Saturday, July 14, 2012






We aren't looking for the Goddamn Particle. We're looking for the field.

As many of you know, the fambly and I are awaiting a new recruit, who is presently taking up way too much space in my humongous belly. Within a matter of weeks, the shit is really gonna hit the fan.  

I'm scared, to be quite honest; Zavier is almost 19 months old and all full of piss and vinegar, and to have a little vulnerable and noisy and sleepless babe about in the midst of Zavi-land seems insane. 

How long will it take for a body part to get bit off? Right now we can pretty much contain him, flanking him with our larger bodies. He just ricochets off the walls that we are, and we amuse him and snuggle him and feed him enough that doesn't so much notice that we are keeping him from mischief. But the symmetry of the system is about to be broken, once again. 

However, and this is a huge however, I am also well aware that I know nothing. I had no earthly idea what would happen to me when I had Zavi. I was scared then, too; life as a non-mother had a certain ease and symmetry to it that I knew was about to rupture. I actually thought that I wouldn't really like him as a baby that much, and that I could outsource a bit of his care until he got a little personality and mobility. I had no idea that some kind of magical glen inside myself would open up and change everything into kaleidoscopes. Something about falling madly in love with a little redheaded monster gave everything technicolor, and brings me daily to my knees. 

It's like the whole world gained mass, substance. I finally grok 'family'; my own and the the phenomena of it, and I surrender more to the happy/sad sandwich of life. Everything has deepened, because I really, really, really like Zavi. Even when he's obstinate and self-absorbed, which is regularly. 

The 'discovery' of the Higgs boson last week reminded me of all of this. 

Physicists spend many a sleepless night analyzing data in order to provide evidence of this teensy little particle principally because it gives us proof of and understanding of an energetic field. That field is responsible for imbuing particles with mass.

In somewhat this same way, the magical little field inside of myself opened up when the particle named Zavi was found, and now everything that moves through the field has mass; gravitas... specifically because of relationship. So I can only hope that, in the bringing in of baby 2,  some sort of magical field will again open up, and give my anxiety a place to rest.

 I see a parallel to the process of yoga practice here. We seek, in asana practice, to create poses; we simply structure our physical forms in specific ways. This re-arranging of our molecules to create strange and pretty shapes is really not all that compelling on its own, however.  I suspect we'd never drag ourselves out of our caves for it, if it were not for the fact that somehow when we create these poses, it gives us access to an energetic field within that is crucial for giving our lives weightiness; the guru principle. 

We forget, of course, that what the pose looks like, or how advanced our practice appears, is really inconsequential. 

We're not looking for the particle. We're looking for the field. 

But the particle and the field are each other's complement, and our attention to detail in the practice can yield the awareness state that is a balm on the parts of ourselves that still wallow in confusion. 

Like the Zen folks say, 'form is not different from emptiness. emptiness is not different from form.' We find access to our spaciousness, by simply holding our bodies in a particular way, and breathing consciously there. And in so doing the relationships that make up our lives, that give life it's gravitas, find their way to balance, even though we're all alone on the mat, in our own little energetic fields.

Life; all oddity and paradox: Thank you.