Yesterday my long time yoga teacher John Friend turned his back on a group of his own teachers who have been working tirelessly to come to an agreement with him about the future of a teacher run Anusara yoga. The vision that came into the world through him was remarkable but, as a colleague said, " the vessel has become corrupted." I have been waiting to see if John possessed a true warrior's heart, courageous enough to dive into his own darkness. But no. But for us, yes!
Yes! As we walk away from the Anusara "system," we walk into space, possibility, creativity, deeper heart, the opening to generate new life and ideas. We continually transcend the systems that birth us. And when we transcend them, those systems can either embrace our growth and nourish it, or be threatened by it and try to close us down and maintain the status quo. The negative father archetype arises, a form of punitive exclusivity. Becoming your own inner authority is a life's work, and you are forced to take the next step in claiming your own genius.
My strongest prayer for John and my prescription is that he unplug himself, confront himself truly, go dark, put some vegetable seeds in the ground, nurture them into growth, harvest them, cook them, eat them. That he stay off airplanes, computers, and telephones. That he wrestle his demons in a lonely cabin by the sea, with no women, no fans, no audience, no way out, no communication - for a long time. May this be so.
It is important right now for everyone to continue their art forms, whether writing, dancing, yoga-ing, painting, musing. And maybe not put it on public media right away, but sit on that golden egg a good long while so it does not hatch prematurely and malformed. Know that there will be some time of feeling unmoored, uncreative, cut off from source. Keep your dear self company in the formation of your own next blossoming. Bring the words out when ready, birth them out with the vitally important healing they contain, the elevator down and in to our/my/the deepest and most true realizations. We will all need what we will each bring forth and we will recognize and know its value when we see it.
These insights will heal us, unite us, challenge us, break us, mend us. They will look unfamiliar but strangely attractive. They will make us fall back in love with our yoga. Maybe not tomorrow, because loss, scar forming, and personal truth seeing take their mysterious untold time. Some will heal sooner, as they are familiar with this experience of
scarring - oh, yes, this again. Others will take longer, as their heart skin
is achingly baby soft and unfamiliar with scars.
Betrayal torches the soft trusting heart and yet each heart is more resilient than it knows. It will never find this resilience if it is not tested. During the testing, one will say and do things that are less than perfect, less than skillful. The wound is open - it hurts stunningly even to breathe on it. But in time, scar tissue, stronger than skin, a badge of survival, forms.
Instead of the "Merry Band" we are now the Yoga Scar Tribe, hurt, opened
to our own brilliance, forced now to claim it, speak our own words (let
us never say "Shine Out" again, but find our own precious way to
express this.) We will always recognize one another because of these scars. Show me your scar and I'll show you mine. Maybe you will tattoo yours or drape it in lovely fabric or audaciously show it off. Maybe you will be bold with it, maybe you will be shy and private with it. Regardless, everyone, everyone, has gifts that will be reaped from this wounding. I can't wait to see them.
I love you all.
Photo by David Jay from "The Scar Project," portraits of young breast cancer victims.
