Tag Archive New Year

ByGD

Happy New Year

The first yoga class I attended in the new year began with Kali mudra. The teacher talked about how our understanding of Kali is limited by our narrow understanding of the concept of destruction. People automatically think of destruction as a bad thing, as if it is always negative. If pressed, we might acknowledge that death and destruction are necessary – the circle of life and all that – while still feeling like it’s the bad part of the circle.

But all change is predicated on destruction of what came before. A lot of people think of change as a negative, too, but that is just fear talking. Growth and improvement are both forms of change. Destruction is also purification, like a refiner burning off impurities from precious metal or distillation producing the holy water of life.

When my yoga teacher talked about Kali, I was suddenly reminded of the first video game I ever played. It was on a computer at my friend’s house – her family was the first one I knew that had a computer. It had a big screen that only displayed the color green. The game was simple. By clicking the mouse, you placed a small green line on the screen. A little circle shot across the screen and bounced off those lines like a billiard ball. There may have been a bullseye to hit or goalposts that you were supposed to pass the ball through. But the more times you clicked, the more the screen filled with lines, boxing in the ball until it could no longer move. Then the game was over, and the screen had to be wiped clean before you could play again. Kali provides that kind of screen-wiping reset.

Kali wrecks the boxes we build around ourselves. Kali doesn’t just transcend the bullshit. She destroys it. She can wipe out the “shoulds” and “musts” of accepted wisdom, and tear apart the tangled nets of convention and expectation that we trap ourselves in. And in the wake of her destruction, we are free to become our most true selves.

This new year, I wish for you what I wish for myself. Be a force of destruction in 2024.

ByGD

Plum Blossoms

plum blossomsMy freshman year in high school, I had to read the book The Gossamer Years. I think I was the only person in my class who actually finished the diary of a lady of Heian Japan. It was a hard read, but I was fascinated by the world it described; it seemed stranger than anything out of science fiction. I think that book was the first time I heard of the New Year being connected to plum blossoms.

Growing up on the desert, plum blossoms were an exotic concept to begin with. I didn’t know about lunar calendars then, either, so I imagined these magical flowers blooming in January. I was so excited when, nearly 15 years later, I bought a house with a plum tree by the kitchen door.

For most people, cherry blossoms are the important Asian flower obsession. But for me, the new year begins with the plum blossoms.

ByGD

This is the End

My To-Be-Read Pile

My to-be-read bookcase             (and floor pile)

The end of 2014, that is. And I feel like I should have something deep and powerful to say, but I’m all out of bang. All I’ve got is a whimper. Which is not to say the year was awful or ended badly, although Pneumonia November wasn’t what I had in mind. It’s just been a very family-filled couple of weeks (as it should be). I haven’t had a lot of time to think about blog posts (or to hear myself think). But as the year wraps up, there is one thing I’d like to celebrate.

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ByGD

Stevens Passages: It’s All Fun & Games Until Someone Gets Hurt

water at sunsetA long time ago, in a lifetime far away, I began each year with a dip in Puget Sound. My friends and I would meet at Golden Gardens or Alki, suit up in keikogi, and warm up as if for class. Then, sometimes with a banzai, and sometimes in meditative silence, we would wade chest high into the frigid water. Sometimes we would submerge completely, other times conscientiously keep head and hands dry. Then each of us, when we felt we had been in the water long enough to prove a point, would wade back to the beach where hot coffee and sake awaited. Read More