Mardi Gras: St. Anne's Parade and Apocalypse Ball in New Orleans
Photographs and meditations from the St. Anne’s Parade and Apocalypse Ball in New Orleans.
Preservation Hall Jazz Band at St Annes Parade
Mardi Gras is an epic time in New Orleans, no matter how much one tries to avoid getting caught up in it. This year I have been struggling with money and had no fancy costume or big plans other than to work a lot at my job with NOLA Pedicabs and make lots of money to get caught up on my bills with.
My father once said, "man plans, god laughs." Well for sure we all get caught in the cosmic giggle. I am a bad ass on a bicycle but as it turns out my dharma is not to haul drunk people around New Orleans for a living. The 2nd Saturday before Mardi Gras was to be my first big money-making day because there were tourists and parades, but mama nature had other plans and chilled us the fuck out to about 35 degrees so that not even the drunkest of drunks were getting in my cab. After 8 hours all I had to show for my toils was the beginnings of a two-week long throat cold.
The night before that was pretty awesome though, as I got to go photograph the Apocalypse Ball - an annual benefit for the Louisiana Himalaya Association (LHA.) (a volunteer-staffed, non-profit organization dedicated to international social work with Tibetan Refugees in the Himalayan regions of India and Nepal). This year the ball was held at Studio 3 on Toulouse Street. I danced my ass off, had my face painted like a sugar skull from the Day of the Dead, and flirted with all kinds of beautiful people. I would like to thank my friends Kate and Trishell for getting me in as photographer.
Me with my pedicab license
So back to this pedicab thing. I have been entertaining my yoga students with my pedicab tales for a while now, how I would go out for hours and not make any money. How the pedicab-pep talk would always turn to how much we were going to make over Mardi Gras. As my bills piled up and I ate peanut butter sandwiches to survive I wondered a lot about my karma and my dharma.
Mardi Gras means 'Fat Tuesday', and it is traditionally a final celebration of gluttony before Christians fast for Lent (on Ash Wednesday). The fasting traditionally lasts 40 days to honor Jesus' time in the desert chatting with Satan. Hungry Christians are exempt on Sundays, which are mini-Easters. Easter ends the fast. (random fact: I was born on Easter in 1967, therefore I am an Easter expert). Traditionally Christians fast from meat, dairy and eggs during Lent. St. Thomas of Aquinas thought eating animal flesh gave people more nourishment and "greater surplus available for seminal matter, which when abundant becomes a great incentive to lust." Kind of gross if it was true, but fortunately/unfortunately eating animal proteins tends to make men impotent instead. Not that anyone you will meet on Bourbon Street would know or care, but there you have it, ignorant ideas that have evolved through the ages and are still with us.
I was signed up for pedicab shifts from Thursday through Tuesday, culminating Mardi Gras night. Friday night my cold from the week before, which I considered past me, came back with a vengeance. I lost my voice and could only work for about 3 hours before my headache became unbearable, long enough to make the money I had to pay NOLA Pedicabs for using the bike for the night. I paid them off and went home to rest. Saturday it rained all day and night, and I did not work. Sunday I went back to work and did OK even though my voice sounded like a squeaky mouse. Monday (Lundi Gras) I actually made a bit of money.
Photos from St. Anne's Parade
Tuesday I spent the daylight hours with the Society of St. Anne, my favorite Mardi Gras parade. It isn't a super-organized parade with floats and all the gross excess of bead throwing, but rather a meandering gaggle of costumed freaks heading from the Bywater to the French Quarter, passing through the Marigny, stopping at bars, being joined by brass bands and psychedelic portable DJ contraptions, spontaneous dance parties, and run-on sentences disguised as journalism.
After a beautiful sunny day spent with my lovely freaks, I left to go work my night away on a pedicab. On the way to the shop I got a call from NYC, which turned out to be Ganeshadas from Jivamukti Yoga setting up a job interview with me the next day. A sure mood-lifter impeccably timed by that same universe known for cosmic giggles.
