Un abdomen lindo significa una mente linda: Como trabaja Pranayama

Que pasaria si los musculos abodominales controlan tu vida?

Muchas personas quieren evitar una barriga prominente y desean abdominales de acero porque asi lucen fantasticos, pero Yoga sugiere otras razones para querer una tablita.

En el Gheranda Samhita, un texto medieval de yoga, llama a nuestra practica Ghata Yoga, significando el yoga de la barriga. La clave para esto y todo el viejo yoga fisico fue kumbhaka – detener la respiracion y Kumbhaka significa barriguita tambien. Como sabemos, yoga nos mantiene en forma, mente, cuerpo y espiritu, pero su gran enfoque era antiguamente el Yoga de la barriga,que queria decir un abdomen bello y tonificado-  no para que luciera fabuloso sino porque eso permitia fluir la energia entre cuerpo y mente. Los yoguis aprenden que la barriga estaba intimamente conectado con el control de la mente, y desde luego con el control de la vida.

Que?

Barriga conectada con la mente la cual es conectada con la vida?

Ghata y kumbhaka se refieren al trabajo del cuerpo desde el centro, la parrilla costal, abdomen y sus musculos involucrados.  La barriga (ghata) tiene todos los musculos sutiles que guian la respiracion y cuando estan bien entrenados ellos nos permiten detener la respiracion de manera muy especifica (Kumbhaka)

Este entrenamiento puede llevar mucho tiempo y cuando avanza nos damos cuenta que, manipulando el abdomen en situaciones estresantes dirije la respiracion y mantiene la mente calma bajo presion. Encontramos que, en situaciones dificiles, si hacemos una pausa, alternamos orificio nasal al respirar (narina) puede estabilizar los nervios. Pranayama es una ciencia simple, pero tiene efectos profundos.

Hoy en dia la practica de yoga tomado como gimnacia entrena nuestra barriga y ayuda a que luzca en forma  y eso hace mas que atraer la admiracion de otros. Estos pertenecen a un sistema de nervios, pulmones y musculos que entrenan nuestra mente y ayudan nuestra vida.

La practica tiene un gran alcance

Los maestros de yoga dicen: respira, porque eso quita tension, enfoca atencion  y desarrolla la  concentracion. Pero muchos maestros de yoga no conocen que el antiguo objetivo de yoga era detener la respiracion completamente! Yo se que esto suena absurdo, pero trabajando en este sentido se dice que es la llave de la vida larga y mente ferrea. Hemos escuchado de monjes que dejaron de comer y viven del aire. Se dice que son Swamis y viven de prana, la fuerza de la vida. Ellos intercambian prana en su entorno como gente comun hacen con el O2.  Swami Kripalu el  maestro de Amrit Desai (quien fundo el Centro Kripalu en Massachusetts y quien invento Kripalu Yoga)- respiraba solo 40 veces al dia. (Swami Kripalu vivio bajo voto de silencio. Aveces, en medio de una conversacion el escribia en su pizarra de mano “siento que una respiracion viene…”).

Swami K. era calmo porque respiraba poco. Respiracion calma es igual a mente calma. Y por lo tanto menos respiracion es igual a vida larga.

Sabiduria antigua dice que nacemos con una cantidad limitada de respiraciones. Cuando esa cantidad se termina, termina nuestra vida. La ciencia moderna dice que el oxigeno crea radicales libres en el sistema, oxidacion. Esto eventualmente llega al colapso  del sistema que llamamos envejecer.

Piensa en el barco USS  Arizona asentado en el piso de Pearl Harbor. Piensa en la oxidacion. Aun si tienes abs de acero tu cuerpo se va a oxidar por la gloriosa respiracion que haces.

Si quieres optimizar tus años, usa tus abs para guiar la respiracion.

Los viejos yoguis se enseñaron a si mismos esto, y lo pasaron a traves de su linaje.

Ellos inventaron pranayama, la ciencia de la respiracion. Los sutras de Patanjali fueron compuestos cerca de año 200 de nuestra era. ( 1800 años mas tarde, se convirtio en la “Biblia” del yoga moderno) y  esto hace la ciencia de la respiracion el tercer paso de ocho en la maestria del yoga. Pero aun en las mas viejas escrituras indias de hace tres mil años encontramos referencias a personajes  como yogas “montando” y “estirando” el viento (viento es un eufemismo para respiracion).

