“A Good Name for God Is…….

Not Me”

Says Anne Lamott.

~~~
About 200 years ago or so, pre-pandemic and pre-several-Kripalu-CEOs, I worked with a magnificently marvelous woman named Jodie.  We together ran a massive department at Kripalu called Ongoing Programs, which included R&R, the Yoga Team, the Dance Team, the Who-Even-Knew-What-Other-Teams.  

It brought new meaning to the concept of “ongoing”.

From early morning yoga classes to evening concerts, the classes never stopped.  That roller coaster ride was the doorway to magic for me.  The teachings, the legacy of Swami Kripalu lived and vibrated in the program rooms constantly.  I saw my job as both stewarding the teachings while making them accessible to all our guests, no matter the medium of transmission, be it yoga on the mat, an evening concert, a workshop, wacky and wild drumming/dancing—whatever.

This moment in time was just the other side of the post-ashram /pre-corporate Kripalu, so Jodie and I had free and wonderful reign to make stuff up for this huge area as we went along.

Make stuff up?  Yes, with a dose of integrity and a tad of thought, yep, we made stuff up.

Let me tell you what I mean.

Chanukah?  No problem.  I’d write up a one-pager about Chanukah from a yogic perspective.  No Marketing department had to approve the fonts and no curriculum director had to sign off on its ideas.

Post the sign.

Put some latkas, potato pancakes, on the food line

Presto:  a yogically inspired Chanukah.

It was ours to create.  

And It was beyond-uber-fun to work with Jodie.  We did a pretty darn good job with what we had and rocked each other’s worlds with laughter.

Jodie was so irreverent, a truth-teller of Class AAAA+.  She would simply call it, whatever It was, as it was.  But it was her humor, which coated the truth with belly-aching, side-splitting, out-of-control laughter.
Her expressions, wide-eyed innocence, amusing language with a strong dose of inner dignity—

She was wonderful.

In those days, Jodie had a favorite mantra.  Rolling her eyes to the heavens, confronting the Gods and Monsters that Be, she would make a fist, raise it into the air, and from the depth of her soul, speak it:

“BASTARDS.”

You had to be there.  

The truth of it, yep, there are bastards, and yep, shitty things happen.  Woven into that truth was her expressive, big-eyed, sassily-speaking amusement about it—which nobody else probably would have said aloud, while many were thinking—she just nailed it.

She nailed it.

She stuck the landing.

She nailed the truth in a way that it both landed and opened the door to the next moment.

Being able to laugh at it made it palatable, livable, and out-livable.  

Humor used skillfully is a brilliant tool.

Which brings me to Anne Lamott.

She is a personal hero of mine.

Her writing, her depth, her faith, her capacity, like Jodie, to just call the bullshit, but in a way that moves it forward and frees us of it, is wonderous.  

Humor and depth!

It is educational.
It is spiritual.
It is blessed.
It is healing.

I have loved Anne’s non-fiction, learned from her pain along with her glorious celebration of life.  I would like to share her with you here, from a Ted Talk of hers.  Please give yourself this gift:

~~~
“12 Truths I Learned from Life and Writing”
Anne Lamott

~~~
Friends,

What touched you?
What tickled you?
What opened you to thought?
To heart?
To healing?

~~~
Dear Friends, on your hero’s journey, what do you know to be true?  Or, as Anne says, “that which you are almost positive about”?

I am almost positive that—

• If I don’t drink or drug, I will be given fantastic moment after fantastic moment, no matter what happens.
• If I eat sugar, I will want MORE SUGAR.
• If I look for the beauty in the moment, it meets me many-fold, every single time.
• If I accept myself, I am free.

Please send in your responses—I would love to share them with you.

~~~
Dear Friends—
As we find our way
Into March,
May we
Breathe
Relax
And 
Be

With the 
Softening
Light,

With the 
Warming
Sun,

With the
Longer
Days.

We got this.
One day at a time.

All blessings,
Aruni
~~~

Thursday, March 4th, @ 2:00.  It is a wonderful way to connect to self, to other, to all.

PayPal link is here

Your payment will indicate your registration.

http://coacharuni.com/thursdaycircles/

It started with squeaking.
Like, squeaking.
I tried to record the said-squeak
But was just not fast enough
On the draw
With the phone-thingy.

Squeaking was car-centric.
We drive a lot,
She and I.
Most of the time,
She just hangs,
Looks out the window,
Longs for the front seat silently
(never!)
And
We pass
Our Berkshire miles
Together.

These squeaks were different.
Tell-tale squeaks.
A little more frantic
Of a squeak.

Once I stopped,
Pulled over,
Climbed into the back-seat
(muddy blankie!)

To find she had
Disengaged herself
From her halter-seat-buckle,
Her tiny leg wrapped around it.

A rush of bad mothering terrors
Filled me.

She was right—
It was a tell-tale squeak, indeed.
Worth squeaking about.
Buckled into a seat
Does suck.

Agreed.

Yet other squeaks seemed unfounded.
Undefined.

I find the squeaking
Generally
Unsettling
But not horrible.

My spouse leans
Toward The Horrible.

So we asked the animal communicator.

The conversation went like this—
(disbelievers, just know that I believe:)

Niki, what’s up with the squeaking in the car?

Quote Niki the Dog:

I just get anxious sometimes.
I just want to get to where we are going,
To the next family adventure.

I’m anxious!

This next part was most interesting.

Mom,
It’s not your issue.
I’m fine.
I’ll work it out with myself.

And she ended with a request for front-seat co-piloting.
It was and always will be denied.

A dog that knows her co-dependency boundaries
As well as
Her seating preferences!

Pondering the squeaking,
I realize,
I,
Too,
Want to get
To where
We are going.

Are we there yet?

Where are we going?

I, too, want
The next adventure
To safely unfold.

Are we there yet?
Where are we going?

Niki is squeaking for me.

I am anxious too.

This insight brings a smile,
A breath of relief.

~~~
Pondering her squeaking,
I remembered Rumi,
The wonderous
The remarkable
Ecstatic poet from
13th century Persia.

Here is Coleman Barks, his major translator,
With one of my favorites—

LOVE DOG

Please give a listen:

Yesterday was a hard day.  
All of it, everything, seemed dense,
Too heavy to even imagine a shift,
Despite the shifts that 
Have begun
To creak 
Themselves
Open.

It was a couch day, interrupted by dog walks, errands, 
Stuff.
But a couch day, nevertheless.

I napped and moped and erranded myself
Through the day.

Finally,
Hallelujah—
It was time!

OH THAT TIME,
The one that seems
To get earlier
These days.

The time to get in bed.

At 7:00 p.m.,
DELIGHTED AND RELIEVED
I cozied into bed…

(This is who I have become, 
The highlight of my day
Comes
At
The end of the day,
Most of it due to Most Adorable Animal Bed-Mate, 
(see pix below)

I quieted down.
I snuggled in.

I began to consider,

I began to ponder.

And I remembered
The words that 
Joe Biden spoke
At the memorial
For the COVID losses.

“To heal, we have to remember,” 

He said,
From a place of deep knowing.

Hum.

Perhaps I was pushing down too much?
Keeping myself too freakin’ busy?
Working too much?
Getting on with it all, too much?
Netflix-ing too much and with too little discernment?
Prematurely transcending?

Too much?

Perhaps I felt safe enough
Just for a few moments
With the new national shifts,
To begin to consider
My losses.

So
I let myself 
Remember 
What I missed.

And then I remembered.

And then I remembered.

I miss you.

~~~