Suffice it to say that after about 4 hours of being harassed by drunks on the back of my pedicab I put enough faith in that same universe to quit my job for the night and head home for some well-deserved rest. Money seemed less and less important the more I thought about it. And I like peanut butter well enough. I will still eat it now that I have been hired to move to NYC and become the web editor for Jivamukti's soon-to-be-released web site. Life is good and so am I.
Photos from the Apocalypse Ball
Gratitude for my Jivamukti Benefit Class
Photographs and gratitude for the benefit yoga class at Swan River Yoga in New Orleans, led by Libby Bryan and Jacksun Slaughter, to raise money for my Jivamukti Yoga Teacher Training
Jivamukti benefit with Libby Bryan (giving assist) and Jacksun Slaughter (standing in background)
This morning I was blessed to have a yoga class at Swan River Yoga's Mid City Center given in my honor. I do not have any words to fully express my gratitude to my teacher and mentor, Libby Bryan, for organizing the class. She has been a champion of my cause, a light who gives me hope and strength, and the example of what I aspire to be as a yoga teacher.
Libby Bryan
This class was led by Libby and her friend and fellow yoga teacher Jacksun Slaughter, who I got to meet through this process. Jacksun is an activist and gave a beautiful dharma talk before the class, about the power of giving and the emergence of a gift economy that we are all pioneers in creating. The proceeds from the class are to go to my Jivamukti yoga teacher training. I am but a monk holding out a begging bowl at this point in my life, taking a giant leap of faith and believing that the universe will catch me.
I used to wonder about the spiritual seekers of the East, wandering with their begging bowls seeking alms. To the Western mind this seems like a selfish way to live, expecting others to support you while you follow your bliss. In the East, however, there is the wisdom that we are all connected by our karma. When we help another person on their path we receive benefit on our own. The more selfless we are, the happier we become.
We will play with a child or scratch a dog's belly because it gives them pleasure, and also gives us pleasure. It is much the same with helping each other in more profound ways. For example, when playing music, we can become shy and nervous when we think of how other's perceive our talent. If instead we play with the thought that the music will bring happiness to others, or that we are playing in devotion to the divine, then we lose the inhibition and our hearts open, and our music becomes beautiful. It is in selflessness that we reach our highest potential.
Jacksun Slaughter
I have a gift inside of me. I am a teacher, a healer, and a visionary. I say this with an inevitable tinge of ego, certainly, but also with infinite humility and gratitude. I follow this path of a yogi to temper my qualities and teach me to be a peaceful warrior. I have found such a wellspring of love in this community, and hope to give back. To deepen and share my wisdom, to honor the sacred web of life that connects us all. To save the animals, the humans and the planet.
This morning's class was so amazing. I hardly knew anyone that showed up. At first I felt a blue note that none of my closest friends were there to support me. Then I realized how auspicious it was that this room full of strangers had come on my behalf. My friends support me every day in my happiness. These people came to help a stranger. Between the two I am infinitely blessed.
At the start of the class I sat to the right of Libby, with Jacksun to the left, to sing kirtans. Libby said that when we help one person amongst us on their spiritual path it lifts us all up. I am humbled to be in this position, and hope that I will uplift those around me on their path. I hope I can return the support I have been given exponentially to this community. I am in love with all of you. My heart and life for you. I am your warrior and servant, your friend and companion. I bow to the light in you, and am here to help keep it burning bright in all of us. Namaste.
Om Bolo Sat Guru, Bhagavan, Qi. Jai! (God is the only Real teacher, Alluleulia!)
Libby and Jacksun, thank you so much for all you do.
Ode to the Divine Mother
A yoga class with my very pregnant teacher inspires gratitude for the feminine divine. Baja mana ma mantra.
Keith Porteous sits in lotus pose at Swan River's yoga studio in the Marigny
Today I woke up in a state of bliss. The sun was shining as I walked to the Green Project to get some hardware for my Mardi Gras costume. I had the new Radiohead album playing on my iPod, Thom Yorke's sweet familiar voice soothing my soul. As I walked balanced on the railroad tracks alongside of Press Street I slowly waved my arms up and down as if they were wings, feeling the strong winds blowing on my bare skin from the Mississippi River.