Respira, estas a salvo

Ok, sabemos que la practica de respiracion es antigua.  Despues los yoguis aprendieron que la practica de respiracion les ayudo a mantener posturas mas dificiles y por tiempo mas largo, pero ellos tambien exploraron como la respiracion  y la mente se mueven como amantes en feliz union. Se dice que la respiracion mueve la mente y la mente mueve la respiracion. Y talvez un buen dia esto te guia  a un poder del  yoga como leer la mente, caminar sobre el agua o caminar en el aire (antes de tener aviones para ayudarnos con esto). Seguro, controlando la respiracion puede hacer tu vida mas larga pero lo mas importante, tu vida completa es mejorada si aprendes a controlar la respiracion por los beneficios milagrosos o casi milagrosos que te brinda.

Pranayama es la practica antigua de controlar la respiracion en la tradicion del yoga. No todos los maestros de yoga ofrecen esto, pero la antigua tradicion califica esto como alta practica mas que solo postura.  El antiguo guia- Los Yoga Sutras- mas  muchos maestros famosos que fueron enseñados en tradicionales escuelas, destacados maestros como TKV Desikachar, Rod Stryker y Gay Kraftsow dirijen su principal atencion a desarrollar pranayama. Hay razones muy interesantes para esto.

Que pasaria si el control de la mente es realmente un asunto simple y practico? Como  que si unos abs bellos significara una bella mente? Si la mente es controlada por la respiracion y la respiracion es controladoado por esos hermososs musculos abs ipso facto un bello abs hace un cerebro bello.

La barriga regula al  cerebro.

Esto es mucho mas que el modo que “el corazon del hombre es a traves de su estomago”. Lo que aprendemos a traves de pranayama es que la respiracion puede estabilizarse de todas maneras. Tambien trabajamos (en el largo camino) hacia detener completamente la respiracion.

Esto tiene efecto a largo plazo, por supuesto. Una razon principal para el ejercicio cardiovascular es que respirar fuertemente durante el ejercicio  luego  calma la respiracion lentamente cuando el ejercicio termina. Cuando los pulmones aprenden a trabajar bien, trabajan menos cuando descansamos. Menos repiracion = larga vida.

La ciencia de Pranayama es importantisima.  El mencionado Swami Kripalu decia conocer mas de 200 ejercicios de respiracion (mas o menos el mismo numeros de posturas que el yogui famoso B.K.S. Iyengar puso en su “Biblia” de posturas, Light on Yoga). Para darte una idea de como la respiracion lenta prolonga la vida naturalmente, esta historia de India Britanica ayuda: Clive de India, era un gran ganador de batallas y se retiro a una hacenda rica en Gran Bretaña y establecio un jardin zoologico en 1769. En 2006 yo lei que uno de los inquilinos de Clive- una tortuga de mar que respira lentamente justo habia muerto. Se dice que tenia 250 años- aproximadamente 20 años mas viejo que el paramaguru de Iyengar Brahmamohama Brahmachari, el gran ghata yogui.

Pero una vida prolongada no es buena si es una vida miserable. Pranayama nos ayuda a manejar en salud y longevidad- a traves de la mente, respiracion y abs- pero mas importante es que mantiene una mente estable que es mejor preparada a hacerte feliz.  Mentes estables hacen mejores deciciones. Lo que conduce a mejores cosas para uno mismo y nuestro entorno.

Asi trabaja el abdomen, queridos lectores. Es mas que un accesorio para la bikini o boxer shorts. Aprendan la ciencia de la respiracion porque, ipso facto un lindo abdomen significa una linda mente y vida.

Eric Shaw,E-RYT-500, MA Education, MA Asian Studies, MA Religious Studies, enseña historia, filosofia y practica de Yoga.

Pancatyatana-puja (the is the worship the five deities) includes Surya (the Sun God), Ganesha, Vishnu, Shiva and Deva (the Goddess).   It co-arose with an advancing theism (focus on Gods) in the later half of the first millennium BCE, and took the form of individualized devotional practice.

This bhakti “yoga” was the householder counterpart to the evolving spiritual arts within sramana culture–the culture of the yogis.

The bhakti tradition was driven by an egalitarian sense of entitlement to Godly attention and deserv-ed salvation.  it was an upswelling that hedged itself against priestcraft and temple protocol.

The later Upanishads reflect this emphasis. We see the multiform aspect of the godhead affirmed and, as the Common Era dawns (dated after Christ’s birth) we see the elevation of these gods to universal status–i.e. they take on the role of the Creator, the High God, the God behind all higher divine identities.

