Author: mremski
Excerpt from Family Wakes Us Up: the first post-natal letter
A letter from Family Wakes Us Up, my new book with Michael Stone.
There’s only one week left in our crowdfunding campaign to support its completion and publication.
You can support us by pre-ordering here!
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10/29/12
Dear Michael –
The clock says 4:37, my flesh says stay awake forever – you can’t miss any of this. My eyes are burning with bright exhaustion. He’s nursing and sleeping well, but it feels like I’m going through my own birth, and the labour has taken this whole nine days so far. Whenever I think I’m settling in for complete silence, I hear him breathe like another person within me, someone I have forgotten until now, someone coming in a dream, but no dream has ever pulsed so hot. Continue reading “Excerpt from Family Wakes Us Up: the first post-natal letter”
Mindfulness for Fathers: Giving Your Child Secret Space
A post in support of Family Wakes Us Up, a book I’m co-writing with Michael Stone. Please support the publication by donating here. Thank you!
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Our son Jacob is thirteen months. From dawn till dusk he treads the threshold between the togetherness we share with him and the secret space he is beginning to find in himself. At this age – all ages pass so quickly! – the contrast between the two is most visible in his relationship to books. Continue reading “Mindfulness for Fathers: Giving Your Child Secret Space”
Rob Ford Provokes Unplanned Family Therapy En Masse
Gigawatts of digital ink have been spilt over the tragi-comedy of my Mayor, Rob Ford. Lots of exposure for the disease of addiction, ironic homages to his manipulative brilliance and stewardship of “Dark Politics” and even a twisted love poem from Toronto’s own villainelle, Lynn Crosbie.
Continue reading “Rob Ford Provokes Unplanned Family Therapy En Masse”
Family Wakes Us Up — by Michael Stone and Matthew Remski (first published excerpt)
The following four letters open a new book I’m co-writing with Michael Stone about the spirituality of family life.
If We Erase “I am not my body”, What is Left of Yoga Philosophy?
The problem
Cameron Shayne’s usage of the “I am not my body” meme to rationalize his anti-social ethics was far less interesting – to me at least – than what happened when I attacked the meme itself. My basic position is that the metaphysical claim “I am not my body” is not only unsupported by the phenomenological sciences by which we actually live our lives, it can provide delusional cover for our vestigial asceticism, blind us to the privileges accrued by living bodies based upon appearance, origin, class, or gender, and promote the very dissociation from materiality that leads directly to our environmental crises.
Merely presenting this argument opened me to charges, from writer and teacher Chris Courtney among others, that I didn’t understand the fundamentals of yoga, that I was rejecting yoga in general, that I have no right to facilitate discussion in yoga philosophy, that I was being “overly-intellectual”, and that my lack of lineage disqualifies me from staking out a position. The message of my detractors is clear: let’s assess Shayne’s inner life and attack his behaviors, but not look closely at the metaphysical claims that support him: because, well, we rely on those claims ourselves, and anyone who doesn’t is off the yoga island.
Continue reading “If We Erase “I am not my body”, What is Left of Yoga Philosophy?”
Interrogating Yoga’s Binaries through Ayurveda, Feminism, and Queer Theory (a draft of some ideas I hope to get lots of help with)
of five things and two things
I often find myself teaching the five vāyus of Ayurvedic theory. There’s prāṇa, the downward inhalatory and gustatory wind that ends at the solar plexus. Udāna, the upward exhalatory and vocal wind that exits through the mouth, nose, and, in esoteric thought, the crown of the head. Samāna, the centripetal wind that moves to the navel centre to digest. Vyāna, the centrifugal circulatory wind that moves out from the heart. And apāna, the wind that moves downward with urine, stool, and the waves of orgasm and birthing. Continue reading “Interrogating Yoga’s Binaries through Ayurveda, Feminism, and Queer Theory (a draft of some ideas I hope to get lots of help with)”
A Selected Ayurveda Bibliography
(Some good sources, both popular and academic, I use for my coursework and consultation work… Not a complete list — please feel free to add favourites in the comments!)
Alter, Joseph S.. Yoga in modern India: the body between science and philosophy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004. Print.
Arikha, Noga. Passions and tempers: a history of the humours. New York, NY: Ecco, 2007. Print.
Atreya. Perfect balance: ayurvedic nutrition for mind, body, and soul. New York: Avery, 2001. Print.
Chatwin, Bruce. The songlines. New York: Viking, 1987. Print.
Cameron Shayne Is So Totally His Body. And Bodies Are Political.
Though the first descriptor in Cameron Shayne’s biography is “philosopher”, this clearly isn’t his true calling. No. What the founder of Budokon is really good at is shockingly gracious physical movement. Lithe and buoyant, he is a marvel of controlled relaxation, and relaxed, floating tensions. Continue reading “Cameron Shayne Is So Totally His Body. And Bodies Are Political.”
The Rosary (an excerpt)
An excerpt from a long poem of the same name (consisting of 108 “beads”) that explores the memes of beads, strings, and primal sounds.
On Bullshitting and Spiritual Claims
I have an online tormentor. He started with an email accusing me of bullshitting my way through yoga philosophy. He said I was leading gullible people astray with flashy but hollow intellectualism. His rudeness was refreshing: he made me feel a little less lonely with the central question of my professional and emotional life: am I actually bullshitting? How can I know? I’m pretty sure I’m not lying, which according to Harry Frankfurt in On Bullshit (Princeton, 2005), would imply conscious manipulation of my readers. But honestly: do I say and write things mainly to impress others, as Frankfurt defines bullshitting, regardless of whether they are true? Continue reading “On Bullshitting and Spiritual Claims”
