Sunday, March 14, 2004


what occupies the mind

is not only the scent of plump, sun-kissed apricots, the intoxicating scent of apricot preserve, as you find in ethiopian sidamo.

but also the bewitching music of david hykes' 2002 rainbow dances.

the 6-qt. kitchen-aid mixer makes so much noise as it kneads the pizza dough. yet over this drone, there's signal: channel one, sidamo; channel two, hykes.

altho' often filed as new-age music, it's not. not. not at all.

one of the reasons i began studying viniyoga was to develop that floating quality so many elegant yogis and yoginis have in their moment, particularly in their sun salutation and standing poses.

they are there in warrior 2 looking neither asleep nor awake, but as if caught weightless in a moment between dancing and stillness. this place is exactly where hykes' music plays.

like a yoga pose, it inhabits the body and you are (about to be) moving in another direction without effort, in that floating style.

that this sensation is voluptuous goes often unremarked. it's a secret, i think. i've asked yoga teachers about it and they just don't like to chat, because i think there's an unspoken bias against the term "sensual" in yoga.

i don't know how to describe this to those who don't do yoga, so i will try apricot preserves, or the elegant and sensuous sidamo.

today in brooklyn is just a day for music, that floating yoga, and a cup of exhilarating ethiopian coffee. . .

i do not have an advanced yoga practice by any means, so i will have to ask: is this floating thing, the wacky brain radio, WHED, called turiya?

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