Notes on Enlightenment

This morning [ahem, a morning in the past two weeks] was spent in the sweaty clutches of a search. A search? A search!

Triggered, perhaps, by the cheesy and delightful Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse (The Gleaners and I; Agnès Varda, 2000) screened in the company of numerous bronzed and bespectacled New Yorkers, all over the age of 65 and enjoying their MoMA senior discounts and the poem that is old age in New York. [More on this poem in a future post.]

Triggered, perhaps, by Varda's fuge on the people who glean from what remains from the habitual grind and the wonderful things that they find - food, scraps, artistic inspiration. But in my case, on this particular day [in the past two weeks] isolated, identified, and beaten to a sweaty pulp with the hard sticks of oneness of being and spiritual release. I'm talking, of course, about the Sunday morning yoga class. And so, without any further prolegomenon...what have we gleaned?

Some Field Notes on Enlightenment:

1) Enlightenment cannot be achieved unless one is thoroughly embarrassed. One must humble one's gotely body before one's fellow gotes in order to find one's way to the shiny path. One must sweat visibly and profusely, mopping one's face, legs, and mat with a scummy towel while others sit quietly with their legs balanced lightly on their own shoulders or extended in various directions as if held up by invisible karmic marionette strings. One must wear small, tight black shorts that squeeze one's furry and uninstructed flesh into the meekest and humblest of truth-seeking gote-sausages. And, after the requisite hour and a half, one must remove all the trappings of modesty, becoming pure and innocent, alone in one's innocence, all the while trying not to bump too familiarly into the other naked pilgrims waiting in line for the baptismal font of the group shower.

2) Enlightenment cannot be achieved through the brain. Thinking about other people's marionette strings will not help you grow your own.

3) In fact, thinking about other people's marionette strings only helps the Republican Party gain more votes.

4) *But* if you ignore it all long enough, you may have a vision.



That vision, for that split second, may be your enlightenment.

Or it may not be. But it's worth a shot.