Giving my hands to struggle

Tomorrow I leave India. This month has been an absolute privilege. I've been able to devote myself to rest, healing, nourished with joy and insight, friendships old and new, and deep immersion in sadhana and sangha. Yesterday I started packing, to make sure I had adequate luggage space, and to mentally begin the transition to the States.

As sad as I am to be leaving, my seventh pilgrimage to India and RIMYI, I am also feeling ready. Just as my body yearned for my children when I had to leave them to come and study when they were young, my body is starving for the embrace of my grandchildren. I miss Solomon's drool and runny nose, and his ear-piercing shouts. I miss Silas's stories and playing Hotwheels with him. I miss my conversations with Coco and our cartwheels and imaginary games.

I also miss my people. I need to feel my feet on the ground in active resistance to the devastation and oppression happening in this moment. The official death toll in Gaza nears 40,000. Sonya Massey has been murdered in cold blood by the state--SAY HER NAME. MF Netanyahu addresses Congress and is met with standing ovations. 

These are the times I know I will never be a pure yogi. I am not temperamentally suited to retreat fully into abhyasa and vairagya, practice and renunciation. My body longs for my drum to bang on at protests and rallies. It kills me to be missing so many events in occupied Hawai`i, resisting the military wargames of RIMPAC, and demanding citizen's arrest of Netanyahu at the State Capitol. My vocal chords cannot be fully satisfied only chanting the invocation to Patañjali. I cannot fully channel my tapas into yogic devotion. I need my feet to be pounding the pavement in solidarity with the people. I am ready to re-enter the fray.

I need my yoga practice to daily purify myself for warriorship. I need to daily metabolize and process the unspeakable shit that is thrown at us, and make myself robust enough to withstand it, speak out, and act decisively.

The spiritual path leads too easily to bypassing. Yes, we are all one, and Trump, Biden, and Netanyahu are all projections of myself. Yes, the `āina belongs to no one, and we are all indigenous to some place. Yes, we can save no one and it's not our responsibility to do someone else's spiritual work.

But, DAMN.....

I cannot stand by and be silent in the face of state violence. I cannot witness the mauling of children and do nothing. I cannot claim ignorance when I live in 2024 and see with my very eyes what unfolds before us. I cannot deny what my body perceives and conveys. It starts with the daily oppressions of caste and class, the demands of capitalism, the abuse of the natural world. It grows into political clashes and ongoing theft of land and resources. It heightens into genocide.

I remain eternally grateful for the profound practice of Iyengar Yoga, and my illustrious teachers, the best in the world, let's face it. And I am now poised to relaunch into the prakrtic mess which is this world. Send me. Use me. May I devote all my power to the healing of the people, the restoration of community, to confront wrongdoing, and do the needful. May I be imbued with wisdom and courage to be staunch on the path of right action.