June in the Galaxy: Nature, the Elements, and Evolution (Change or Die)

Are we all evolving into crabs? (spoiler alert: no, we aren't, but there's something to learn there)

Happy June, Galaxy! Let me first say: Happy Pride Month

Now, please enjoy this video that I laugh my ass off to every June 1st. Talk about “the show must go on” energy! Leslie Uggams has no idea what those lyrics are, but she’s gonna sing SOMETHING, and it’s iconic.

Okay, hope you took the time to watch that, because it’s going to come back around.

So maybe a week or two ago, someone somewhere mentioned to me that the crab body shape has evolved among disparate species over 5 times. I immediately thought, “Are humans going to eventually look like crabs, with little crab hands instead of fingers?” The answer to that is no, by the way. If you want more info about how evolution loves crabs (it’s called carcinization), you can read this little Scientific American article. But also, think about humans with crab hands, and let yourself giggle about that.

My thoughts on carcinization continued long after the humor of humans with crab hands had dissipated, because I was also mulling over nature and evolution as it relates to our theme this month, which is nature and the elements. We often plan this theme during the summer months, since we are finally reaping the reward of getting through the cold, dreary winter days and are frantically interfacing with our beautiful Midwestern surroundings.

A question that I often ask myself is “what do I have to learn from this?” I could pose the question because of a challenging professional situation, or an interpersonal interaction, or a book I’m reading, or a walk through the forest. When I happen to be in a yoga class that I’m not 100% a fan of (that does sometimes happen, though not at my studio…), I ALWAYS ask myself this question, actually. It’s my experience that if I stop and really make myself pay attention, there’s almost always something to learn.

I know that the early yogis loved to go out into nature and many aspects of the practice evolved from that communion with nature. I know that many of the yoga poses that we practice are evocative of plant life, animal life, insect life, and landforms like mountains and water. I love this picture of yogis practicing in varied outdoor settings. Look at this picture! This looks way cooler than any yoga class in a boring old studio.

So… what does nature have to teach us? Evolution and adaptation are everywhere! Change is constant. Change or die, as my teacher Dana once said. If we’re connected and tuned in to nature, it is constantly reminding us of the power, presence, and inevitability of evolutionary change.

How does that connect to our practice of yoga, especially aspects like the why of the physical practice, or practice styles, or the right and wrong of alignment? Back to the crabs, there are certain types of adaptations and evolutionary trends that seem to happen in more than one species, in more than one time, because it likely is the best choice for the challenges and qualities of a given environment. This is called convergent evolution - it’s why both bats and birds and moths have wings, or why sauropod dinosaurs and giraffes have long necks, why earth worms and snakes both slither sans-limb, and why koalas, chameleons, and humans all have opposable thumbs. While there might not be anything that connects a giraffe directly to a sauropod, there’s something about that long neck that both species found favorable and evolved toward.

And while my reasons for practicing yoga might be quite different from another person’s reasons - or even another yogi’s reason, 500 or 1000 years ago, somehow it brought us around to the same, or a similar, practice.

Though my ideas around alignment might be different than Iyengar’s ideas around alignment (I sort of don’t believe in alignment anymore… that’s a thought for a different Galaxy Dispatch…), if I do a Triangle, and compare it to Iyengar’s Triangle, I think most people are going to know they’re the same asana.

And if I’m constantly clinging to a belief, mode of practice, outdated movement science, outdated understanding of who I am as a person - if I’m clinging to the idea that life isn’t constantly in flux, that’s a perfect recipe for unhappiness.

I will suffer if I resist the flow of evolution.

Nature teaches us yogis that we can shape shift from plant, to animal, to mineral, and back again. Nature nudges us to evolve when presented with new information, new opportunity, new perspective, or a changing environment. Nature inherently comforts us when we struggle with change, reminding us that even though we can never count on complete stability, some things will come back around: the giraffe’s neck, our sweet little thumbs, the claw of the crab, the slither of the snake and the worm. Everything changes, but things come back around.

Though Patanjali’s yoga looks different from early Tantric yoga, and early Tantric yoga looks different from late Tantric yoga, and all that yoga looks waaaay different from today’s Western adaptation of yoga - the thread is there. Our responsibility is to adapt while keeping a firm understanding of where we’ve been, what threads keep us connected, and what keeps coming back around in our yogic convergent evolution.

I think maybe Leslie Uggams is teaching us that, too, in this clip. Rather than stop the show, she kept flowing, imperfectly, embracing the changeability of nature, and she eventually got right back into the flow. The story is that she was using cue cards, because it was a last-minute addition to the show. It also happened to have rained, and the cue card person slipped and fell in the mud, along with the cue cards. So she just had to make up some lyrics until she could get back to something that seemed familiar. If that’s not rolling with nature’s punches, and learning into adaptation and evolution, I don’t know what is.

Change or die.

Adapt or go extinct.

Notice the adaptations that keep coming back.

Pay attention and stay close to the heart of nature: there’s a lot to learn there.