Warrior

Warriors keep coming up for me lately. On Thursday when I rode my bike to work, one of my yoga students asked me in another exercise class we sometimes take at the same time whether I had ridden my bike in the sub-zero temps. When I told him I had, he said "Wow, you are a true warrior! Can I have your autograph?" I gratefully accepted his praise, and continued to be grateful when this song started blaring internally on that freezing cold ride home:

Shooting at the walls of heartache
Bang, bang, I am the warrior
Well, I am the warrior
And heart to heart you'll win
If you survive the warrior, the warrior

And I survived. Speaking of warriors surviving, I sure hope Chuck Hagel survives the process of being confirmed by the Senate for Secretary of Defense. This weekend I read about the hearing, and it sounded pretty brutal. I, for one, believe that no one is better equipped to help decide whether we should go to war than those who have been there themselves. The article paraphrased this Douglas MacArthur quote that expresses this idea more eloquently:

The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.

In my yoga classes, when I put people in warrior poses, I often remind them that as yogis we are warriors of peace -- love and compassion are our weapons. There's no question in my mind that yoga helps me focus my warrior-like energy and use it to positive ends; I didn't always have yoga to help me channel my warrior nature. Just ask my mother. "You were my little pistol" is one of the more loving ways I've heard her express how challenging a child I was to raise.

A friend came over last night and we were talking about our powerful warrior daughters and how to channel their power so that it doesn't disrupt the rest of the family too much, but at the same time, how to preserve it so that it can be of use to the world:

I don't wanna tame your animal style
You won't be caged in the call of the wild

I definitely think we need to preserve our children's animal style, and this is one thing I fear that public education is doing that is harming our children, our nation, and our world. I get that it is complicated, that our culture is full of violent images and messages that take what might otherwise be productive energy in a child and manifest it in a way that may be dangerous to the community at large.

I'm doing my best to change it. Every day that I manage to muster up the strength (which isn't every single day), I get to work toward making education better in this state, and I often do it by challenging the powers that be, upsetting the status quo, and pushing for the best possible solutions for kids. I also continue to look for means of direct service to the teachers and administrators who bear the burden of a system in danger of collapsing under its own weight...