Downward Dog

 This year, I have been using an Intuitive Writing deck that my friend, Three, gifted me. Each card has a word or shape on it, and you use that word or shape to prompt a piece of creative writing. I'm going to post a series of entries from my Intuitive Writing practice here, just for fun. 

The card has the word "DOWN" on it. Here is my response, which was just the first thing that came to my head when I say the card, which I randomly chose out of the deck:

Downward dog. 

Downward dog points my butt toward the sky. The posture is a way to lift the root chakra and loosen the neck and shoulders by hanging the head. "You don’t always have to be upright," it reminds me, "you can be in different ways." Downward dog gives the neck and shoulders a break from all that work they’re doing all the time to keep us upright. Walking upright on two feet is something that most other animals don’t know how to do. 

The downward dog posture reminds me of dogs. They are so good with their bodies; shaking when they get up, stretching when they can, jumping and running around just about whenever they feel like it. They are programmed to please and to serve humans. Unconditional love is their default mode. And yet... they still find ways to ask for and get their own needs met. They do not have a lot of needs, but still, dogs can be demanding. They need walks (for the bathroom and exploration), food, water, and play. It’s pretty basic, it’s pretty simple. 

And humans are not that different. We don’t need a lot. We don’t need to change the world, to be rich and famous, to be admired, to bring groundbreaking knowledge into the world. We just need to eat, sleep, exercise, and play. 

Life is pretty boring at the end of the day. And difficult. Suffering is inevitable. There isn’t some candy at the end of the rainbow, no promised land where everything will be fine. There’s no food that can make it better, no gadget, no relationship, no drug that can make everything feel better. There is not even an experience, like a vacation, that is the ticket to make things feel better, to fix your life or yourself. It’s just not how it works. 

Because whatever it is, it’s effect will wear off and you’ll be back to where you started. The ticket to a satisfying life is more about love and connection and creativity, but also recognizing and accepting the pain and boredom as an equally important and valuable part of life. 

It’s just not about you and your comfort. 

You are one drop in an ocean. Nothing you do will change anything drastically. Nothing you create will change any one person’s life or make huge waves in the ocean. And that’s not the point. The point of life is not to feel good, to experience pleasure, to accomplish, to be famous or rich. That’s not the point. 

We were given the gift of creativity, and if you can spend as much of your time connecting, flowing, and playing, then that’s great. But ultimately nothing you did, are doing, or will do is going to make one bit of a difference. It’s just not. You are too small and the world is too big. 

But, you can enjoy your life while you’re here. And that doesn’t mean blow your mind with experience and pleasure and accomplishments every single day. I mean, enjoying the boring and the mundane, the painful and the heartbreak, the grief and the stress, the joy and the excitement in equal measure. 

And sometimes what that means is just enjoying that moment in downward dog when your shoulders and neck don’t have to support that big old head of yours anymore, and you can relax into being instead of thinking and doing.