The Bhagavad Gita provides new opportunities within this relationship–most notably the formulation of karma yoga–and, for the first time, it introduces the concept of a bhakta being the object of a God’s personal love and affection.  The god Krsna expresses his personal affection for the warrior Arjuna.

The relationship with the divine becomes intimate.

This evolves into an acceptance of the idea that divinity rests within us all.

The striving yogis could attain godhood, but with the coming of the Tantras, it was explained that we are already liberated and we exist emanations of the divine.

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on Mar 18, 2012

Book Review: The Science of Yoga. ~ Eric Shaw

Three years ago, I smelled something bad upwind.

Yoga’s devil-side was farting somewhere near—like a malodorous, motorcycle-gang cousin who takes whatever pose he likes in yoga class.

The first hints of it came in scholarship. David White, a professor of South Asian Religions at the University of California, Santa Barbara published Sinister Yogis in 2009, then Mark Singleton published his reworked doctoral dissertation, Yoga Body in January 2010.

Both deeply exhumed yoga’s troubled past.

Not much long after, John Friend fell from grace and William Broad published The Science of Yoga.

Yoga’s smelly butt was now standing naked for all to view.

But since this is a review of Broad’s book, let’s say the story isn’t all bad, it’s just eponymously broad.

How scientific discoveries function in yoga culture is The Science of Yoga’s meta-story.  All of us know that yogis cherry-pick facts from science that serve their aims, and Broad paints the picture in embarrassing detail.

He cherry-picks facts, too. He draws unsupportable conclusions, and over-dramatizes the conflict of viewpoints in the yoga world.

I bought the book to read on my way to Texas last month. My 14-year old contrarian id wanted stimulus (even though I’m 50!). Since I like the dark side as well as the light and the messy as well as the well-ordered stories from the yoga world, I opened Broad’s book with gusto, and I yawned.

He goes on and on.

Giving him his due, one chapter I’d consider good is called Fit Perfection. In this chapter, he deals with claims that yoga is all you need for cardiovascular fitness.

He does a great job of tracking down scientific tests that resolved the question, and notes how Yoga Journal, YogaFit and The Huffington Post made only partially supportable claims that cardio was one of yoga’s benefits.

At the same time, the writing—as it is throughout the whole book—is overwrought. He wrings a controversy out of questions that common sense settles easily. I sweat, but don’t breathe hard in even the toughest yoga classes, ergo, yoga builds muscle but has little effect on cardio!

Um, William! I already knew this! Yo, bro! Is that alright?!

—————————————————————————–

Despite these pratfalls, there are new tales. There’s a history of yogic science.  Most intriguingly, he tells the story of the Bengali doctor N.C. Paul who published the first scientific study of yoga called A Treatise on the Yoga Philosophy in 1851. Though Broad doesn’t mention it, Paul was part of an even more intriguing role exchange: He the Indian of Western Medicine used as the object of his study an English captain who had  “gone native” and became a yogi in Bengal in those days.

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Paul’s study revealed why yogis practice in caves, why they slow the breath and hinted at the possibilities for human hibernation. I won’t ruin the tale, but know that it violates the popular wisdom about how breath functions in a yoga class.

This chapter also tells about the far more widely-known tale of the adept historians know as Haridas (though, strangely, Broad doesn’t name him). In a story Singleton tells too,[1] the 1840′s yogi brags to Lahore’s King of his catatonic powers. King Singh then buries him alive with wax-stuffed orifices as armed guards and British Administrators kept watch.

After 40 days, he’s unburied.

Blinking his eyes open and taking fresh breaths, the yogi chides the king. “Do you believe me now?[2] The story stirs us, but Broad launches from it to heap up evidence against yogic hibernation.

He delves appreciatively into the heart-control exhibitions by Krishnamcharya, Swami Rama and others, but settles on the failed attempts by the scientist Swami Kuvalayananda (strangely referenced only by his birth name, Jagannath Gune) to get any yogi to repeat Haridas’s feat. In a fit of bad logic, Broad concludes that such a lack of new evidence on human hibernation sweeps away the possibility that it was ever true.[3]

This is not proven. Let’s just say he falls out of the pose often.

In the chapter, Risk of Injury Broad leaps toward logical voids.