This thought occurred to me; "I am exactly who I was meant to be." I felt goosebumps move across my skin. It was a feeling of pure love, of being held in the arms of the universe. One verse, one love, one me.
The second deep blessing of the day came during my thursday Jivamukti class, held at the Swan River studio in the Marigny and taught by my dear teacher Keith Porteous. Keith is 10 days from her pregnancy due date, and it was one of the last classes she will be teaching for a while. I asked to accompany her on ukulele for the kirtan (sacred chant) before class and she happily obliged me. I suggested we sing Bhajamana Ma, a chant for the Divine Mother, in honor of her pregnancy.
The chant in Sanskrit is "Bhajamana Ma Ma Ma Ma. Ananda mayi Ma Ma. Ananda rupa Ma Ma." ~ translated by Swan River co-owner Michele Baker, in English it means "I give all of my love to the Divine Mother. Take from me all that is not free, and allow me to experience eternal bliss, dearest Mother."
It is beautiful that the word "Ma" means the same in modern English as in ancient Sanskrit. A sound as simple and profound as Aum. In western religions the mother is downplayed and the father is the ultimate expression of divinity. I believe that this imbalance has led us down a destructive path. We all need the compassion and nurturing nature that comes from the feminine aspect of divinity to heal the toxicity and war that we have wreaked upon the Earth.
Keith Porteous in Swan River's Marigny studio
I have been blessed in my life to be surrounded by strong and beautiful women. They are all my teachers in their various roles in my life; Some as friends, some lovers, some strangers who share a moment, some mothers and grandmothers who have brought life through their bodies into the world. They are all manifestations of the divine.
As I practice yoga asanas I strengthen my connection to the Earth, the mother of all life as we experience it. Asana means "seat", and somehow these postures that we work on day after day connect us to the Earth. The illusion of separation from the source of life slowly fades as our hearts open and we learn to "sit" in alignment with the divine.
To see my beloved teacher Keith with her mamma's belly so big and round fills my heart with love. What a blessed child to be born with her as a mother. What a blessed soul I am to have her as a teacher. How blessed we all are to have each other. Share your gratitude with the mothers in your life, and you will find the blessings returning to you, the flowers of wisdom blossoming all around you, and your connection to the Earth becoming stronger.
Racing to beat the train
The story of a hit-and-run I witnessed; a villian, a train, a beautiful woman, and life’s synchronicities.
My New Orleans bike, and toes bedazzled with gold nail polish
This morning I woke up with a giant cat relaxing on my chest waiting for his breakfast. I looked at my phone and saw the time was 8 a.m., and decided I would try to make the 9:30 a.m. Jivamukti class uptown at Life Yoga with my dear teacher Libby. I fed my roommate’s cat (Puch) and my other roommate’s dog (Irie), made some almond milk and then a breakfast smoothie, got my shit together and was out the door by 8:40 a.m.
It was a beautiful foggy morning in New Orleans, the sun not yet burned through the clouds. I didn’t have any time to spare, as I was planning to take a bus from downtown to uptown, and would be right on time if I was lucky. As I approached Press Street on Chartres I heard the deep bellowing horn of a train coming, and raced towards the tracks to see if I could beat it. Once I got closer I saw that it was a block away and sped up and over the tracks.
As I breezed across Press street just on the other side of the tracks I saw a silver pickup truck flying towards the intersection on my right, trying to beat the train. The thought was crossing my mind that I should watch out for speeding cars while dodging trains when I heard the truck screeching to a stop. I slowed and looked back over my shoulder to see the truck half in the intersection with a woman and her bike down in the street in front of it.
For one brief moment the thought crossed my mind that I should keep going. The truck had stopped and two men were out talking to the woman. I could still make my class. That thought was quickly replaced by compassionate concern, and I turned around and went back.
