Blog Archives

Health Update 11/2016

11/29/2016

Surface of a Kidney Stone, by Kempf EK. CC BY-SA 3.0

Dear friends,

Turns out, I’m not going to be teaching in December. Short version: kidney stones suck. For the long version, keep reading.

Just over a week before Halloween I ended up in the ER with my third bout of kidney stones in a dozen years. They’re part of my genetic inheritance. (Thanks Dad ;-) !) This time several kidney stones formed a log jam halfway between the kidney and bladder on my left side. The path was completely blocked and my kidney was becoming increasingly swollen.

Because of the injury and inflammation already present, retrieving the stones at this point would have risked further damage, so the doc put a stent in, which in this case is like a straw that goes from the kidney to the bladder, bypassing the stone cluster. The purpose of the stent was threefold: (1) so my kidney wouldn’t explode (hooray!), (2) to allow the swelling in the ureter to heal, and (3) so that maybe the stones could pass on their own. Spoiler: they didn’t.

But they tried damn hard.

I spent the rest of October and three-quarters of November in a blur of pain, medication, and Netflix while my insides healed enough for another expedition. A week ago I went back into surgery to have the stent removed and the stones lasered into smaller pieces. Doc even went up into the kidney to zap the stones that hadn’t made their way out yet. He retrieved all of the pieces he could but expects that I’ll be passing debris through most of December.

“Passing debris” is about as fun as it sounds. While it’s nice to know it’s non-life-threatening, the pain is unpredictable, sudden, and intense; and the rest of the day is pretty much shot.

The good news is I am starting to feel like myself again. The (further) bad news is there are stones in my other kidney! But for now they appear to be staying put.

This has of course been a humbling and eye opening experience, to be laid low by a little bit of gravel! I’ve tried to take it in stride, taking the lessons it has offered in detachment; finding separation between the reality of me and my definition of myself; and working at maintaining a practice when the body can’t be called on to serve as a faithful conduit.

The hardest part has been knowing that there are people waiting for me to come back to teaching. To you guys I would say: I hope you can use this as impetus to explore other teachers and to either start or continue to build your home practice. In other words: go do your yoga!

Wishing you all peace, love, and joy,

Amy

1 Comment

Looking a Gift Eagle in the Mouth

11/25/2016

0 Comments

This month (November 2016) we've been reading The Eagle's Gift by Carlos Castaneda in the Modern Mystic Book Club, and I am struggling with it.

I am having a hard time with Castaneda himself. Maybe this is a generational thing since I know a lot of boomers embraced him (I'm Gen X); or maybe it’s an artifact of my academic training, not being able to see the forest for the trees (but these are some massive trees).

It’s quite likely that I’m missing information, since The Eagle’s Gift is the first of his books that I’ve read but the sixth that he wrote. However, I’ve spent quite a bit of time researching him now, and the more I do, the more uncomfortable I become. This article at Salon.com is a good summary of the events I refer to here.

I realize that what I’ve written below is harsh, and I do not mean to detract from anyone’s experience. We find doors to growth wherever they appear. I am simply putting forward my own encounter with the material and the questions that surfaced through it. I would gladly listen to alternate points of view and hope they are forthcoming.
**********
To begin, the experience of reading the book was not rewarding. I felt like I was slogging through miles of literary shallows to get to one piece of rehashed spiritual philosophy. When there was something new, it was often disturbing, especially those claims that advocate manipulation: statements such as stalkers are “consummate artists in bending people to their wishes.” And “a teacher must trick the disciple.”

Plus, there is this merciless attitude toward “humans” and “human-ness” throughout, as well as a division of the sexes that characterizes most of the females as crazy or lacking in intellect. Not all, but most. I get that he was talking about losing the ego when he said he and others were becoming less human, and that’s not my problem. My problem is that there’s no compassion for anyone outside of the characters in the groups, and little even for them.

The part where he implies that “don Juan” was not celibate, even though he claimed to be, smacked of revisionism of his own created mythology and led me to wonder how much of this and his other books were written with his harem and cult followers in mind, to continue to bend them to his will.
**********
Don Juan never existed. Castaneda’s master’s thesis, which became his first book, The Teachings of Don Juan: a Yaqui Way of Knowledge, (as well as everything that followed and hinged on it) was at least in great part fabrication. He stitched together elements from the research of other anthropologists, as well as the philosophies of phenomenology and existentialism, to create a tapestry of beliefs and then passed them off as authentic indigenous spirituality. I find this mortifying. He purposefully misrepresented the sacred traditions of indigenous people for his own gain. (He backpedaled on the Yaqui derivation of his mythology early on and in The Eagle’s Gift as well.)

I get that many people have been deeply influenced by Castaneda’s works. They contend that there’s still merit in his books regardless of them being based on lies for profit. But because of his methodology of lifting the actual practices and philosophy from several traditions and schools, I doubt he presents anything new that we can’t find somewhere else in a more honest and encompassing way.

That he used his fame and charisma to become a manipulative cult leader only takes me past discomfort into full blown disgust. Like the imaginary don Juan, Castaneda claimed to be celibate while using his position of power to lure young women into his sphere, and then flattered and seduced them - bending them to his wishes. Not only did he have sex with them, but he dictated their appearance and created an atmosphere of jealousy and rivalry through his distribution of affection.
**********
Our discussion group has talked before about finding value in the message regardless of the messenger. But when does it just become too much? Should we trust an author like Castaneda when we know what we do about him?

I am reminded of the ethical dilemma that scientists faced after WWII: should we or should we not use the findings of the grotesquely horrible experiments Nazi doctors performed on concentration camp inmates? The fact that this even comes to mind says something about how repelled I am by Castaneda.

And that was science—where it is conceivable on some level to separate results of at least certain kinds of experiments from their circumstances; and where those who were experimented on may have found at least a modicum of solace had they known their suffering would benefit future generations.

But this is spirit—and we’re back to the same question: can you separate the message from the messenger? The sacred journey is an aspect of the human experience that has universally (?) held honesty and compassion as foundational. Can someone lacking those qualities be a worthy guide? (I'm open to examples of spiritual paths that disregard honesty and compassion. None come to mind, but that doesn't mean that none exist.)

I spend a lot of time in the yogasphere, where we are up against this question all the damn time. Bikram is only the loudest current example of it; for decades the people around him advocated tuning in to “the message not the man.” And during all of that time, the abuse persisted.
**********
There is much more to this story but for now and for the purposes of discussion here, my question to you is, what if any redeeming value is there in Castaneda’s work?

0 Comments

Health Update 11/2016

Looking a Gift Eagle in the Mouth

Yoga Talk

Archives

Categories