The Story of the Rug

Mother Teresa's Anyway Poem

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;

Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;

Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;

Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;

Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;

Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;

Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;

Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;

Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;

It was never between you and them anyway.​​

In Yoga there is the practice of Ishwapranidan, or Surrender to the Will of God/Higher Reality. This practice is one of the Niyamas, or observances of Yoga and directly follows the practices of  cleansing, contentment, austerity and Self Study, for very important reasons. ​I'll highlight the reasoning that these preliminary practices put us at an edge that helps us discern the voices within that are not helpful to our ultimate journey toward wholeness and keep us in a state of ignorance. And, sometimes ignorance dresses in the most convincing disguises. For example, fear dressed as practicality. People pleasing and avoidance of punishment dressed as kindness and responsibility. Addiction or co-dependence disguised as discipline or unconditional love. I'm only naming the cloaks of ignorance I continue to remove from myself.  This work can, by nature be heavy, and I've had to stretch myself to be objective and humor has helped to creative objectivity in ways that have been profoundly useful. 

I remember saying to a therapist I used to see that I am aware that I use humor as a defense mechanism when I am looking at my issues and I understand that I will have to let go of it eventually. To which she responded, " your humor, used in this way is ok and is allowing you to be honest with yourself without going into self hatred. Why don't you keep it."  So I did, and I invite you to do the same. This is not an invitation to use cynicism or sarcasm to replace vulnerability, but to keep a certain levity, while working on yourself, lest the work itself may leave you too weary to apply it in relationship, which, I think, is the very point. 

I'll share with you the story of the rug.

Last February, my Yoga studio was thriving with students who were really enthusiastic. The physical space of the studio was limiting and so I decided to move into a bigger space and signed a 5 year lease for a building a few blocks away. I gave notice to my (then) current landlord that I would be leaving. It felt like a big stretch, and if I was honest with myself, it didn't feel right. I didn't get any of the grants that I applied for, so my response was to double my workload to save the money needed for the bigger space. I was already teaching too much and I was tired. Then, my mom died. Though she had been sick for a long time, the events that lead to her death still felt sudden and the image of death itself was shocking. I was riddled with regret and sadness and I shouldered the responsibilities of funeral details. I developed some disturbing symptoms of health problems and began a series of tests that would eventually lead to surgery and a hospital stay. 

Meanwhile, the new landlords had asked my husband, Eric and I to come over and talk about the construction of the new studio, as it was being built to suit. 

The "new landlords" were a couple in their late 60's, early 70's-the man was from Turkey, a rug importer, with a thick accent. The woman, American, was a sweet woman that reminded me of  someones kind great aunt, who smoked alot. I could tell as soon as my husband and I sat down at their kitchen table that something was wrong. The woman of the pair was averting her gaze and looked worried, while her husband had a nervous smile and kept saying to Eric and I how nice he thought we were and that he "would have loved to work with us."  With some prodding, we finally got out of him that there was a problem with the septic line of the building that would cost $20,000+ to fix and that, of course they were unwilling to pay it(and so were we). Within minutes, the 5 year lease I had signed was tore up and a check for $3,000 had been written to refund my deposit(Thank God). As the turkish man began to go into his story of inconvenience over having already started construction, I politely said I needed to leave, as I fought back tears. I knew then that I didn't have the energy to look for another studio space, nor did I plan to go back to the space that I had outgrown. Within less than a half hours time, I was choosing to let go of my dream of  running a Yoga studio, because I was tired, grieving, sick, and because there was no place for my "shit" to go(septic problem).  And, I felt relieved that I had an excuse, or several, to take a break. 

As, we walked out, the husband and wife were visibly uncomfortable. He was still trying to tell us that we are good people and she was crying and looking around for something to give to us to relieve her sense of guilt. She stopped in the hallway and looked down at the turkish rug there. 

"I want to give you this", she said. 

The rug looked expensive.

"Honey, isn't there something else", said turkish man, knowing it was.

"No, I want to give them this rug", she said.

"You don't have to give us anything", said Eric.

"I'll take the rug", I said, and just like that, we rolled it up, Eric threw it over his shoulder and we left with a refund and a rug.  We got into the car and started laughing(me still also crying). The practice of surrender had never been so hilarious(and the need for it so obvious). 

Update: Dawn and Eric used the refund money to travel through Europe for 2 weeks and Dawn also traveled to CA and NM to visit friends and family. In total, she took a 2 month sabbatical to rest, grieve, and focus on health. In August, Dawn received a call from a realtor about a studio space for rent. MotherHeart Studio reopened in its new location, 2359 East Susquehanna Avenue on Halloween.

Fire and Steel

A few years ago I decided to make knives for some friends of mine with whom I regularly backpack. I spent a few months researching what I would need, acquired the appropriate supplies and tools, and then worked the leather, wood, antler, brass, and steel into five different knives. These were custom knives, each one different from the others and made for the specific man to whom I was gifting it. I really love the whole process and I’ve continued making knives for other people. I’ve started to consider taking orders and selling knives.