Laney's bike after the collision
The woman was still tangled in her mangled bike, but sitting upright talking. I offered to call 911 and the driver of the car became agitated, saying he did not have insurance and offering to help her outside of the law. His friend was trying to keep the woman calm, telling her not to look at her bleeding ankles. It took me a few seconds to decide what to do, with the woman getting visibly more upset, and so I took out my phone and called 911.
While I was trying to speak to the operator over the noise of the train and the friend and a security guard who had come out of an adjacent building the driver quietly disappeared from the scene in his vehicle, leaving his friend behind to deal with the aftermath.
To his credit, the passenger stayed and helped the woman and the police, swearing and angry that his friend had put him in this predicament. It turned out that the area by the tracks was under surveillance and the security guard went in to retrieve the footage for the police.
I stayed as a witness, but also to be a friend to the woman. She was taking it all very well, speaking positively about her recent acquisition of health insurance and a car, and that these things would make her recovery more bearable.
For me, there was a deep feeling of compassion for all the people involved. I once killed a pedestrian with my car, and this has of course stuck with me all of my life. I still today do not know how much I was to blame, but I remember waiting for the police to come, a white face in a completely black neighborhood in D.C., standing next to my pickup truck while the woman’s blood formed a pool around her head. It was dark out and she had been crossing a busy street outside of the crosswalk, a bottle of liquor in her purse. I had been messing with my radio and once I looked up there was no time to stop. The white cops didn’t issue me a ticket, and instead I have lived the intervening years wondering I was presumed innocent only because of racism. I am sure that the thought of fleeing the scene had crossed my mind as well, but that's not who I am.
I could feel the emotional turmoil inside the passenger’s heart, not knowing wether to be loyal to his friend “of ten years” or to do the right thing and stay until the police came. He was cursing his friend and pacing around angrily. I thought about how my yoga practice has helped me overcome extreme anger in most situations, yet still wondered if I could have done any better.
And then of course the biker, Laney. She took it all so well, not a trace of anger showing. Looking at the bright side, keeping it all in perspective. She was young and beautiful and I wanted to hug her but I kept my space, and instead just talked to her and tried to be good company until her friend showed up to take her to the hospital.
I found this bike crushed by a streetlight post it had been locked to, which had fallen over in the night.
We talked about our jobs and my NOLA Yoga Photography Project and found we had a mutual connection. We compared our toenail polish, mine gold and hers a lovely turquoise. I gave her my card and carried her to her friend’s car when the time came. “I should bake you a pie”, she said as I lowered her into the passenger seat. I said that it might be challenging since I am a vegan. “I’m vegan too!”, she said. What are the odds, in New Orleans? I told her to email me but don’t know if she ever will. The universe brings people in and out of our lives in strange ways.
We were all racing to beat the train. If I had not been a few yards in front of Laney the pickup may not have slowed down. The stop sign certainly didn’t make a difference. Perhaps my being there saved her life, perhaps not. The karma of four individuals played out into the event, and all of us left as different people.
The driver is now a fugitive, and will face the repercussions of dishonesty and self-interest. What good can possibly come for him? The passenger will have to re-evaluate his friendship. The fallout from being honest and doing what was right will undoubtedly move him towards the light. Laney has come through a difficult situation, as we all do, to repay past karma. She was such a wonderful example of keeping the mind balanced in hardship, I felt inspired standing near her radiance. I hope that as she recovers she will continue to shine.
As for me, well, I will probably still race against the train.
Me birthday wit me hearties in the Pirate Parade
Photographs of the Pirate’s Parade in New Orleans, LA, which coincided with my birthday and became my impromptu party.
A swarthy band of musicians at the Pirate Parade in New Orleans
I find me another year older today, just an old sea dog countin' up me booty. It 'twas the birthday of my life, shipwrecked down in New Orleans. I woke up not knowing there was a Pirate's Parade going on that same day (as part of NOLA Pyrate Week), but it 'twas quite fitting a way for a scallywag such as I to spend the second half of his day, before the third half came and i ended up in a hot tub staring up at the stars wondering how the fuck i am so lucky to have this life.
