C A R Y L U N A

I’ve been reading Derrick Jensen’s The Myth of Human Supremacy and he uses this quote as an epigram to a later chapter. I’m compelled by it, I feel my posture (crumbling)when I look at my phone or computer overlong…I notice my perceptual gateways when driving… these moments of feeling and noticing arise typically after who-knows-how-long…after that tiny whisper from my shoulders, or my low back, or my jaw, or from deep behind my eyes.
I love to ride my bicycle–I can always conjure that joyous choral chant whenever I affirm my love to my bicycle, it never fails. Riding, I feel myself a part of my bicycle, and we move as one. On my bicycle this quote is intuitive…or intrinsic…or inherent…
But in terms of the tools the yoga practice makes available…
Certainly compassion and breathing aren’t human inventions, but how we practice them are inherently human, and so in that sense we are shaping them.
And so how are we shaped by them?

I don’t agree with the thinking that we are meant to master any of this.
I resist answers that are rapidly forthcoming or tend toward tidy summations.