Lent Day 3

Right. Day 3. I have spent the day thinking, while knowing full well that it was not the case, that today was Day 4.

Realized that to think of this 40 days as a test is to establish it as a challenge that is perhaps not what I'm interested in facing. It is not whether I will keep the rules that I've set myself or not, it is implied and known that I will. What is unknown is the experience of doing so and also the experience of life in this time.

Today I found myself paying very close attention to my muscles stretched and held an form all twisty-round. The seconds and breaths were about awareness of posture and tension and musculature.

And red lentil soup. On which I have just stuffed myself. (by the by - always have a recipe for this, along with an onion, tomatoes, red lentil, cardamom, garlic, cinnamon and a bit of chili powder on hand. you will thank me later. really.)

Last evening's reading of Bozo Sapiens brought this wonderful information into my life: 'Want to be more perceptive and engaged in the world? Stop eating: ghrelin, the resulting hormone, boosts learning capacity to such a degree that the researcher who found the connection speculated that "perhaps the cognitive brain is a side-effect of hunger." (Nature Neuroscience, vol. 9, Feb. 19, 2006. p 381-88)( New Scientist, Feb. 25, 2006, Andy Coghlan) - Must here say that I very much distrust speculation - if the evidence is there, that is fine, but speculation is bad science.

As for yoga: The Circular Motion exercise is the only one that has never really made sense in practice or on paper. It still doesn't.

There is no real certainty in this. Decisions must still be made whose impact on my life will be felt beyond Easter. Also, I've to do dishes and want to wait until at least tomorrow evening. If not the day after. I have a very long day tomorrow and am very tempted to take a shower and get into bed and read Martha Nussbaum until I fall asleep and dream of characters as letters moving in a dance over a broad stage, singing to me their names and various histories, presenting to me more layers than one night's dreaming can reveal or understand, while outside the steps where I sit for many nights in focused attentiveness, the world begins to name itself with symbols and sounds carried proudly aloft or discretely sewn in a pocket, perhaps tucked away, as mine is, just behind an ear, protected by the hairline and the relative grandeur of the appendage.

I remembered today to buy toothpaste.