The first half of the day began quite nicely. I slept in till ten than had a birthday breakfast consisting of fresh strawberries with a raw coconut/cacao/banana/agave sauce, and a cup of irish breakfast tea. Next I was off to my Jivamukti yoga class at Swan River with one of my favorite teachers, Keith Porteous. From there I rode my bike further uptown in the glorious sunshine to my friend Kathleen Currie's massage studio, for an incredible hour of blissful bodywork.
I made it home an hour before the parade was starting to to piece together a costume, and thanks to my landlord Tucker I got enough bits of scraps to come up with a decent attempt at going on the account. Next I put two cubes of sugar in my coffee and set out for to pillage and allow no quarter in the French Quarter. We set sail from the Arrrrr Bar on Royal, down past Jackson Square and then past the shark bait on Bourbon St, careening about the town and somehow back to the Aaaaaarrr Bar.
I think I warmed my way into the inner circle of me mateys that night. This saucy lassy Miss Lucey pinned some booty onto me shirt (a New Orleans birthday tradition). We both agreed that the carriage horse industry is for shit, and should be abolished forever. A pirate girl after me own heart!
Another Saucy wench decided I was the one to take a group photo of all the pirates once we got back to the Aaaarrrrr Bar, and that is the legend of how I became the official Pirate Parade photographer, of sorts...
As always me loves comments so leave 'em or be prepared kiss the gunner's daughter!
108 Sun Salutations for India
“I reached my hands up to the sky over and over again, and each time the sun had risen a little closer to being in my palms. There was a dog sitting in the grass behind me, and each time I bent down into downward dog and looked out between my legs I saw her sitting there enjoying the day.”
108 sun salutations beneath the Singing Oak, City Park New Orleans
At City Park in New Orleans there is a giant oak tree with oversize wind chimes hanging from its branches. The sun shone on the tree this morning, with strong winds blowing the chimes into a cacophony of sound. A group of yogis and yoginis gathered beneath the sun and the tree, their mats forming a loose circle facing inward. I rode my bike up to join them, feeling a reverence for the life so vibrant all around me.
In this circle we were joining a community of yoga practitioners all around the world who were taking a stand against human trafficking in India by offering up monetary donations and 108 sun salutations. The money will go to an Indian-based organization called Odanadi, which means 'soul mate'. The Odanandi web site Yoga Stops Traffic claims that "over the past 20 years Odanadi Seva Trust has rescued and rehabilitated more than 1850 children, carried out 57 brothel raids and brought 137 traffickers to justice."
The New Orleans event was organized by Jessica Blanchard, who feels that India has given the west so much, and this is a way for us to give back. I came by way of my yoga school, Swan River. Several of my teachers were there, taking turns with teachers from other schools leading us in the sequence of asanas that make up the standard sun salutation.
The number 108 is sacred in many traditions and mythologies. For instance, the chakras are intersections of energy lines, and the heart chakra has 108 energy lines converging into it. I have been living from my heart lately, or at least striving to. This morning my heart was full, nourished by the sun, the wind, the beautiful people gathered around in the circle, and by the sound of the chimes mingling with the voices of the teachers.
I reached my hands up to the sky over and over again, and each time the sun had risen a little closer to being in my palms. There was a dog sitting in the grass behind me, and each time I bent down into downward dog and looked out between my legs I saw her sitting there enjoying the day. To my left was a new friend, who later went out to tea with me at Fair Grinds Coffeehouse, where we shared little pieces of our lives.
I am in love. In love with this city, with this life. I felt tears welling up inside me thinking about the people sold into slavery as I practiced my asanas. Are we all just manifestations of the same spiritual matter? Could I be them, could they be me, could any one of us be anyone else? What is the veil of ignorance that makes us forget such an obvious truth, exponentiating the suffering in the world? Every day I spend trying to understand and to weave the understanding into the fabric of my being so I won't forget.
Namaste. Ahimsa. May all be free from suffering. May all feel the sunshine of a perfect spring day in New Orleans, shining upon them as they raise their hands up in prayer, and lower their faces to the ground to honor the earth. We are one.
