Somewhere around Garurasana, the Eagle Pose the idea starts to take flight (see how I did that). Know yoga know peace, no yoga, no peace. Bikrim is empowering me as it always does: http://valleytalking.blogs.sonomanews.com/2017/07/22/namaste/.It calms my mind, it makes me go deep, it makes me decide to run for president.

Start with a platform.  Easy, two years of these therapy blogs should suffice nicely. It’s all in here although I’ll rename the blogs as “The Manifesto” cause it sounds so much cooler.

In these days of a four party system (Extreme Republican (Trump), Moderate Republican (Susan Collins), Moderate Democrat (Joe Biden) Extreme Democrat (Bernie)) it’s important to label oneself somewhere on the political spectrum.

I decide to go with the Truth and Empathy party, keep it simple, tell no lies, understand and respect everything, be the exact opposite of our current leader. I was going with the Rational-Neo-Pan-Humanist-Ubermensch platform but it’s a little too high brow and confusing. Basically my goal is to help all people through individual and technological development. Truth and Empathy incorporate the good elements of all parties with a heavy dose of we’re-all-in-this-together-ism.

By Tuladandasana-Balancing Stick Pose(my pose looks more like a drunken umbrella) I’m getting kinda jazzed for this new adventure.

Next comes the money part-my friend Tom Koos ran for president in 2000 and it cost him about a grand. I could probably raise that in this room with the right T-shirt message (USA Namaste!) plus having their teacher run for president would be a great civics lesson for students and I could write off expenses on my taxes. Hey, this is getting exciting.

By Tadasana-Tree Pose my mindfulness is gone. I’m dreaming of talking Green New Deal with AOC and universal college (Make America Smart Again) with Bernie. Contemplating what nickname Trump will give me during the debates.

Oh, sorry, Cohen’s testimony finally means an end to the swirling vortex of presidential dysfunction; therefore I’ll be debating president Pence in 2020. Dream on grasshopper.

I wonder briefly if anything in my past will trip me up, (no blackface, no prostitutes, one night of drunken raging with a group of midgets but who hasn’t done that?) I’m really kinda boring and an open book unless someone confuses fiction for fact (https://www.bohemian.com/northbay/field-trippin/Content?oid=2173059).

Savasana-Dead Body Pose (my favorite) happens and I’m reeling through the big changes I will implement.  A mandatory two-year American youth service program. Immediate banning of all plastic and complete phasing out of fossil fuel use within 5 years. Banning all non-sporting guns and funding copious studies about the dangers of cell phones, screens and weed. Complete restructuring of the prison and educational systems accomplished by a team of educators and ex-prisoners (duh).

Course, I’m gonna need some help, a team of super smart and funny people who aren’t related to me although I might throw my sister a bone and appoint her education secretary. I’ll hire professional people with bigger agendas beyond their own pocket books- Buffet and Gates and Musk and, of course, Oprah.

Abolish the Electoral College, restructure and streamline government to better represent the people. Universal healthcare and help centers to train and care for the entire population. All funded with a huge eminent domain tax on billionaires and a massive gutting of the defense budget. Give the earth the same rights as humans. Work toward stopping all fighting, military buildup, wars, and get rid of all leaders who don’t realize that we are all in this together.

But what about the people who don’t want to follow Walt’s New World Order? By Dhanurasana-Bow PoseI’m having second thoughts cause really, somebody would probably go all MLK or JFK on my ass if I actually said these things out loud.

Maybe it’s not the right time for all the changes, maybe it’s better to just keep screaming into the darkness, maybe I should just stay in my lane and let the professionals do the heavy lifting. Maybe I’m just a little bit Koo Koo.

I stare deeply into the mirror as I complete Kapalbhati in Vajrasana-Blowing in Firm Pose.

Know yoga, know peace.