Now is a good time to take a deep breath,
To let it go,
To drop down deep into your body,
To let the breath be an anchor holding you gently here.
I am nearing the end of my time in Tokyo,
And one of the things I did recently was to go back to the Museum of Western Art.
I've been there three times already,
And each time,
Different pieces of art have acted like sages for me.
There's the one of a girl with the most compelling eyes I have ever seen,
And she told me to quit feeling sorry for myself and get on with it.
There was the dappled gray Arabian horse who urged me to be wild and fierce and free.
This time,
As I was saying goodbye to the art I loved,
The one that had the deepest message for me showed a fox in snow.
One of his front paws was caught in a steel trap.
The fox's body was hunched in pain,
Its teeth were bared,
And its eyes were wild.
A part of me hates this painting.
I feel it in my very being.
Why did the painter choose to depict something like this?
A lesson I learned long ago at another open-air museum in Norway is that good art doesn't make nice,
It makes real.
It captures life as we know it,
And life often involves struggle.
So this painting did what art is supposed to do.
It made me stop and feel and consider.
I sat on the bench and contemplated this painting.
And suddenly I wondered,
What kind of traps do we set for ourselves?
We might set many of these traps without thinking.
For instance,
How many times do we say yes when we can't bear to have one more thing being asked of us?
That's setting a kind of trap for ourselves.
We can feel the teeth of that commitment.
We can feel how our bodies and spirits might start to snarl.
Or there are those things we continue to do,
Even when we know they are going to bring us harm and pain.
Or there's the definition of insanity.
How many times do we do something,
Hoping this time it will be different,
And yet the outcome is always the same,
And we get crushed.
This is not to say we have to be perfect.
We can't.
Nor is it to say we shouldn't risk things.
Something I've learned while here in Japan is that we must put ourselves out there again and again.
That's how we become awake and alive.
But can we do so in ways where we feel both safe and real,
Vulnerable and brave?
Now,
Not only do we set traps for ourselves,
But we also set traps for others.
You know what I'm talking about.
There are those things we do to test those around us.
And secretly,
Sometimes,
We might hope they fail,
Because then we get to be angry and righteous.
And before we start to go after ourselves,
Which is yet another trap,
Let's name that we might not even know what we are doing or why.
You see,
There's something called automotives,
And these are motivations that are buried so deep,
So programmed into us,
We might not even be aware they are there.
So what can we do?
We can put down the things with teeth.
We can put down the things with teeth.
We can see when we start to curl in pain or fear,
We can pause and breathe,
And maybe stop ourselves from doing that thing to ourselves,
To others,
Before we even start.
And when we can't,
We can begin again,
And fail better.
And always,
Always hold our tender selves with care as we live.