Michelle Baker leads 108 sun salutations
The Krewe of Eris Parade 2010
Photographs from the 2010 Krewe of Eris Parade in New Orleans, LA
This is me with Jamie Lynn and Aviva
Mardi Gras in New Orleans was a strange and wonderful time. Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday, but the celebrations leading up to the actual day last for about two weeks. Besides the celebrations around the Super Bowl, the peak of Mardi Gras for me was marching in the Krewe d'Eris Parade on Sunday the 14th of February.
Eris is an unauthorized parade, as described on NOLA.com
"As Sunday night slithered out and Lundi Gras scuttled in, The Vieux Carre was swarmed by the filthy vermin of the Krewe of Eris, a wild and phantasmagoric walking (and bicycling and wheelchairing and shopping-carting) krewe dedicated not to misrule but to no rule at all. Unorganized, unauthorized, un-permitted, and unconcerned, the Krewe of Eris is an open-membership tribe honoring Eris, the goddess of discord and strife. In the mythology of the Greeks it was Eris who threw the golden apple that sparked a feud between vain deities, revealing the pettiness and weaknesses of the powerful, and thus the Krewe of Eris gives the lie to the grandiose and flashy motorized superkrewes, mostly by being much, much more fun."
I was part of the Hula Hooping corps, coordinating with our friends in the flag corps. We marched at the front of the parade along with a luminous dragon and a marching band. The theme of the parade was "light and pleasure" and along that vein my friend Aviva and I both got LED hula hoops, and our third hooper Jamie Lynn marched between us to catch some of our light. We all decided to dress in costumes of white and gold. I had a fun marching band hat with gold horns made by a talented woman named Jade. The rest of my costume I got from second hand shops.
Marching for about three hours with a hula hoop was both exhilarating and tiring. I had so much fun tossing it as high as I could and catching it, watching the swirls of light making pretty patterns in the sky. The crowd loved us, and was us. People seemed to wander in and out of the parade, adding to the chaos and beauty of it. We had rehearsed a routine but found it impossible to carry out. It was all just fun and celebration.
Since I was hooping I could not photograph the parade itself but I found some cool photos online on the Wandering Dreamers blog and also on l*ght//motion's flickr page. Below are some of the photos I took before the parade...
Photos of the New Orleans Saints Superbowl Parade
Photographs of the 2010 New Orleans Saints Superbowl Parade
The New Orleans Saints football team on a float in their 2010 victory parade
On Tuesday I biked out to the famous Louisiana Superdome to watch the New Orleans Saints Parade take off. I propped my bike up against a palm tree and stood on the seat to get myself above the crowd to take these shots. I started daydreaming about building a bike with a photo stand or maybe just a really tall tricycle. But for me it always comes back to stilts. Gotta get me some.
I have been here about a month and have enjoyed watching the Saints mania build to a ever pitch, explode during their Super Bowl victory, and leave us with an electricity in the atmosphere around New Orleans that is palpable. I am normally not one to wax poetic about sporting events but this team has brought hope and renewal to this city in a way I couldn't understand had I been living anywhere else during this time. I am grateful to the universe for arranging my visit.
Super Bowl Sunday in New Orleans
Photographs of the excitement in the streets in New Orleans on Superbowl Sunday
Double dutch jump roping before the superbowl
In looking back upon my life, I have noticed a strange pattern. I have lived in the geographical fan base of successful football franchises much of my adult life. The first time it happened was kind of heartbreaking, living in Syracuse and Rochester (NY) while the Buffalo Bills played in and lost 4 consecutive Super Bowls in the early nineties. At the turn of the century I moved to New England in time to witness the Patriots go to 3 Super Bowls, winning two of them. Now here I am - a new decade, a New Orleans, and at the epicenter of the wildest football scene in the history of the universe. And yes, the Saints victory over the Colts in Super Bowl XLIV has beaten the shit out of every other football experience I have ever had. WHO DAT!!
aviva with 3 hula hoops!
