek its own level, pigs do not fly). There is no way to know in advance what will heal you (or harm you). No one can guarantee you healing. Being healed will not make you 'successful' or instantly rich. It will usually be enough reward just to be healed, and people who actually have been healed will be very flexible about the rest (we're happy to be here in the present moment instead of in hell).
That's why the sweat lodge deaths have been on my mind so much - they illustrate perfectly what is going wrong with the New Age, which comprises the yoga community, which is important to me. These folks died because they were bamboozled into thinking they could purchase an express pass to a new self. There is none. No matter how awesome your vision board is, it's still just a cork board. But there are plenty of good methods for real change out there. Yoga is one - pick your teachers carefully and be an alert student, not a follower. Stay away from teachers who tell you who you are, what you are, or what you need. Hang close to people who are curious about what you have to say about yourself, and who are at ease saying "I don't know" when they don't know.
What happens when 'teachers' act as if there is no underlying reality and just make shit up day after day, with the benchmark for the quality of their bs being whether it sells or not? This: some people will find this squishy logic very appealing, and some will pay lots of money to get teachers to answer their spiritual questions in such a way that the paying customer always comes out looking good. If the 'student' (read, client) is rich, they want to hear that they deserve it, karmically speaking, and should not waste time thinking about those less fortunate, who obviously need to take responsibility for their own bad karma (and pay to learn how to rectify their cosmic profile. Everyone should be rich once their karma is in order. Never mind that the 'teacher' probably doesn't understand karma in the first place). If they're poor, they want to hear they're on the verge of fixing that - they just need to pay the 'teacher' to bring out their inherent self worth, which will result in the world upping their net worth (for how could it not be so?). Don't bother reminding them that a majority of the greatest human beings have been, and continue to be, poor. Oh Amy don't be such a zero-sum pessimist! My wealth has nothing to do with anyone else's poverty! Never mind the fact that the world financial crisis is proving zero-sum pessimism is pretty right on. It turns out that if certain people and/or groups continue to get richer and richer, that wealth actually did come out of someone else's pockets! Stating the obvious? Not in this country, my friend.
In order to achieve your karmic makeover they will offer to: change your Akashic record, take you into past lives, cleanse your colon, excessively purify you of toxins that they mainly can't name, up your metabolic rate with intensive yoga practice (because clearly asana is the path to self worth - once you're hot, your worth goes up), send your nervous system into outer space with kundalini yoga just to prove they can, aromatherapize you, teach you the 7 habits of highly successful people, the four agreements, the secret, the 10th insight, the seven levels of hell, the 7 laws of happiness, 108,000 sun salutations... I sometimes imagine what it's like when several of these authors are in a room together. Are they smiling and chatting, secretly thinking, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, 4 agreements, blah blah blah...my 7 laws were first. Here comes the chicken soup for the soul guy! I should find out who's doing his PR these days." Really.
Some people have amazing gifts. And learning about ourselves any way we can is hugely important. What upsets me is that it has become so commonplace for people to claim 'amazingness' that it is no longer meaningful. It's an unspoken requirement that people claim amazingness in order to attract students/clients. What if you don't believe it's 'amazing' that healing happens? What if healing is the natural result of seeking to be healed? What if the healing is largely a result of meaningful connection? In many cases the New Age falls way short of amazing - it still makes its bread and butter on women trying to find a good man. Oh wait, sorry - they call it seeking the love you deserve, not trying to find a good man. Sexism is alive and well in the New White spirituality, but it's been re-packaged and re-worded to fit your new cosmic profile. Pardon my saying so, but being labeled a 'goddess' is a rather poor substitute for real respect. I say this for a big reason that people hate to hear: women do the self-improving! Women take all those courses! Women do the praying! Women spend their lives on becoming the best person they can be before they die.Women are financing and validating this whole business! Men are usually 15% of any student base. So why are men the highest paid 'teachers', authors, gurus, healers?! Hmmmm, let's think...the highest priced gurus are men, and their clients are mostly women...see a pattern here? Images of churches presided over by men, attended almost exclusively by women come to mind. Yoga schools financed by many talented women but run by men, owned by men... Men writing self-help books (about what women need to do to be happy) that woman buy by the boat load...Turns out all that praying, rearranging the furniture, placing of mirrors, yoga practice, Akashic refiling, taping words to your water bottle doesn't actually fundamentally change your conditioning. What if trusting women turns out to be what we need to do to solve our relationship issues? That is much less glamorous work. Changing conditioning comes from observing how thing are (not the Disney version), absorbing that, and changing behaviour. For women, that won't include acting like a 'goddess' (although it is very funny to see them act that way) or running from yoga to pilates to Whole Foods and back every day. It will not be joyous and fun and liberating to absorb the state of our world - or to stop living in a way that is toxic and disconnected. Change is no walk in the park.
The article about the trial was written by someone who likely was astounded to learn that someone could let themselves be cooked to death in the vain hope of being heated into a successful, lovable, respectable person. But to anyone in the New Age community, it's not surprising that people will mistakenly believe that the more they are willing to 'let go' of (read, the more things you're willing to do even if you don't understand how they work), the higher the subsequent reward could be - should be (must be, according to Oprah and that flake who wrote Eat, Pray, and then Pray to be ME!). In fact I think a lot of New Agers, if asked about the deaths, might say something like, "That was their souls' journey" or the classic, "I'm just so glad I've attracted something better for myself than that." And there was probably some agonizing over cups of Yogi Tea (created by another self-proclaimed guru) and much exclaiming about how this tragedy does not properly represent New Age spirituality. (I sort of wish they'd just go ahead and call it the New White spirituality and get it over with. We're talking about the exact same values.) We need to do some soul searching, my fellow new age professionals, about this - we need to look at this and ask ourselves if it may have happened, in part, due to a general lack of humility. Do we say things to our students and clients that are not really true? Do we make promises we have no way to back up? Do we recognize the difference between being positive and being delusional?
Dying in a sweat lodge run by some white guy claiming to possess native wisdom when clearly he's a yuppie in khaki pants spewing nonsense on Oprah's couch is TOTALLY on the list of possible things that could befall you if you're in enough pain. I've been crazy enough to think about suicide in my youth, and I certainly bought my share of amulets and crystals when my life was just one train wreck after another. I've listened intently to descriptions of how strategically placed crystals could clear up my imbalances, how repeating ancient mantras could create a new groove in my soul deep enough to trump the broken record of pain I was living, to how prayer and letting go could transform my world from chaos to bright, clean, easy happiness. But the real message here, and this is so key, is that people will almost always tell you the solution is outside yourself, and the more it costs, the more actual value it holds (Deeppockets Chopra, anyone?) I cannot stand this disconnect anymore - just so my friends know clearly which side of the universe I pitch my tent - there is an underlying reality and it is good (water does always seek its own level, pigs do not fly). There is no way to know in advance what will heal you (or harm you). No one can guarantee you healing. Being healed will not make you 'successful' or instantly rich. It will usually be enough reward just to be healed, and people who actually have been healed will be very flexible about the rest (we're happy to be here in the present moment instead of in hell).
That's why the sweat lodge deaths have been on my mind so much - they illustrate perfectly what is going wrong with the New Age, which comprises the yoga community, which is important to me. These folks died because they were bamboozled into thinking they could purchase an express pass to a new self. There is none. No matter how awesome your vision board is, it's still just a cork board. But there are plenty of good methods for real change out there. Yoga is one - pick your teachers carefully and be an alert student, not a follower. Stay away from teachers who tell you who you are, what you are, or what you need. Hang close to people who are curious about what you have to say about yourself, and who are at ease saying "I don't know" when they don't know.
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