Luminous

Photo by Joeball

One of the translations of the word “yoga” is “union; “yoga” which comes from a Sanskrit word that is almost a cognate of the English “yoke,” is about yoking together and forming a union between opposites like light and dark, good and evil, mind and body, the in-breath and the out-breath, and everything that is and is not everywhere and nowhere all in the same instant and for ever and ever.

Which is exactly what this year’s annual OMG Christmas Tree Fire ride was like as it combined the highest flames of the year with the lowest tide of the month to manifest a union of heat and cold, water and fire, bikes and booze, lies and truth, Dead Babies and live wires, all wrapped up under a moonless new moon evening with stars, believe it or not, on a January night in our usually gloomy Emerald City by the Sound.

tehJobies wore a silver fire-resistant space suit and made it rain fire and snow ash as he piled one more Christmas memory after another on the conflagration; at maybe a tree a minute for about two hours, I’d say a hundred to a hundred and twenty all told, most hauled by human power, at least from the brewery in Ballard.

Right at the bottom of the exhale, in the stillness before the inhale, or right at the top of the inhale, just before the exhale begins, that’s where yoga happens, they say, which is analogous, I think, to how you could find that perfect spot between being singed by the flames and frozen by the air but only by performing a kind of rotisserie action that spun you slowly around the circle, rotating and revolving like a planet about its star.

Embrace paradox: the colder it is, the warmer you feel; the darker the night, the lighter the mood; the more you drink, the soberer you become; less planning, finer results; many bikes, one ride.

Union.