John Savlove remains a true friend

 
 Leave it to the cosmos to direct me to the New York Times the day it runs the item about John Friend on the front page of the Tuesday Science section. I don't tend to read it these days. I do care deeply about what's going on in the world. I'm paying attention. But I also see how definitively I am the news, the thing that's going on that is truly on, regardless of how few people are hip to the what or why.

  When the founder of Anusara yoga suffers a fall from grace, that speaks directly to my life. Particularly when it's about sexual ethics. Elena Brower is the primary source for a quote in the piece, and that's significant because in the name of good taste I have consistently disguised or deleted my complaints about that yoga teacher on blogs since 2009. The Times lifts from her blog, and names her as Friend"s "former confidante". I doubt the break is as big as all that.

   I'm not surprised John Friend transitioned from a charismatic guru to an outed philanderer. As much as he knows about holistic health, he does not know enough to be transmutating his sperm essence. He's not a Taoist. In my book, he's like all the other men who do not really know the True Gentle.

   Anusara yoga became my favorite mode of yoga from the very first class. However, that was in 2004, and from years before that I've seen poses and stretches as supplemental to the Five Element Theory and so much else as filtered through Mantak Chia's approach. I've been studying the I Ching for decades, but developing a Taoist Soul body has taken my understanding of that to profound levels. This is not to put myself above Friend or Brower. This is journalistic therapy for myself and anyone reading this who needs to forgive these public figures their flaws and carry on with the promising mysteries inherent in the practice.

   Putting myself in their shoes is not the best way to show compassion or kindness. It's too easy to blow them away. Elena had the chance to put herself in my shoes and decided to go barefoot. Why? Because romance is just as dead in SoHo as it is on Wall St. I'm the one who coined the term "postromantic" back in 1999. And who identified how postromantic culture borrows and aspires to the romantic. My other blog discussed that further, until that blog was deleted for reasons typical to this writer's journey through a world of charlatans and power-abusers.

    People usually value me because I'm a good listener. We all want to provide content, and as much as I'd like to provide mine unbridled, it's more often wrapped up in a supportive context. That's just life. Universal laws are not mutable the way State or Federal laws are. Love is everything, which means all our petty conflicts and sub-laws are part of love. Hence, I embrace contradictions as they present themselves and ride the process. I have problems too, but being a lover of the cheatin' hurtin' kind ain't one of them.

    After as many people know about John Savlove as they do John Lennon or even John Friend ... that's when the real problems begin!