Ease and quiet to bear steady witness

The world is loud right now. It is hard to imagine that our nervous systems were built to sustain the levels of outrage, fear, and grief coursing through our collective bloodstream; it does not seem we were meant for this degree of exposure to violence and human disregard that floods our news feeds.

Disinterest, disregard, or dissociation are understandable responses and they deserve sympathy (the physiological sympathetic nervous system response was aptly named, and includes fleeing and freezing for the sake of survival). Worth noting, these responses ultimately serve us only as individualized, separate entities, and we are anything but. Yoga’s teachings remind us that we are emphatically interconnected. When pain and suffering are present for others, they are present for us as well.

The invitation, then, is to take the time, space, and quiet rest we need in order to steady our hearts and minds. This helps us build the capacity to bear faithful, steady witness to social and political upheaval, and in turn to offer ourselves and one another compassionate hands and outstretched arms.

I write these words on what would have been the 97th birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. His legacy is the DNA of this message: take rest, and then take action.

In peace,
Annie