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March 21, 2011
cadaver (n.)
One of the most nauseating words in the English language: It's too big a hit of reality, that medical term reminding us of what we will all one day be. (And it's even worse than "corpse", because, somehow, it sounds more dead than dead).
This word came up this weekend, in (ironic) congruence with:
Purim: one of the most joyous holidays on the Jewish calendar, when people dress up costumes and are encouraged to get drunk to commemorate a time when the Jewish people living in Persia were saved from execution.
I ran into some of my Med school friends at a Purim party this weekend. It brought up a memory of our chats about "Cadaver Fridays". Last term, every Friday, my friends' Anatomy class would get really "hands on". All joking aside though, (and with utmost care and gratitude to those who offer their bodies to science), I was deeply struck by those who can deal with that word in their everyday life. I get the heebee jeebees just thinking about it. It's just so much easier to stomach rainbows and posies and just plain being alive.
In the spirit of this mentality, I began to think: yoga - "absorption", "contemplation", "union", "control".
I'm still on my #YYoga30DayChallenge (day 20, and boy are my hips open). I've learned a lot in the last few weeks. By no means, was my goal to to try and comprehend the complete principles of Hinduism, or fully experience drishti by way of yogic mantras and teachings. Completing the challenge is a way for me to motivate myself to hold a handstand, learn to use my body more fully, and stabilize my thoughts so that I can control my feelings and generally become a more pleasant person (and we could all use a few more of those).
What I have come to find is that I'm introducing myself to a bit more than just handstands, breathing exercises, and the splits.
Coincidentally (or not), in my Anusara and Power classes this weekend, we came across the idea of death - on two occasions. The first happened while we were holding the third of our three consecutive sets of dolphin plank after some killer warrior poses (that make me feel unfit for battle).
Full of burning pain, my teacher mentioned, tapas, the Sanskrit word for "heat" - a heat only available to us when we are alive; a heat that pains you, but without which one fails to grow. In my own interpretation, tapas is the burning you need to feel in order to shed away the bad so that a better self can surface. It also makes you feel like you're dying a little bit (or a lot). (But it also makes you feel alive.)
During another class this weekend, another time when the thirty of us were sprawled on our mats in deep lunges, shaking with sweat and trying to control our breathing while "dying a little bit", our teacher wisely commented on death once more: The more we die while we're alive, the less we'll die when the time truly comes (or something close to that).
However weird this may sound to some (or even absurd), it resonated with me. It resonated so far that I remembered it after I was four beers deep, talking with my future MD buddies on the dance floor. I was dressed like a quasi-belly-dancer, a giraffe was nearby, as was Castro, Mary Antoinette and a couple of jelly fish.
The thought of ever being just a body is a scary thing and I think we should all try to partake in the joy of our ability to daily defeat death. We may die just a little bit every day; some days it may feel like we died a little bit more; but if we conduct ourselves in such a way that every pain leaves us with a burning sensation of what it is to be alive, we may get to feel the benefits of that endorphin rush of tapas, our daily dose of reality that may better our lives and increase our daily wellbeing. Pain can serve as a reminder that we are so much more than mere bodies, that we are bodies with minds that enable us to move beyond pain and on to better things.
We're human, able to move, think, and speak, and if we use all three in tandem and with good intention, we will be that much more capable of sharing compassion through positive thought and that much less prone to acting out based on our limitations, whether physical or moral. In a way then, maybe we'll be less scared of that ugly word, and more concerned with whether our thoughts are alive with purpose and good will.
How easily contentment arrives when we defeat the ominous, the scary.
This word came up this weekend, in (ironic) congruence with:
Purim: one of the most joyous holidays on the Jewish calendar, when people dress up costumes and are encouraged to get drunk to commemorate a time when the Jewish people living in Persia were saved from execution.
I ran into some of my Med school friends at a Purim party this weekend. It brought up a memory of our chats about "Cadaver Fridays". Last term, every Friday, my friends' Anatomy class would get really "hands on". All joking aside though, (and with utmost care and gratitude to those who offer their bodies to science), I was deeply struck by those who can deal with that word in their everyday life. I get the heebee jeebees just thinking about it. It's just so much easier to stomach rainbows and posies and just plain being alive.
In the spirit of this mentality, I began to think: yoga - "absorption", "contemplation", "union", "control".
I'm still on my #YYoga30DayChallenge (day 20, and boy are my hips open). I've learned a lot in the last few weeks. By no means, was my goal to to try and comprehend the complete principles of Hinduism, or fully experience drishti by way of yogic mantras and teachings. Completing the challenge is a way for me to motivate myself to hold a handstand, learn to use my body more fully, and stabilize my thoughts so that I can control my feelings and generally become a more pleasant person (and we could all use a few more of those).
What I have come to find is that I'm introducing myself to a bit more than just handstands, breathing exercises, and the splits.
Coincidentally (or not), in my Anusara and Power classes this weekend, we came across the idea of death - on two occasions. The first happened while we were holding the third of our three consecutive sets of dolphin plank after some killer warrior poses (that make me feel unfit for battle).
 |
| Tapas, anyone? (I'm serious. You could probable use this as your mandala) |
During another class this weekend, another time when the thirty of us were sprawled on our mats in deep lunges, shaking with sweat and trying to control our breathing while "dying a little bit", our teacher wisely commented on death once more: The more we die while we're alive, the less we'll die when the time truly comes (or something close to that).
However weird this may sound to some (or even absurd), it resonated with me. It resonated so far that I remembered it after I was four beers deep, talking with my future MD buddies on the dance floor. I was dressed like a quasi-belly-dancer, a giraffe was nearby, as was Castro, Mary Antoinette and a couple of jelly fish.
 |
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow, Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell; And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die. ~John Donne |
We're human, able to move, think, and speak, and if we use all three in tandem and with good intention, we will be that much more capable of sharing compassion through positive thought and that much less prone to acting out based on our limitations, whether physical or moral. In a way then, maybe we'll be less scared of that ugly word, and more concerned with whether our thoughts are alive with purpose and good will.
How easily contentment arrives when we defeat the ominous, the scary.
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