It is really funny because I am not a football fan, per se. I have watched a handful of Super Bowls and playoff games over the years, but here in the Big Easy there is no way to avoid the Saints mania. This is a city only five years out from being nearly destroyed by Katrina and the Saints seem to represent something beyond sports. They are the Phoenix rising up from the flames, with all the aura and legend of that mythical creature. Even my yoga teacher waxes poetic during class, prophesizing that the Saints' victory is going to end the Hindu Kali Yuga and usher in the Dvapara Yuga. She tells us that we are all about to become beings made of light, and if my quantum calculations are correct she just might be right.
I spent the day out with my new friends who love to Double Dutch and hula hoop. We rode our bikes through traffic jams and dog parades (Barkus) to get to Jackson Square in the early afternoon, where we set up shop and drew a huge crowd around us. The Saints fans (aka all of New Orleans) were all out in their black and gold, some wearing more elaborate costumes. The sun was shining and our little boom box was playing upbeat music and it was all pretty picture perfect, as my perfectly pretty pictures hopefully convey.
For the game I went to a party, with the usual anarchists and artists you find at random parties around New Orleans when you are a freak like me. I sat inside an old warehouse building of some sort on a dingy car seat watching the game projected on a giant bed sheet. The setup would occasionally lose reception and about half way through someone put Saints Radio on instead of the CBS audio, making the famous Super Bowl commercials seem even more surreal. There was no heat and so I went out at half time to warm up by the fire while The Who played and we all secretly wondered if they regretted the lyrics in "My Generation".
The second half of the game was epic, up to the point in the 4th quarter when the Saints made the game's only interception and ran 70 yards to victory, and into history. After all the hugs and victory cries and high fives our posse once again rode out towards the French Quarter, busting out the jump ropes and hula hoops on the corners of Frenchmen and Royal. Once again a jubilant crowd gathered around us, while cars drove by honking and the whole city took to the streets in celebration. Everyone yelling "Who Dat!!" over and over again. All people united by one event, a celebration well deserved by this amazing city. I am blessed to be here, and to be a part of it all.
New Orleans Saints fans
Stepping in Dukkha
We all wish to stem the flow of suffering in our own lives. The true spiritual path calls us to be present in this moment, to experience the sadness of life and to transform it into action.
Your fortune is not looking so good...
Dukkha - "the Buddhist concept of suffering, a Pali term roughly corresponding to a number of terms in English including suffering, pain, unsatisfactoriness, sorrow, affliction, anxiety, dissatisfaction, discomfort, anguish, stress, misery, and frustration.” ~Wikipedia
I got on a train to come to New Orleans on that same day that Haiti was devastated by a terrible earthquake. The news came to me in broken bits as I traveled, passing through the landscapes of small American towns, sleeping and awake, checking the Internet on my iPhone in those places where I could get reception. World events seem surreal while moving through time like this, ungrounded and alone. Still the death toll seemed unimaginable, and reminded me of the destruction that nature had inflicted on New Orleans five years ago.
My journey to this strange city I now inhabit was brought on by a personal disaster, one that rocked my inner world and has caused me to feel the deaths of many of my hopes and dreams. I had spent the previous nine months or so of my life in a state of bliss, in love with a woman who I thought I would grow much older with, who embodied so much of what I had been seeking in a relationship. Then one morning I woke up and she had torn herself from my life, for reasons that did not make sense to me. I pleaded and begged her to change her mind but she would not even respond to me at all, leaving my heart devastated and all the plans I had made of moving to New Orleans to be with her in ruins. In the absence of her ability to communicate with me I decided to come here anyway, because I felt the city calling, because I needed an adventure, because I had some small hope she would change her mind.
Swan River Yoga on Chartres St in New Orleans
Upon arriving here I bought an unlimited month of yoga at the Swan River Yoga Studio in order to keep my practice going and to ground myself. New Orleans is where she lives and where we spent some of the best moments of our relationship, so I knew that I would have memories haunting me that I would have to deal with. I knew the yoga would help. In the first class I attended the teacher began by speaking of Haiti, and how disasters of such magnitude are humbling to us. How they make our own troubles seem smaller, and how they give us pause to be thankful for what we have. I had thought of this myself of course, but the mind is so adept at keeping our own drama in the forefront and the greater dramas at bay that it was good to be reminded by someone else.
