Re-Entry

This morning's practice was the first since Wednesday. It felt wonderful and truly liberating, even though the back was sore from excessive driving and lack of exercise.

So there were lots of pops and adjustments. When you get a sternum pop you know you're doing something right. Because of the sore back, I decided to forego "the bow" pose (dhanurasana) in favor of the "the boat" (navasana).

Breathing was a little tough, especially at first. I think the smoke from the wood fires I'm lighting to heat the house might be a little harmful. Most of it goes up the chimney, but some escapes into the room. Managed to get the pace and and timing of the breath under control by the time I relaxed into a very calm, 21-breath pranayama.

I dreamed of that fraud Barack Obama last night, and of his two well-behaved little daughters. They all seemed very happy. I dreamed of people being executed by lethal injection, looking as if they were being crucified. And I dreamed I was living with several young guys, one of whom had an infestation of ants crawling on the wall behind the head of his bed, along with a bunch of rotting brown rice grains stuck to the wall, as if there had been a rice explosion in his bed.

After yesterday's post here on the subject of acceptance, I began practice with a prayer this morning, interrupted by the sudden realization that everything I wrote and thought on both blogs is contained in the three lines of A.A.'s Serenity Prayer:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.*

*Authorship generally attributed to the German theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, in about 1936, although the attribution is disputed by some. See Wikipedia, s.v. "Serenity Prayer."

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