Bhagavad Gita

You have grieved for that
Which is not worthy of grief,
And yet you speak words
Of profound knowledge.

The learned grieve
Neither for those
Who have passed on,
Nor for those
Who have not departed.

Never, truly,
Have I ever not existed-
Nor you, nor these kings
Who protect the people,

And never
Shall any of us
Ever cease to be,
Now or forevermore.

This is an excerpt from Graham M. Schweig's Bhagavad Gita - the only reading I brought with me to Georgia. I'm taking a class with Schweig at the Yoga Journal conference in NYC in the spring. I've never enjoyed the Gita this much, but I suppose I've never been this vested in it, either. Still, I think Schweig has done a great job setting up the story and translating and annotating it to make it more understandable to the modern mind.

I'm reading it at approximately 30,000 feet in the air, sealed into a metal death tube with all that I hold dear, hurtling at a thousand miles an hour toward home, away from my husband's family home in a small college town southwest of Atlanta.

This particular passage sings right now, as I tend to be panicky in the air, particularly when with the kids. Flying always made me nervous, then you add in my recent tendency toward panic attacks - particularly when I perceive that the children are in danger - it's a heady fear cocktail.

The kids are sad at leaving - they love being with family. It's a special treat since we live so far away from all of our relatives and see them rather infrequently. They are also sad that we had to leave behind their old broken carry on bags that look like steam engines. They were too broken and ragged to make this leg of the journey with us.

I tried to talk with them about the yogic concept of non-attachment, but non-attachment just doesn't really resound with six and four year olds (or many grown-ups, for that matter).

Our hotel was run by a family from India. We enjoyed the seeming disconnect between being in rural Georgia and Hindu statuary.

I'm also enjoying the connection between my fear of metal flying death tubes and Duff McKagan's fear of metal flying death tubes. He blames his panic attacks and some of his addictions on flying. At one point during a tour, he was taking over TWENTY Xanax pills a day mostly to deal with his fear of flying. I used to take one and it would knock me flat. Still, I never miss them as much as I do when I'm boarding a plane. I also never ramble so much as I do when I've had only about ten hours of sleep spread out over three nights in a cramped hotel room, sharing a bed with my four year old who transforms into the girl from The Exorcist when he's sleeping.

We are enveloped in clouds now. I remember reading in the Globe that people are like clouds - that our cells are constantly dying, being replaced, and rearranging themselves like the molecules in clouds, and that our idea of ourselves as constant, static, physical beings is completely untrue from a scientific perspective.

So, it's good to remember - when flying, when traveling with kids, when leaving behind family or beloved childhood keepsakes - that we all have always existed and shall never cease to be.