At this point you might be wondering, “What does this have to do with yoga?” What I would like to share is why I wanted to make knives to begin with and what has kept me so fascinated with the process.

I have long been a student of male spirituality, studying the writings and teachings of men like Robert Bly, Richard Rohr, Robert Moore, and many others. One of the key aspects of these teachings that has appealed to me has been balance. The concept of balance is woven throughout so many traditions, and certainly when I started practicing yoga years ago the central theme of balance was attractive. To hold two opposing concepts or forces at once is a skill that takes practice and discipline. Examples are easy to come by in the physical practice of yoga—so many poses require physical balance, in addition to the balance between effort and ease or the balance between strength and flexibility.

In our actions and thoughts, we can hold other balances. A great example of this is the balance of truth and love. To quote Eberhard Arnold, a resister of the Nazi party in Germany, “Truth without love kills, but love without truth lies.” This is a balancing act that we all perform every day in nearly every interaction we have. The extremes are the stereotypical doctor with a horrible bedside manner, giving terrible news truthfully but without kindness, versus the over supportive parents or teachers telling kids that they are the best at everything they try. The doctor shouldn’t lie to the patient, but compassion (love) goes such a long way in helping a person hear what is being said and start the healing process. Children’s self-confidence will be strong enough to last into adulthood with the loving truth of a realistic reflection of themselves from their parents and other adults in their lives.

Another fascinating example of balance is from the writings of Robert Moore and the Jungian archetypes he develops. I won’t go into each of the archetypes themselves but rather the way they are thought about or studied. In a broad sense, each of the archetypes can be understood as a triune or triangle, a three-part concept. The fullness appears at the top and the two shadow sides appear on the bottom, one being the active shadow side and the other the passive. So there is still a balance concept here; however, rather than the simple idea of two opposing ideas with the best path in the middle, there is instead a single virtue and two ways to be out of balance. The active shadow side would consist of putting effort in the wrong place or straying from the path, whereas the passive shadow side would mean not putting in effort anywhere or sitting still on the path. There is a right way to act, a wrong way, and not acting at all.

Let’s get back to the knives and, most importantly, the steel. A proper knife is a blend of hardness and strength; it has to be both to be useful. The process for getting steel to have those characteristics changes the properties of the steel—at an atomic level the steel is realigned. It is still steel but it’s been forced or changed into a balanced state and becomes what it is designed for.

I work with high-carbon steel. After shaping the material to my design, the steel is very soft. In this state it could be sharpened, but it wouldn’t hold an edge and would be easy to bend. In the first process, hardening, the steel is heated to its critical temperature, the steel is no longer magnetic and is approximately 1500 degrees. The iron in the steel has changed phase and is ready to absorb the carbon present in the steel. Then the hot steel is plunged into an oil or water bath and is forced to cool extremely rapidly. Within seconds the temperature drops below 400 degrees. Now the crystalline structure of the iron and carbon is set and the steel is very hard. So hard and brittle that if it were dropped onto the floor it would shatter like glass. If I were to stop the process here, the knife would be as useless as if I never hardened it. As soon as I put some stress on the knife, it would break.

The next process, called tempering, is a controlled releasing of that hardness. By applying much less heat, the crystalline structure is allowed to relax and the knife becomes extremely tough and flexible. The hardness is drawn out and relaxed and I end up with an extremely useful tool that is the balance between hardness (or sharpness) and toughness (or flexibility).

It is said that iron sharpens iron, but fire hardens it and makes it tough. So, too, in our spiritual journeys we can be content to be the soft steel that is worn away by all the other steel that we come into contact with. We may get sharp as we struggle to stay balanced but we won’t be able to hold an edge. Instead we need to seek the fires that will change us into something new and the tempering that will allow us to hold together.

Utkatasana, or the chair pose, requires you to be both sharp and flexible like a knife. Going into the fire of the pose combines your sharp core strength and your flexibility to balance yourself and be still. You become both strong and flexible as your body transforms.

When I was a young man my father passed away. I spent years trying to find balance and calm rather than facing my grief, pain, and loss. I remained unchanged and I continued to have to work to maintain balance. Then something popped up that reminded me of the loss. The constant grinding against those soft places in my life was wearing me away, and eventually the rest of my life crashed in on me and I had to face the pain. Going into that fire of grief and pain changed me, burned away things that I didn’t need, hardened me enough to build back up things that had been worn down. I was then able to find tempering relationships that I could relax into and soften. We need to pass through the fiery places, but staying there leaves us hardened and brittle. Relaxation is required, but too much leaves us soft and fragile. With wisdom, we move back and forth between effort and relaxation, becoming tempered people.