It takes two..

Duality.
Yoga has said for 5000 years that duality is both the nature of human life and also the cause of suffering (I am summarizing)
Contrary to popular belief, Yoga is not a non-dualistic tradition (we are all one mentality) Yoga is dualistic which means there are two. Parusha (spirit) and Prakriti (form). Shiva (divine destructive masculine) and Shakti (divine creative feminine). Up and Down. Right and Left. Dark and Light.
I have been studying Yoga now for 7 years... so why does the duality in life still surprise me?
Why is it devastating to have a beautiful awesome day in Burbank when Nashville is under water? How can we rejoice over weddings and births when oil is spilling at a frightening rate into the gulf?
Well... how can we not?
It is another duality- that relationship between the head and the heart.
Between the mind and spirit.
Somewhere, I know that things are happening as they need to.. that there is some "divine order" to all of this. But then their is that little voice that feels so powerless and wants to scream "It's not fair!"
That was my big line as a kid.. over and over "It's not fair."
I can still hear my mom.. "Life isn't fair."
True. Life is not fair. Life is a big contradiction and a hypocrisy.
So... what.. do.. we.. do.. now?
Yoga says that we should try to find the joy anyway.
In spite of duality and all of it, we try to break through it.. we soften into the middle of these opposites and we recognize the suffering and welcome the moments of peace. We try to be nice to each other, to the planet, to ourselves.
Ultimately, it is all a love story- 2 people from totally different worlds, upbringings, ways of life somehow can fall in love in the midst of it all.
That is the real lesson of all these opposites- they can only come together in love.
So we enjoy the California sunshine and send money to Nashville.
We celebrate our births and our weddings and sign petitions to stop off shore drilling.
We try not to ignore the dark but we can still bask in the light.
Without destruction, there is no creation.
It really does take 2 to make a thing go right.