Project - Sympathetic Bones

“The skull-bone does have in general the significance of being the immediate actuality of spirit.’ -Hegel

I met Layla in a Monterey suburb, where I rented a room from her for a few days during a three month road trip. Divorced after a 20 plus year marriage, with a grown daughter, she had found a new hobby, hunting. While out hunting she encountered and began collecting bones of various animals. I enjoyed the terrific juxtaposition of this spry & cheery, maternal woman as hunter & bone collector, and mulled over the human penchant for collecting objects that have no practical use, and the human fascination with bones. Bones in prose, poetry, and song. Bones for shamanic divination. Bones painted by visionaries in the New Mexico desert. Bones, graceful. Bones, honest. Bones, bared. Down to the bone. Mostly though, during this time, I enjoyed the company of these bones during my yoga practice.

My yoga mat travels with me, representing a practice of commitment to the present moment, and seasoned with the dust and pollen of dozens of locations. On this 2x6 foot blue strip, laid across horizontal cedar planks of the deck, I flowed through asanas from Mountain to Plank to Downward Dog to Cobra, never so aware of this practice as an expression of reverse anthropomorphism. Layla’s collection inhabited the vertical cedar fence planks. Glowing with twilight, their presence felt companionable, empathetic, sometimes humorous. Their presence lent my yoga practice a fresh appreciation for the natural intelligence of my frame, hidden under muscle and skin and designed to bear weight, the importance of skeletal alignment, and the role of muscular support.

Later, practicing my other meditation of full presence, photography, I spent an hour lost in sympathetic communion with this silent society. Stripped of skin, muscle, sinew, whether mammal or other various species, we are ultimately made of the same miraculously knitted material which, exposed to intimate examination, inspires wonder at the strength, fragility, and elegance.