Ayurveda and the accusation of...

May 21, 2013 by

Ayurveda and the accusation of pseudoscience

These days, when I sit with clients as an ayurvedic practitioner, I know that I’m a time traveller to the future. I’m looking at people’s energies, habits and uniqueness through the very old lens I’ve cobbled together from multiple teachers, threads, and fascinations. This old lens is not pseudoscientific in itself, because it arises in a pre-scientific age -- but it will become pseudoscience if it forgets its heritage, and believes it should compete with biomedicine.

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Notes on the nirguṇa / saguṇa ...

Apr 25, 2013 by

Notes on the nirguṇa / saguṇa paradox, by way of homage to Aghori Babarazzi

Aghori's masala of cruel empathy flavours the absurd task of making us naked and strange to ourselves, forcing us to wriggle, shift, and grow in the glare of our own contradictions. It’s a dirty, dirty job, but somebody – I mean nobody – I mean somebody who’s made himself a nobody pretending to be everybody – has to do it.

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negotiating the anxiety of inf...

Apr 3, 2013 by

negotiating the anxiety of influence (threads of yoga ephemera)

Philosophical revisionism is an act of quiet patricide. As such, it is riven with fear and doubt.

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Recovering the Era of Water Me...

Feb 24, 2013 by

Recovering the Era of Water Medicine through Ayurveda

We can dream of the story of human medicine through the progression of the elements, from earth to space. Today, we sit on the juncture between fire and air modalities. But we long for an older water medicine.

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The Problem of “God” in Obama’...

Dec 22, 2012 by

The Problem of “God” in Obama’s Newtown Elegy

I can hear, if I get really quiet, an embodied sacramental language of mourning. A language that is aware of the function of its poetry, and doesn’t allow its poetry to bury any evidence.

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It’s Time for Yogis to Develop...

Nov 4, 2012 by

It’s Time for Yogis to Develop Transparent and Democratic Community in Their Hometowns: some notes on John Friend and Kausthub Desikachar

I think we can agree: we really want to stop creating yoga schools that purport to teach yoga when their corporate and spiritual bureaucracies force them to do the exact opposite.

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easter elegy for jenna morriso...

Apr 8, 2012 by

easter elegy for jenna morrison

I have to do this now while I am alive and awake. memories are fragments pulling towards each other by the magnet of absence. the people who are still here, circling a gap. drops on a window conjoining in gravity. two small hands, reaching into space.

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a few pages from an abandoned ...

Mar 14, 2012 by

a few pages from an abandoned novel, circa 2003

You are born into a body and a place that you do not and will not ever understand. (Intervening happy moment: something impressionistic in the nursery.) You learn through pain and fear to accept the logic and permanence of pain and fear. (Intervening happy moment: Cookie Monster.)

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grounding anusara 3: intimacy,...

Mar 7, 2012 by

grounding anusara 3: intimacy, methods, therapy, and making it open-source

1. In yoga it is obvious that economies of scale obstruct relationship. Go big or go home? I’ll go home, thank you very much. Let’s think smaller. 2. Transglobal corporations need definable and saleable products. A Yoga Method with “Universal Principles” works well for its marketing, as we have seen. But a product is not therapy.

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grounding anusara 2: a brief a...

Mar 2, 2012 by

grounding anusara 2: a brief ayurvedic follow-up consultation

The homeless, hyper-mobile, light, fast-paced, and breathless quality of the Anusara collapse can be pacified through various expressions of warmth, weight, stillness, moisture, regular stool production, oiliness, and familial cuddling. Ayurvedic therapy begins here: identifying a central imbalance, and applying balancing/opposing forces to existing vulnerabilities. The most precious thing I learned from my teachers was 'There's nothing good or bad. A thing is always good-for, or bad-for." The technique uses any tool available to correct qualitative imbalances in diet, asana and other physical pursuits, career path, relationships, meditation experience, and even spiritual path.

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