Yoga is courage. It is the bravery to look at reality full in the face, and be touched by how deeply you love. Yoga invokes the courage to remove our absurdities and crutches and blank stares. The startling revelation of love. All the saints of history have known this. All of our great artists. This is the message of all the angels and messengers. And a few, stellar people-of-our-own-lives whom we are blessed to rub elbows with now and again. Grief, hard knocks, and fear reveal our attachments, true. But they also show the glorious aspect of that attachment: we are woven into the fabric of the world, we are linked to everything that is.

Pain is a badge, or maybe a threadbare, greasy flag, that indicates our humanity. It waves it's gritty fibers in a soiled, but archly noble, patriotism for our homeland. This is our humanity.

And humanity is a beautiful, gorgeous, precious thing.