About a month and a half into Covid lockdowns Mae Yo again sent over a series of videos/images for me to view. I will once again share the media she sent (or descriptions in cases  I am unable to find the videos again) as well as my thoughts and replies.

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Thoughts on the Fighter: Even at the top of the worldly conditions, life is a struggle. A struggle to get to the top, a pain to be there and a struggle all over again at the next round of fighting.

Just yesterday I was contemplating that during this pandemic, I have it “as good as it gets” — Eric and I have jobs we can safely do from home, we are financially secure, we aren’t trying to care for small children or deal with too many additional health issues. Still, I live in fear that I will get sick. Fear that Eric will need to go back to work in Manhattan and get sick. Daily errands have become a struggle. I am stressed, restless at home, feel helpless to support my friends and family in their struggles. And this is ‘ as good as it gets’.

I have persisted to this point. Where is success? Where is a world, even a little corner of it, that will bow to my control?

Which brings me to the oxen: It seems to be strolling along easy, painted beautifully, but it is still clearly tethered, leashed or nose ringed, bound by someone outside the video frame.

It makes me think of my own subject-hood. The fact that I am bound by the rules of Rupa, even if those are outside of the “frame” I pay attention to on a day-to-day basis.

As a human, I am subject to viruses. To disease and death. Even at the top, striding easy, or beautiful, I am still bound. None of these things protect me from the rules of this world.

For lifetimes I have worked to get to the top. To have ease, to have beauty, to have success. What measure I have of those things, temporarily, is still not a refuge from disease and death.

Mae Yo’s reply: Excellent Alana! Keep thinking along these lines. Look outward and internalize inward. Scold and teach yourself, but also comfort yourself that being born a human it is the only realm where we have a choice. Having already been born in the human world, take advantage of it.