The Yoga of Time...

By now, most folks have heard something about yoga... and, likely most, when they think of yoga, it is "standing on one's head" or twisting like a pretzle... and perhaps some fewer think of meditation when thinking about yoga... To be sure, there is something at least somewhat true in each of these reactions... however...

​Yoga, at its heart, is all about Time... moment-by-moment Time... 

​The word itself contains its Secret: yoga means Oneness: to yoke the soul with the Divine... but, yogi's know that the Divine never left the person (or any person, part, or particle of creation), so, yoga is really a path of Remembrance that consciously cultivates, moment-by-moment, a sacred life through sacred living in Time...

Mystics tend to look out upon the world with an attitude of surprise: as in a mirror, the Divine is always looking back at us: and always with adoration... "What does the Divine do all day? She lies on a maternity bed giving birth..." (Meister Eckhart). We are all supposed to be mid-wives to the Birthing of Divinity! And for this, we need Time... we need a spirituality that creates space for Sacred Time... (you can call it yoga if you wish...)

​Instead, what are we doing? How are we living?

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Rumi, in his life and in his poetry, cultivated space and sacred presence... If we are going to ponder the yoga of Time, then we need to consider our use of Time: and more to the point, how do we effectively use the very limited amount of Time that is our personal allotment? And digging deeper, how do we cultivate lifestyles of simple living, harmony, and "right tribe" so as to be able to increase our freedom? 

Love might be looking back at us from our mirrors, but if we turn and rush away into the cultural madness of ump-teen, hours-upon-hours of work: not for one's daily bread, but for "moving up in a frantic world": we will, inevitably, have to put aside whatever mystical inclination that we might have had: and dole out the bucks for therapy... Oneness is given: but how often, and by whom, is it received? We need to "yoke" ourselves to Sacred Time...

​Weirdly, it has taken a brutal pandemic and corresponding economic struggles to get more folks into their kitchens and out into their gardens. For all of those taken by the covid virus, like every other means of death, more Time is the one thing they would have wished for themselves: Time to treasure family, friends, meals, relaxation, play, gardens, kissing, holding hands, walking and talking with a beloved, saying one is sorry for not having been better, and all of the other things that are of genuine value...

​One could say that the intentional cultivation of Simple Living and Sacred Time is the architecture of happiness... You, I, We are alive today! Yahoo! Will you, I, or We be alive tomorrow? That is the question, isn't it? The goal, I think, is to die young -- as late as possible! To see with eyes opened, everyday, by wonder. To walk with your hand held in another, everyday. To make something, everyday, that has spoken to you to be made: it could be a song, a poem, a cheese enchilada, a home-baked loaf of bread. To kiss, to praise, to surprise someone with a bit of your freely given Sacred Time. To do nothing of what the dominant culture considers to be of value! To loaf. To read a book. To draw a comic. To dance in your backyard: to dance in your frontyard! All of this, and more, is the Yoga of Time: and! there is still more Time for meditation, standing on your head, chanting, and saying your prayers: along with the layers of silly that is so adored by the Divine Beloved!