The Wisdom of Yoga looks at the Yoga Sutras from a modern, Western perspective. It has examples from the author's personal life, which are an engaging way of looking at them. Right now I am reading about a friend of the author's who was in Overeaters Anonymous. Within her she had the "hungry ghost", a part of her that hungered for more. This literally played out in her behavior with food, and unhealthy restraint with emotions. I'm glad she agreed to let the author tell her story in this book. I keep thinking to myself, what are you trying to feed? I'm not sure, but it's not true hunger.

We had a lot of fun in NYC this weekend, walking around and seeing people we knew. We didn't go anywhere specifically... we thought about it, but had enough to do with walking around. I got three new books--one about yoga, with a transliteration of the Yoga Sutras (I'm waiting for another copy of that in the mail--it finally is very appealing to me, though a few months ago it would have bored me horribly), and two books by Yogananda--one on relationships, and another on being happy (can't remember any of the titles right now).

I also drove a lot, which is still a sore spot for me. My 3-D visual abilities are awful. I look and I don't see, I see and don't know what it means. But all fears must be confronted at some point, and that point is now for me. As I force myself to look and think and look, I feel like I'm waking up some part of the brain that hasn't been in use at all in this life. So, it was a great trip and I'm making myself learn some new things.
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Another great thing about the start of this school year is being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Two more semester of classes, then finish research and thesis. Done! Hopefully some travel (maybe with that research travel grant) before starting a nice job. There is a lot of pressure to get a PhD, and it's very tempting, but I know I made the right decision initially--I don't need that. I could do it, but doing it to prove something or get a fancy title will make me unhappy in the end. Materialism does not work for me.

The students are back. And I'm noticing something that must have been there all along, but that I missed before: Ivy League snobbery. I heard a freshman (I'm guessing) say to her peers, "Look, the one thing everyone here has in common is that we're all smarter than most people."

If you think where you go to school is the only kind of intelligence worth counting, you have a lot to learning to do, from people you might not think you have anything to learn from (not to pick on her--I know she meant it innocently, trying to find her place in the world. But that idea can quickly become unhealthy). On that note, there is a new independent movie I'd love to see called The Philosopher Kings, a documentary with interviews with custodians from universities across the nation (including Cornell). The idea is that wisdom is in places we might not think to look, which I love. One of the custodians I know seems happier than anyone else I see around--always cheerful and saying hi (even when I felt lonely or grumpy), never stressed, and since he comes early, he leaves early. I like that idea, of a simpler life.

My talk went well and it was nice to see how far I've come in a year. I'm excited to be close to finishing up a year from now; I can see the light at the end of a tunnel. I also learned of grant money that would allow me to research an unrelated but plant-related topic anywhere in the world (as long as I can justify it) for a few months after finishing up my own research. I could look at ethnobotanicals, or urban trees, fruit production, or any other neat topic. I would apply this winter though, so I need to get started now. I'd really like to go somewhere where I'd use the language--maybe Spain? It's just brainstorming at this point.

I've noticed for awhile that when I get lost in my thoughts, my visual ability to focus gets shot; everything is a little blurrier (with or without contacts/glasses). Lately I've been stricter about pushing thoughts down before they become a tornado of hopelessness (a phenomenon that has been occurring a lot this past year), and everytime I do, I notice my visual acuity improving. I can actually see what's in front of me, while before I couldn't. It's such a relief... real life is just there, and I don't need to overthink it. I push down thoughts, and just see what there is.

I realized the title of this blog is officially "nothing"--that's what it says for me, at least. I had typed that in as a placeholder when I couldn't think of anything. Now that I'm reading Adyashanti, who initially trained in Zen, it seems quite funny to me.

I'm preparing for a talk I'm giving to my department on Weds. The pretension is so strange and so is the mix of smart people. The horticulture department is not monolithic by any means--it includes turf management as well as trees and ornamentals and floriculture. I think it was a guy in turf that asked me, reluctantly, if I was into that "sustainability stuff" when he heard my area. It's a really funny mix, probably one that would have bothered me more a few years ago. Now I'll just take it as it comes, at least in theory.

The semester starts next week and I have a lot of work to do before then: prepare for a class I am going to TA, give a talk to my department, give a brief talk to a sort of open house for farmers... I guess that's all, but it's enough.

I've been thinking that I should start doing yoga asana (poses) again, because my neck is always so tight. It seems to worsen my allergies, somehow.

Oops, meant to do a longer update but I have to go. We may go on a trip out of town this weekend. We are trying to take advantage of living 5 hours from so many places (unlike in the midwest).

Sometimes I get little brief glimpses of clarity that seem to come from meditating at the start of the day. The funny thing is, it never seems to happen again more than a handful of times. So I can't really know where this will all go, but I know my job is to do it.

Today I went to a potluck with students from the student farm. They are really amazing, idealistic and putting in hard work to keep things going. I would work there if I wasn't working outside all day, and I look forward to do so when I'm stuck writing and analyzing data all day (in a little over a year!).

More and more I reaffirm that a PhD isn't right for me. I like this for now, but I prefer learning on my own, instead of the hoop jumping, over-specific type of learning that's in school. I also miss interacting with people outside of school, getting a more diverse point of view (outside of privileged twenty-somethings). More and more I am seeing the strangeness of the elite school system. People really think they are working so much harder than people at other schools. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It's best to be humble while knowing what you're good at. It doesn't mean you have to assume you're working harder than everyone else.