He gives five pages to warnings by a 1940′s doctor that shoulder-stand might cause a stroke[4] but produces no actual evidence that it has ever happened! He details a 1973 stroke created by Upward Bow Pose and a 1977 case of a man who did too much shoulder-stand and bruised his neck, then damaged his nerves. He then tells about a 1993 Hong Kong woman who got a stroke from headstand.

Based on just these tales and the dramatic diagnoses their doctors gave, he recklessly concludes, “The spike in clinical reports made yoga strokes a common feature of medical concern.”[5]

Broad! Hardly!

Later, he talks of yoga injuries “soaring” nationwide from 13 in 2000 to 46 in 2002-at a time when yoga added millions of new practitioners.

He misses the fact that, if just 46 got injured it might have been an intervention by Shiva!!!

(That’s a joke folks, but you get my point).

He complains that a 2001 Yoga Journal article on strokes didn’t rightly extrapolate the rate of neck injury to the wider population of yogis, and therefore underplayed the risk. But his argument against the conclusion merely cites the general tendency of U.S. citizens to get strokes, not strokes from yoga. He then claims Yoga Journal got its statistics wrong.[6]

Good facts. Odd logic.

Other chapters on the effects of yoga on mood and on sex are more useful and promising.

In all, Broad takes you into the pits, but hits high points, too. The Science of Yoga is not the devil in red satin or even jackboots, but it’s a useful reminder that yogis say silly, scientifically-contrary things and that we should keep our house in order when offering up hard and dangerous poses. The book provides the first (albeit, brief) history of yogic science, and it’s a useful primer on yogic culture for insiders as well as outsiders.

If it was written better, The Science of Yoga might have been a strong devil’s advocate to the good book, Yoga as Medicine, published in 2007 by Dr. Timothy McCall. In meticulousness of scholarship, entertaining writing and usefulness, Yoga as Medicine is a far better guide to what ails you. Here, as is so often the case, good is so much more interesting than evil.

To watch the video, please click here: http://youtu.be/CHAf0AiGNIU

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on Mar 13, 2012

A Beautiful Belly Means a Beautiful Mind: How Pranayama Works. ~ Eric Shaw

What if the muscles in your abdomen controlled your life?

Many people want to avoid pot bellies and want steel abs because it looks great, but yoga suggests other reasons for a washboard stomach.

In the Gheranda Samhita, a medieval text of yoga, it calls our practice Ghata Yoga, meaning the yoga of the pot. A key to this and all the old physical yogas was kumbhaka—holding the breath—and kumbhaka means pot too. As we know, yoga keeps us fit in mind, belly and spirit, but its big, big focus in the old, old days was pot yoga, which meant making a smart, toned belly—not because it looked fabulous, but because it allowed practitioners to move energy in the body and mind. The belly, yogis learned, was intimately connected to mind control—and therefore life control.

What?

The belly bone is connected to the mind bone, which is connected to the life bone?

Ghata and kumbhaka refer to is the body’s working core—the ribcage and belly—and their enveloping muscles. The belly “pot” (ghata) has all the subtle muscles that guide the breath and, when they are well-trained, they allow us to hold the breath in very specific ways (kumbhaka). This training can go on for a very long time, and when it advances, we find that manipulating the belly in stressful situations directs the breath and keeps the mind cool under pressure. We find that, anticipating difficulty, a side session of alternate nostril breathing can steady our nerves. Pranayama is a simple science, but it has far-reaching effects.

Today’s workout-influenced yoga trains our “pots” because those muscles look great, but these do more than tease the thoughts of onlookers—they belong to a system of nerve, lung and muscle that train our minds and help our lives.

The practice goes very deep.

Yoga teachers say “breathe!” because it gets rid of tension, focuses attention and develops concentration. But many yoga teachers do not know that the ancient aim of yoga was to stop breathing entirely! I know that sounds absurd, but working toward this aim is said to be key to long life and a steely mental focus. We have heard of ‘breatharians’ who gave up food and live off air. There are also said to be Swamis who have given up air and live off prana—life force. They exchange it with their surroundings like common folk do with 0_2. Swami Kripalu—the teacher of Amrit Desai (who founded Massachusetts’ Kripalu Center and who invented Kripalu Yoga)—breathed only forty times a day. (Swami Kripalu lived under a vow of silence.  Sometimes, in the middle of a “talk,” he would write on his little, hand-held chalkboard: “I feel a breath coming . ..”).

Swami K. was calm because he breathed so little. Calm breath equals calm mind. And, incidentally, less breath equals long life.

