Monday, July 28, 2008

Possession Obsession



Within hours of publishing my first blog entry, I received an email from someone seeking my counsel. This sweet person said she emailed rather than posting a comment directly on the blog because she couldn't figure out how to post a comment. Now, blogspot is so easy to use, a--well, a dog--could blog. But I embrace even the technologically challenged in my efforts to help as many people as possible.

Here's the email:

ciao jersey!! benissimmo!!
my yoga teacher last week read the class a line from a poem that goes like this: "and there was nothing or no one to possess"
it keeps working on me- i feel like i am constantly trying to possess something or someone. do you have any insight on how i can get out of this hole?
love-d

Dear D,
Why is your yoga teacher reading poems during class? Shouldn't she be teaching you yoga during yoga class? When you go to poetry readings, do the poets teach yoga poses? I'm baffled. I think that's the biggest mistake humans make, trying to do too much, complicating simple things, mixing things together that are fine on their own. There you were, perfectly happy in your downward dog, breathing, perhaps fantasizing about what you were going to eat for breakfast when all of sudden your happy thoughts were interruped by poetry. Now you think you're in a hole. That's just a hole lotta crap.

Besides very few holes are too big to climb out of.

Except there was this one time when I was young--about 19 months old--when I was walking on the beach with my caretaker and one of her friends. They were kibitzing away, ignoring me, when I fell into a tide-pool-like-crevice and couldn't get out. I'll admit I felt a little panicky. But, D, I was a baby and I'm a shih-tzu; my legs are, like, 6 inches long, tops. You're a grown woman; a leggy woman at that. Whatever hole you're in, just jump out.

And remember, the only "possession" worth possessing is your serenity, which is why you practice yoga. Thus the answer to your conundrum is simple: avoid poetry.

Namaste, Jersey

2 comments:

Lynn said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jersey Fan said...

Oh. My. God.

Finally, the words have been spoken.

And words so simple. As they say... From the mouths of pups

AVOID POETRY!!!

It all makes sense to me now.

With deepest gratitude to the diggity dawg, I remain,

Odeon