Newsletter, Apr 22, 2005

Please take a comfortable seat. Lower your eyes if you would like. Follow your breath as it moves in and out of your body, nourishing and cleansing. Lengthen and stretch up through your spine. Now, imagine your are waiting. Imagine you are in a windowless corridor in a civic building somewhere. Feel your sitting bones press into the hard plastic of your chair. Imagine that you are waiting for a meeting with someone who doesn't love you. Imagine your case worker just got arrested for molesting three boys in his care. Remember your breath. Open your eyes to the glare of flourescents. Notice the sound of chains before the shuffling of muffled feet. Notice that the young inmate's arms are rippled with tattoos and muscles. Imagine that he smiles at you. Smile back. Imagine you touch your hair to doll it up. Imagine that you feel stupid again when you realize what you've just done. Notice your hands are sweaty and your heart is racing. Close your eyes and imagine that you are somewhere else, with real friends, or a sibling or even a real mom or dad. Imagine that a hand touches your shoulder and you nearly jump out of your skin. Imagine that you are being called into the Family Court Judge's office. Imagine that you feel all alone. Imagine that you are fifteen years old. Imagine that you are just trying to survive. Pretend there is reason to hope. Remember to breathe.

I want 10,000 kids to grow up and not be beaten, smashed, burned or raped. I want 10,000 parents to pass through the storms of anger without visiting upon their children the terrors they endured when younger. I want to break the cycle of violence that persists generation to generation, i want to snap it into a million pieces and grind it underfoot and throw it into a volcano.

Am i wrong to wish for such violence against violence? Am i wrong to wish for Mother Earth to take all this pain and shape it into a mountain? Can i be free when my thoughts are so angry? I can only seek the help of the Higher Powers. I can only pray to be of service.

Mara and i went out to Morrison Children's Services Edgefield Day and Residential Treatment facility. We are working to put together classes out there for severely abused youngsters, ages 6-12. We were there on Friday to mingle, exist, think, pray silently, smile, play basketball.... I was called a Faker by an 8 year old boy for my inadequacies in pushing him high enough on the swing. I recoiled slightly as another young boy burst out of one door, slammed it and stormed to another chamber of the locked hall where they live without their abusive or incapable families. During our visit, they didn't have to bring out the restraints even one time.

I sat with C as he drew with diligence the colors of an excellent sketch. J, one of the youngest boys sat next to me. His right eye was clearly bruised and slightly swollen, and he asked me after introductions if i knew what his favorite thing was. He said, upon my shaking my head no, that it was "watching violent movies". When he lifted his hand to brush hair out of his eyes, it shook and trembled the way old peoples' do. He spent most of the time we were there holding hands with one grown up or another, as if trying to keep himself from getting sucked into some insistent chasm.

When we made to leave, C's shields came back up instantly. You could see that boundaries that we take for granted --between self and other, between trust and betrayal-- were skewed and scattered there. In the car on the way back, we talked about how we would teach yoga to these kids, what could we offer. The usual poses we teach the homeless youth at Outside In, the hip hoppy beat yoga we practice with the shelter girls, the playful, hopeful yoga we share with the school kids at the Community Transitional School all seemed trite or unreal somehow in the aftermath of one brief visit.

We discussed teaching to Change, strengthening our wills in the face of constant turnover in moments and days and homes. We discussed offering a sense of Self to these young people, the kind where anger can run alongside your soul, but not overtake it. And in a glimpse of uncanny wisdom, mara offered that perhaps one of the greatest gifts we can ever offer is our Presence, is the Stillness of unrequited "next-to-ness" --without demanding anything, or asking anything, or wanting anything or needing anything from them at all. Perhaps this is some sort of equality, a beginning to helping each of us see that we are all in this together, and that none of us is free while any of us suffers like this. Perhaps, breath by breath, moment by uncluttered moment, we can be of service to humanity. Perhaps.... If not, we can always die trying.

...Matt taught at O/I a few weeks back, and it was a small class, all women and one child, and the child didn't last. Melted down hard when the standing lamp she was fiddling with came crashing down upon her young mom. Her mom didn't like it either, and started yelling in the middle of class, which freaked out another girl. What to do? Real world. Triage, right? And Matt did. As he explained it, he made sure there was no physical harm done, and then went to the mom and while the observing teacher Katie took the child in hand, Matt helped the woman breathe through it, regain calm, regain place in yoga class. He said that in time, she relaxed considerably, and he could tell that the time away from her child was rare and much welcome.

...A news bit caught my eye today, about how gay youth are much more likely to contemplate or succeed at killing themselves. I know a large percentage of the youth on the streets are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning.... Part of our job as teachers of yoga to these youth is to practice acceptance, to help them literally to survive, by providing glimpses of the adult world where they are not shunned or hated for being unlike the bigoted classes within our society. It's a big world; we're all here for a reason.

...Yoga in Jeans -- Try it sometime. Forgot my shorts today for class at CTS. Decided to wear my long pants, like P and B and L and all the boys there. They don't have big wardrobes, living in cars and on the move all the time. Also, we were one mat short, so i practiced on the dusty gym floor. Yoga Anywhere. Pigeon pose is harder, laying at peace atop belt loops is less restful, but it's quite possible. Try is sometime.

...Here's something to pray on. Two of our students have both parents in prison. Their dad used to heat pliers over the stove and clamp it on the web-like flesh between the thumb and first finger. That's a lot to forgive for a child growing up.

If any of you has a million dollars looking for somewhere to go, please give us a thought. Not this week, but before too long we're going to have some insights into breaking the cycle of violence that pits parents against their children. So much stems from this. The girls in foster care, the kids on the street, the young inmates we hope to teach, they all share so much, and so much of what they have in common is a violent, neglectful, hate-filled past. To stop that has been the dream of many, and were it not for the committed work of so many amazing people we have met and never met in the social services fields, it would be so much worse. If we had a million dollars, we'd train 10,000 teachers, and pray that each one deeply touched one youngster, changed the outcome of one lifetime that need not fall back into violence and fear. One day, one day....

We are exploring two new sites for offering Street Yoga classes. One, the aforementioned Morrison Childrens Services is out of town in Troutdale, and we invite any yogis interested in helping out with this to be in touch and see what we can do together.

We also have an invitation to teach at the Donald E. Long correctional facility, working with Measure 11 youth and Sexual Offenders. After seeing the victims of such violence so much over the last few years, it is hard to see offering healing energy to such young men. But who am i to judge that they don't deserve my compassion because i hold onto fears and angers? What do i say to the children these young men will father if i neglect to help still the angry waters of violence in this one small way? We're looking for a few strong willed volunteers to work with us on this, perhaps mostly men but i won't say no to anyone willing to offer themselves at Donald E. Long.

We were contacted recently by a woman from Canada who is hoping to come to Portland in April or May and interview some of the youth about yoga in their lives. We are thrilled by this. We believe with all our hearts that Yoga works, but cannot ever prove it. Our efforts to measure and record the outcomes our students experience personally has never sprouted in the ways i have hoped; there's always been a class to teach or schedule, a Vrksasana to explain yet again to another new arrival. This new activity will be a splendid way to give voice to the young people we share yoga with. We've been working on questions, incentives. Should be cool.

This is one of my favorite quotes. I think of it often when i can't see where all this will go, can't guess if it's any use what we do here. Still don't know, but by giving away love and hope and smiles and acceptance, well, i get to keep all those things myself. This comes from the Neil Young song, ‘Comes a Time’

Thank you all. Blessings to you

mark