Moon Day of Convenience

I have declared today a Moon Day. Even The Cop, who only knows yoga from my obsessive chattering, immediately recognized my plan as crim. But here's the deal: I feel crappy with some kind of sinus thing, Thursday is home practice and Friday is Mysore. So much better the Moon Day be today and not tomorrow. Waking up at 7 AM today, versus 4:30, just felt like the right thing to do.

And since we are confessing transgressions of convenience, I think I might have a sick day from work tomorrow. We pick up the keys for the new house tonight, The Cop has tomorrow off, and I have a few sick days left this year... Perhaps sinus problems bring out the criminal in me? Perhaps it'll be a moot point if I keep getting sicker and really do have to take the Moon Day off and really do have to call in sick to work. We'll see.

This week on ezboard, someone brought up the idea of yoga fundamentalism. Which immediately made me think of Richard Freeman's essay Fundamentalism and the Middle Path. This is such a terrific essay, and it addresses fundamentalism in all of its manifestations--not just fundamentalism in yoga. I am a great fan of RF's writing (and speaking) style. It is simultaneously evocative and precise, patient and poetic.

[The] Middle Path is hard to define, subtly serpentine, and it is where yoga systems meet their perfection. It frees us from politics without making us apolitical. It frees us from religion without making us irreligious. It frees us from thought without making us thoughtless. It has been called love, but it’s not what you think. For the present moment, we should keep on looking, avoiding jumping to conclusions.

We should keep on looking, avoiding jumping to conclusions. This really is the heart of my favorite zen sayings, "Just don't know," "Open mouth, already a mistake," "Beginner's mind," and my very favorite: "Not knowing is most intimate."

So my intention for this Moon Day is to look, and to not know. Which always makes for a happy day.