Ancient lore says we get a limited number of breaths when we are born (a few gazillion, probably). When they are finished, we are finished. Modern science tells us oxygen creates “free-radicals” in the system, i.e. oxidation. It eventually leads to the systemic breakdown we call old age. Think of the USS Arizona sitting on the seafloor of Pearl Harbor. Think of rust. Even if have abs of steel, your body will rust from all the glorious breathing you do.

If you want to optimize your years, use those abs to guide breath.

The old yogis taught themselves this, and passed it down though their lineages.

They invented pranayama, the science of breath. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras was composed near the year 200 of our era (1800 years later, it became the “Bible” of modern yoga) and it makes breath science the third of eight steps in yoga mastery. But even in the very oldest Indian scriptures from three thousand years ago, we get references to yogi-like characters “mounting” and “churning” the wind (wind is a euphemism for breath).

So we know breath-practice goes way back. Later yogis learned that breath practice helped them attain hard poses and hold them longer, but they also explored how breath and mind move like lovers in happy union. It is said that breath moves the mind and the mind moves the breath. And maybe on a good day, it even leads to a yogi power (or siddhi) like mindreading, water-walking or walking on air (before we had airplanes to help us with this!). Sure, controlling the breath can make you live longer but, more importantly, your whole life is improved if you learn to control your breath because of the miraculous and quasi-miraculous benefits it brings.

Pranayama is the ancient practice of breath control from the yoga tradition. Not every yoga teacher offers it, but the ancient tradition qualified it as higher practice than mere posing. The ancient guidebook to yoga—The Yoga Sutras—plus lots of traditionally-schooled marquee teachers, like T. K. V. Desikachar, Rod Stryker and Gary Kraftsow, direct our primary attention to developing pranayama. There are exciting reasons for this.

What if mind-control was a really a simple, practical affair? Like, what if a beautiful belly meant a beautiful mind? If the mind is controlled by the breath and the breath is controlled by all those sweet stomach muscles then, ispo facto, a beautiful bellies make the brain beautiful!

The belly rules the brain.

This is much more than “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”  What we learn through pranayama is that the breath can remain steady no matter what. We also work (in the very long run) toward stopping the breath entirely.

This has long-term effects, of course. One main reason cardiovascular exercise is good is that hard breathing in the workout leads to calmer and slower breaths outside of the workout. When the lungs learn to work well, they work less when we rest. Less breath = longer living.

Pranayama science is huge. The above-mentioned Swami Kripalu claimed to know over two hundred breath exercises (about the same number of poses the famous yogi B. K. S. Iyengar put in his “Bible” of poses, Light on Yoga). To give you an idea about how slowed breath lengthens life from Nature, this story from British India helps:  Clive of India was a great winner of Indian battles and he retired to a wealthy UK estate and stocked a zoo in 1769.  In 2006, I read that one of Clive’s tenants—a slow-breathing sea turtle—had just died.   He was said to be two hundred and fifty years old—about twenty years older than Iyengar’s paramaguru, the great ghata yogi, Brahmamohana Brahmachari.

But long life is no good if you have got a lousy life. Pranayama helps us get a handle on health and longevity—through our mind, breath and belly—but more importantly it makes a steady mind that is better-equipped to make itself happy. Steady minds more readily make wise choices. That leads to better things for everyone in the vicinity.

So work the belly, dear readers! It is more than just an accessory to your bikini or boxer shorts. Learn breath science! Because, ipso facto: a beautiful belly (rightly trained!) means a beautiful mind and life.

Eric Shaw, E-RYT-500, MA Education, MA Asian Studies, MA Religious Studies, teaches the history, philosophy and practice of Yoga. You could enjoy this video of his insight into the philosophy behind Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, and check out his website.

 

~

Prepared by Soumyajeet Chattaraj/Edited by Tanya L. Markul

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With yesterdays big protests in Berkeley, the continuing unrest in Syria and Egypt, and big new gatherings in Russia, it seems that the world is now fully perinatal:  something new is coming from the womb.

The self-immolation of a 26-year-old Tunisian    fruit seller named Mohamed Bouazizi on Dec. 17^th, 2010, set off a wave of revolts in North Africa and the Middle East—dubbed the Arab Spring—which soon spread to Europe and the West.  Youths ramapaged in Britain, the Middle Class marched on the Kremlin and the “Occupy” movement  bloomed in American cities from New York City to Flagstaff, Arizona.

