I saw a picture of Justin Trudeau doing a yoga pose the other day and into my mind flashed a picture of Hillary Clinton in downward dog.

I don’t know what’s funnier, picturing Clinton in downward dog or picturing Clinton in yoga tights.

Sorry. She just doesn’t seem that—bendable.

In the picture I saw of Trudeau however, he was doing Peacock pose, one of the most difficult of all yoga poses.

Impressive.

I then wondered about our other two rivals for President.  What poses could I see them going?

It wasn’t hard to see The Donald upside down in inversion pose (against the wall of course—with several people holding him up), his hair upside down as well, sitting beside him on the floor. “How’s my hair?” he’s asking his helpers.

And Bernie?

Well, Bernie I saw sitting cross-legged on the floor, his eyes slightly closed, palms open, hands folded in his lap, a bird perched on his absolutely motionless head.

As far as I’m concerned it takes a lot to be able to master yoga poses—any yoga pose.

It occurred to me that there might not be a better means by which to evaluate a Prime Minister (or a Presidential hopeful for that matter) than by his ability to do yoga.

After all, doing yoga does require certain traits and characteristics beyond physical strength which, in the long run, may actually be more effective leadership qualities than whether you’ve owned and built hotels with your name on them, been married to somebody really important, or been a hippy all your life.

What a concept.

It is said that some of the traits that are necessary for yoga are:

• Silent stillness
• Youthful vitality
• Pure intentions
• Flawless character
• Infinite love
• Clear understanding
• Creativity, humility and generosity

What do you think?

Do our presidential hopefuls have “silent stillness?” Are they able to go within and listen to the “still quiet voice” that leads to clarity?

How about pure intentions (wanting to be president for others and not for one’s self) and flawless character (no lying, stealing or cheating).

Then there’s clear understanding (being able to see to the heart of a matter), creativity, (thinking outside the box and not being bound to solutions that are tried and true) humility (standing back and letting others have the spotlight) and generosity (open-handedness of mind, heart and pocketbook).

We could go through the list one by one and “grade” our candidate of choice on a scale of 1 to 10, ultimately voting for the one who has the highest total grade.

Sounds easy to me. Then then, maybe not so much.

If it did get complicated though, we could make it easy.

And just vote for the candidate who can stand in tree pose.

Namaste.

 

 

~

Author: Carmelene Siani

Editor: Travis May

Photo: Flickr/Army Medicine