My day started out way better than it ended, yesterday. I'd finished "The Cellist of Sarajevo" and had a release of something terribly painful, to then find a great silence and deep peace. I went to Kim's class at D's Yoga Home, and she opened my heart and shoulders a little deeper for me, the way Keith has been doing the same thing for me in his classes. I was happy. Peaceful. Calm. I felt blessed to be alive and live in this country, where people aren't living under war or war-like conditions. And then I went grocery shopping. Something, an intuition, said inside for me to do it later, but I went anyway. Toward the end of moving through the aisles, this tall, angry African-American woman with a nasty scowl on her face looked at me so hatefully as she said "Excuse me," but pushed her cart into me on purpose. There were several people blocking the way in front of me, and rather than choose to wait patiently, as I was doing, she took out her aggression and selfishness on me. She said she didn't have all day and had to get back to work.
Finally someone ahead of us moved, just as I told her that I was waiting too. She then proceeded to ram her cart over my heels three times. I couldn't move any faster because there were people ahead of me. I told her she was running over my heels, and she responded: "Well good!!! Maybe that will make you move faster!!!!!!!" She behaved like a slave-driver, and I can't help thinking that not only was she in a hurry, but that she simply hated me because I was white. Inside I was like, "Oh my God! She's a bigot AND a slave-driver!"
I told her that she needed to change her attitude, and that she was being very rude. Other people stared. I wonder how many saw what she did, or heard what she said; but, no one stood up for what was right except me. It was demeaning to be treated that way... I felt alone, very small, and I felt dehumanized by her hatred. And then I took on her anger and carried it with me for the rest of the day, just like the people in the book I was reading began to hate their oppressors. I hated her for treating me like an animal, and practically cracking her whip. The rest of the day I hated her. I am still trying to let it go...and wonder if listening to 'Albinoni's Adagio' will help?
After all, music does effect change, and it affects emotional endurance. I'd definitely never be able to do Bound Lotus for 31 minutes a day without listening to the Ray Man Shabd. Nor the meditation I do to "Aadays Tisai Aadays".
Today Bound Lotus was ver hard to hold. And it wasn't just because of the anger - which does adversely affect the ease with which I can hold it - but also because my chiropractor and physical therapist are putting my spine back together again after losing some of the benefits of their work while I was gone to Florida. The therapist taught me exercises to open the shoulders, which are not like anything I've ever done, and to help realign my scapulae. It is interesting that the very exercise Mahan Kirn told me that I should do for 40 days also has the same effect of adjusting the placement of the scapulae. It opens not only the heart, but the lungs! And it, in essence, repairs my broken wing. My right scapula wings out like a broken wing. It has for years....I thought my wing would be broken forever. So long stardust!
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