It is difficult to internalize the suffering of people in other countries who we have little physical connection to. The news is constantly full of stories of death and tragedy, and we necessarily numb ourselves to them in order to be present in our own lives. Yet in our own suffering we can understand the suffering of others. If I did not feel the loss of this relationship so poignantly it would be harder for me to imagine any loss.
One of the reasons I decided to come to New Orleans was because of the loss suffered here. I knew there were many people still recovering from Katrina, and that there was lots of volunteer work to be done still. I had a realization that by helping with this rebuilding I could also help rebuild my own heart. We are all connected in this way, through our ability to hurt so deeply and to long for transcendence.
As I planned my move I connected with Burners Without Borders, an organization related to the Burning Man festival and its concept of a gift economy. At Burning Man there is no exchange of money, people survive in the harsh desert climate by giving and sharing. This opens people’s hearts and builds community. In the aftermath of Katrina the Burners Without Borders formed to help out along the Gulf Coast, applying lessons learned at the festival to devastated communities in need. Since then the organization has spread throughout the world and is involved in many projects. There is still one woman here, an amazing soul named Summer, who is organizing volunteers to help in the Lower Ninth Ward. She is working with a community organization called Lower Ninth Ward Village. I have connected with them and will be volunteering as much as I can while I am here. While I have barely begun, I already feel a sense of being part of something larger than myself. I can already see that this will help to heal me.
We all wish to stem the flow of suffering in our own lives. Some of us deal with it by trying to shut the world out with anger, drugs, television, or feigned indifference. Some turn to organized religion, hoping that there is an afterlife reward for humbling oneself to the proper deity. I believe the true spiritual path calls us to be present in this moment, to experience the sadness of life and to transform it into action. Human civilization’s greatest flaw is our hoarding tendency, our inability to share resources and compassion. We walk around daily looking for compliments or understanding from others, yet are reluctant to give it. We need to overcome our fears of others and the cultural baggage that gives us excuses to turn away from those in need, in order to make ourselves whole and fully human.
If our greatest flaw is greed, then our greatest evolvement is compassion. With the tragedies in Haiti still being revealed, there are fund raising efforts going on everywhere. It is helpful to give money, it makes us feel good about ourselves. Money is very impersonal though, it builds no connection between the giver and receiver. It is easily redirected into the pockets of the greedy. Since most of us can not go to Haiti to volunteer it is still better than doing nothing. If you want to donate I would recommend researching the organizations you are giving to, and trying to ensure your money goes to an honorable organization. Two that I recommend are Food For Life Global (A vegetarian/vegan food relief program) and Doctors Without Borders.
Beyond that I encourage you to help Haiti from within your own community. The beauty of practicing compassion is that it is a renewable energy source. Helping others plants seeds of gratitude that grow compassion in the hearts we have helped. You can start by reaching out to your friends and neighbors, and once you have the strength of community you can organize people into action. Collect clothing or other goods to send to Haiti instead of money. Use your creative energy to imagine ways to help that middlemen will not be able to diminish. Or join with others who have already begun.
We need to move away from the crumbling paradigm of governments and corporations and towards reliance on the people around us. It all starts with each of us, learning to be giving. All the accumulation of material goods and wealth is just building walls around us. It is freeing to take all the things you don’t use and give them away. To give whenever you can, as much as you can. Wether it be time or service, art or love, food or hugs. Build your community, support your neighbors. When the empires fall we will need our communities in order to survive.
The next time you step in dukkha, realize that it is the same dukkha we are all stepping in. Honor your heart and spend a moment with your own sadness. Then breathe in the air that we all share, the air that has been cycled through the lungs of all of the animals and the plants and the oceans. Take a vow to find a way to make the world a better place, to reduce the suffering around you. You are a stone cast into the pond of being, and your actions will ripple out into the world around you. As we build empathy and compassion our own sorrows will diminish, because our lives will serve a greater purpose. It is the true path to liberation.