Yesterday I was curled up on the floor in a fetal position listening to Asa read these words from a translation of the Yoga Spandakarika, the Song of the Sacred Tremor:

"How to be in harmony with the cosmos? It seems that certain preliminaries are indispensible: Rid yourself of all beliefs; leave metaphysics to the sectarians of the absurd; understand that hope is fear gone bad; confront reality directly; stop upholding the romantic dream of realization; forget sentimental neurosis; play with your own limits; look at your confusion; confront life without the bric-a-brac of the religious and the spiritual - without, for all that, becoming a narrow-minded materialist who would make a new God out of rationalism; dare to be alone; do not oppose Essence against reality; give yourself over to the pleasures of pure subjectivity; understand that everything is real; and finally, one day, know exhilarating silence. Can one say that such a person is a mystic? According to the Shaivites, yes. According to the Ch'an Masters, yes. According to the followers of Mahamudra, yes. In fact, all it takes is to say no to everything or to say yes to everything and to be an iconoclast who goes so far that he forgets the vehicle that brought him to this form of radical thinking. In short, it takes crazy wisdom."

Then Denise spoke about how being open is not just about collapsing into whatever painful situation that may arise, but also about developing the strength to be in that situation in a useful way. Listening to this stuff while performing various unprecedented arm balances made me feel like I am capable of anything.