 "Talking people say the least" -- Autistic boy communicating on an electronic keypad, as quoted by the Golden Hat Foundation. Talking and speaking are at the heart of social interactions and relationships. To communicate through the spoken word is to commune, to feel at one, and to 'connect' with another, yoga in its truest sense. This very human ability to connect with another through the co-mingling of thoughts and feelings has the potential to transform both people, to mutate deep within. It is like alchemy. Or. The spoken word can feel like verbal diarrhea, like a filibuster or a theatrical monologue with no exchange possible. While one person is busy vomiting words, the other, as the receptacle, is gagged, blocked. Physically, it can feel like a choke. Often, the one spouting, dumping, vomiting is desperate to seek validation and reassurance for his or her ego, that conditioned mental construct each of us have been building since birth. Verbal vomit is the result of explaining, rationalizing, justifying the ego's demands, needs, and projections. For instance, over the holidays I bumped into a friend, who owns many houses. I know though that he needs cash. Over canapes, he started dissing a neighborhood where I realized one of his homes is located. Drug dealers everywhere. Problems with this. Issues about that. On and on he talked, desperate to explain and come up with reasons -- basically lying -- about why he'd have to sell his house after buying it only a few years ago. Instead, my friend could've shared his need for money, the circumstances that led him to this point, and the feelings arising out of his experiences. Or he didn't have to talk about it at all. None of it's my business. But clearly, he was feeling something, something that needed expression, but by the time this need had reached his throat he tightened. He just could not let go and speak with honesty. The throat center and the poses related to it, like the fish (below), are about letting go. Not letting go in a stream of verbal mush, but letting go of structures in our consciousness, our ego, so that we speak with a full, honest voice.  The Fish or matsyasana |
Yoga in Blue Jeans
"To communicate is to connect, yoga in its truest sense." Archives
August 2021
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