Old-school protesters and the Right-wing critics of Occupy bewailed the indirection of the movement, but as a one Egyptian professional caught up in the Tahir Square protests said, “I know what I don’t want.”   Americans are angry about the skewed distribution of wealth in the country and business-as-usual aftermath of the mortgage crisis, among other things.

A positive new vision hasn’t emerged, but that is often how it is when change is demanded in a society or a relationship or life-path.

First we say, “no!” then we make new dreams.

A swami in Rishikesh, India’s north, listened for months to a voice that told him to go to Bangalore.  He talked over the move with his brother disciples, but got no support.  “What is in Bangalore?” they would say.  “It is a city of money.”

But the messages still came and eventually, trusting spirit, he traveled south.  He expected that a guru would appear in his life, or a disciple, or a situation, but when he got to Bangalore, nothing came to pass.  He idled for weeks, not knowing what to do.

This is sometimes how protest the status quo works.  Protest is usually a destructive act. It is a shattering of standing relationships.  It is a “yes” to change—the change from something is often sure, but the change toward something is sometimes vague.  In every case, “Something is rotten in Denmark” and the stench drives us forth.  We end up with less at first—a life on the road, a day without a job, or a bed without the one we loved.

Change may be hard, and we hesitate.  Saying, “It’s alright,” is always an option, as we recoil from rocking the boat.

One night, I was walking the streets, taking a break from my desk, I passed a man who walked slowly, breathed heavily and had a profound stoop in his shoulders.  I’m a yoga teacher, and when I see bodies closed by habits of emotion or diet or movement patterns, I feel called to help.  Usually I mind my own business, but that night I felt the sharp obligation to say something.  “Have you tried yoga?” I asked. Abruptly, he said, “I’m alright!  I’m breathing!”

—————————————————————————–

So it goes in the pre-change world.

Things are alright.

We’re breathing.

But it’s getting harder to inhale. That’s the common pre-amble to protest.  Things as they are make us uncomfortable.  That foreshadows  a new pattern of choice.

Things might be lousy, or they might be just alright. We’re hanging tough, but we sensed there’s a better way.

When I was in Junior High, I wasn’t a tough kid, but I stood out in my own way, and found myself in fights from time to time.  A kid named Steve Anderson who’d been insulting me for months, threw a text book of mine into the trash in our locker-room, and I’d had it.  I shouted in his face, “fuck you, Anderson,” and he duly challenged me to a fight him.  He was bigger than me and a better athlete, and I’d been trained to avoid conflict from my life as a preacher’s son.  I matter-of-factly refused him.  Disregarding the rules of masculine of engagement, I just said, “I’m not fighting you, Anderson.  You’d kick my ass.”

That pretty much ended it.

Sometimes we protest, and that’s it. The change is internal and the external situation changes spontaneously.

The “no” we make creates a new map of experience. Our perceptive frame, new self-concept and pattern of choice suffices to shift things.   The simple “no” kills something that has little will to live.

Sometimes the protest wells up within us to create change easily, but more often  comes after great courage and sacrifice.  As John F. Kennedy phrased it, it is a “long twilight struggle, day in and day out.”

Change is often undramatic. It comes from daily re-commitments to shift habit.  The great poet, writer and compiler of the first English Dictionary, Samuel Johnson, re-committed himself all his life to the simple, but constantly frustrated goal of getting to bed early.  If our foe is worthy, the business of protest may be life-long.  Chronic problems require chronic resolutions.

As Krishna cried out to his chela (student) Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, “fight!” Though a junior high pacifist, when I said, “Fuck you, Anderson!” I was already fighting.

The protestors in Tahir Square encountered the police and army again and again and—even now—with Egypt’s president Mubarak in jail, and elections in progress—the military still bullies the people, still kills protestors in Egypt.  And people still fight.

Our Occupy movements don’t seemed to have changed the status quo much yet, but this is just testament to the worthiness of our adversaries and the unchanged portion of ourselves.  Protest is, an ongoing event for societies and individuals.  To grow requires resistance, focus and dull work.

At the end of the day sloth, habit and comfort are our most trenchant devils.

In the 1980s, I had a favorite synth-rock band called the Human League who cut a track titled, “Comfort Kills.”

It’s a good message to keep in mind, when the notion of protest enters the head, and the urge to stay in bed, or say “yes” one more time, or to avoid acting for fear of the unknown visits us one more time.

Sometimes it is time to say “no” regardless of what waits on the other side.

Sometimes it is time to fight.