Ecopsychology, or deep ecology, maps practical pathways into taking care of ourselves by taking care of the needs of the Earth. The story below follows one couple's excursions into natural harmony in the city.

He was tired and we were riding the Green line. He laid his head in my lap and slept. I rested my arms on him and felt warm. Who could mind? We were simply resting and easing our bodies and minds together, and yet I felt somewhat on guard around the taboo of expressing intimacy publicly.

No one commented until three or four high-school-to-collegiates came on board. There were no words from them, a few sounds, sweet, slightly sexual, then simply sweet. Ben slept, we rested, the boys chattered and cajoled. We reached Park Street. The boys checked Ben's handsome, walking man face as we rose to go. So did I. My inhibitions had been assuaged for the moment; we had shared non-sexual physical contact in public without reproach.

We changed subway trains and rode on to our destination. On return we stood balancing on the shifting metal plates of the roundabout between subway cars. As we lazily susaned they erupted in violent rat-a-tat-tats. We stepped off at the first opportunity toward a single seat. We shared, I perching my body on the red and gold downy hair of his strong runner's legs.  We were reminiscing, projecting, flitting. We landed on the first grader's sing-song game, "Hands, fingers, knees, and toes, knees and toes, hands, fingers, knees and toes, knees and to-o-o-es, eyes and ears and mouth and nose, hands, fingers, knees and toes, knees and toes!"

Our song washed through the clatter of conversations. An older woman across the way, a secretary perhaps or a school teacher, glanced, and glanced again. At first, when she had seen me perched side saddle on his lap she had looked a tad reproachful. Now she smiled for it. So did we.

Not everyone is pleased with the public expression of warmth and humanity, yet people of tribal society have done this for millennia. These acts of human affection are, for me experiments in becoming true to myself.

A few days later, we went on to see a movie at the Coolidge Corner Theater. We were standing by the brick wall where ticket holders wait. Lines, lines, lines. I wanted to go 3-D. I suggested a stretch against the burnt sienna outdoor wall by the theater.

The stretch was one I had learned from a pregnancy book to relax the shoulders by bringing the upper body horizontal and pressing outstretched arms against a wall. Then we did a runner's stretch. He touched his head all the way to his knee. I couldn't reach mine. He congratulated me on having the journey ahead. I showed him a graceful ballerina barre bend. The door opened and we flowed into the movie house. Others had been watching our stretches, no doubt. As we passed into the theater we felt like leaders into wholer ways of waiting.

Finally, the mango story. We had bought it at the World's Fair in Central Square for a buck from a batik-gowned African American woman. We picnicked on a quiet embankment behind City Hall. We were crooned to by the swishing scents of unnamed tree flowers, cascaded by tiny cool splashes fall- ing from their tilted cups, and cradle by our own resting bodies. We felt contented. 

Our world at the moment was resilient. We had, unwittingly, through our affection, fallen into Eden, not out, into the center of the way, into the eye of the storm, into a blessed if seemingly temporary eternity, calm and brilliant.

We reached for the mango, deep finger-press ripe under its black-mottle yellow skin. The smell was sweet and mellow. We walked toward Harvard Square, Ben's hand full with its fecundity, dessert for us to eat while awaiting his bus. Along a  side street in the Square he plucked off the button and sucked. He held it to my mouth; I squeezed and swallowed sweetness. 

Ben missed his bus. We sat in JFK Park under the shade. He tore the skin and fed me. I fed him and we devoured the opened fruit. We savored the sensations that came through the fruit, the grass, the trees, us. We felt a supple grace arising through our interaction with a flowering, living Earth. We were yielding to the great web of sheer process. Our diversions were goal-less, uninhibited by any required outcome. We felt like children who haven't yet been trained out of play. We felt like what I imagined people of our world's tribal societies may feel, people governed by the larger cycles of time, never obligated, responsible only to nature. Our public acts of open play, rest and shared sustenance felt healthy. We felt connected to the past, when more of the world happened around family and friends. Taking the time to enjoy openly, we may have helped to pivot the madness of a world flying faster and faster into a slower, more joyful realm.

____________________

Portia Brockway first practiced yoga at the age of three under her father's instruction. She is a hatha (physical) yoga instructor, a writer and an artist living and teaching "yoga in Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA (at Yoga In Harvard Square). She may be reached at 617-864-YOGA (9642) or visit her website at: www.yogainharvardsquare.com