July in the Galaxy: Meditation, the "Inner Limbs," and weeding the garden. Literally.
“Nature poets can’t walk across the backyard without tripping over an epiphany.” -Christian Wiman
Hey Galaxy, welcome to July! I’m going to jump right in and share one of my favorite phrases, coined by my friend and former coworker, Liliya, who was from Russia, and who sometimes had funny and perfect ways of saying things. She used to say to me: “I can’t care about that.” Which was sort of like “I don’t care about that,” but not exactly. I think it’s better and more clear than “I don’t care,” and also maybe a little bit more positive and acknowledging all the good that exists in the world. Like, I really want to care about so many things, but I only have so many minutes and so many cares, and right now, I cannot care about this thing. I use it a lot - I’ve used it especially a lot over the almost four years that I’ve been running the studio, because so many things had to be set aside so I could tend to this sweet little yoga space that requires quite a bit of my time, energy and cares.
Over the last year, though, I’ve been able to care about a few more things, because I have great support (hi Mary, you’re an angel, and I adore you) and I have a great teaching team and desk team (hi all the rest of you - I adore you all, too, and you are also angels). A couple weeks ago, I was walking from my garage to my back door, and I had a moment to truly see the absolute chaos that was the state of the vegetation in both my front and back yards, and I realized: I needed to weed my garden. Badly. I have the type of brain that looks at a big project and immediately feels overwhelmed and wants to quit. But I also have a mindfulness practice that has taught me, over the decade or so that I’ve been really working on it, that big jobs start with small, deliberate steps.
This month, we’re focusing on the “inner” limbs of yoga and meditation. And I realized that the task of weeding my garden was really the practice of mindfulness. So in that life imitates art, or nature imitates art vein, there are a few things I uncovered while weeding my garden that I thought I’d share.
The fifth limb, Pratyahara, asks us to draw our senses inward. Another way of thinking about this is that we’re turning our senses from constant external engagement, the dopamine hits of social media sharing and intake, and a mindset that is trained to be “anywhere but here,” to attending what is right in front of us, or within us. Rather than loudly announcing to my family that I was going to fix the absolute fucking mess that was our backyard, or post on Instagram that I was starting day one of my garden weeding challenge, I got to work. No anger, shame, blame, or grandiosity necessary.
The sixth limb, Dharana, asks us to learn how to focus. It’s an intentionally simple definition - just focus - although it’s not necessarily easy. This is often called “one-pointed attention,” and we might practice it when we direct our gaze to a certain, specific spot when we practice asana, or when we link a particular in breath or out breath with a particular move in a Vinyasa practice. I decided to take care of the very dead, very overgrown vine that was pulling the trellis away from the garage and crowding out the roses next to it. I decided that after about 15 or 20 minutes, if it took that long, I would call it quits for the day, and that was all I needed to do at that moment.
The seventh limb, Dhyana, is often what we might translate as meditation - it’s paying attention meaningfully, or paying attention to the mind and heart space. You might call it Paying Attention Plus (™). As I found small pieces of time over the warm summer days to start to weed my garden, I found myself working on my discernment: what plants were plants I wanted to keep? Which ones were weeds? How much did I need to clear, and what could stay? Even though it was tempting to want to walk away from a particularly stubborn patch of Snow on the Mountain, or avoid working around the thorns of the aforementioned roses, I used appropriate tools (gloves, shovel and gardening shears) and invited myself to stay with what was right in front of me.
The eighth limb, Samadhi, is sometimes translated as meditative absorption, a bliss state, or an experience of unification of physical and spiritual selves. There are many ways to break down the Sanskrit roots of the word, but one way is that “sama” translates as same, and “dhi” translates as consciousness. As I settled into the task of weeding the garden, there were moments when time passed incredibly quickly, when I got to watch my daughter join me and derive similar satisfaction from the work, and I uncovered some sweet discoveries - strawberries that had grown back from summers past, forgotten roses that were almost crowded out by invasive vines, a little bunny friend who liked to watch us work from the corner of the yard, and this:
I especially wanted to share this sweet day lily that I discovered back in the corner of my backyard, surrounded by weeds and vines. I had no idea these were growing in my yard. It’s a prairie blue eyes day lily, and I love it.
I won’t sugar coat this any more than I have: this process isn’t done, and it isn’t always pleasant. There is anger that comes up - how could I have let things get this bad? There are bug bites. There are sun burns. The process of meditation isn’t always pleasant, and a lot comes up as we ask ourselves to tend to our garden. But I’m realizing that this is work that I can continue to show up for and can continue to care about. It doesn’t have to be a 30-day challenge. I don’t have to announce to everyone on social media that I’m changing my life. I don’t need to post the results of the makeover, because it’s not a makeover. There aren’t dramatic changes, but there is steady progress. The job is never going to be done, actually. It’s a quiet, steadfast committing to showing up, and caring about something that I can care about.
Am I talking about weeding my garden? Or am I talking about meditation? Or is it sort of the same thing?
