Affirmation of Love

I love yoga fundamentally because of how it continues to reveal to me that my mind makes my reality: the ego spins a narrative that I believe, and my practice shows me otherwise. Most often, the revelation is a good one. I wake, I worry that I won't be able to make my way into a pose, I anticipate the failure, I find the breath to ease in. I learn to worry less. I learn to think less. I trust in my teacher, and learn to trust myself. I take this strength into my life outside of the shala.

I love yoga for the marriage of opposites that I have come not only to respect but also to seek. Reversal of postures, the hidden power of the body behind the breath, the power of yoga to heal pain in the heart and bones that seems so difficult to remedy...these forces have encouraged me to see contrasts in new ways. Mostly, the contrast of hope and fear: hope is always sitting patiently on the other side of my fear, if I can remember to look for it. Parivritta Trikonasana shows us the other hand, the other side of the spine, the exchange in the support of the feet; Samasthiti and Handstand show us that we can find more than one way to grow out of the earth. Jumping back and through shows us a pristine balance between the effort of using strength and the ease of using softness in a vinyasa that allows us to gracefully move through the practice (rather than charging into it). These paradoxes balance, humble, relieve us of holding on too tightly to one emotion or idea.

I love yoga for the way it helps me breathe into my life: into my love for my partner, into my love for my daughter, into my connection to others. I can find the breath to move through the stickiness of misunderstanding, the thick haze of fatigue and and an overworked day, the confusion of change and uncertainty. The kinesthetic sense cultivated in asana helps us to see ourselves in space, to feel the position of body parts in relationship to each other...but also to find meaning in the relationships between our souls as they swirl through and around one another. I see color, I hear voices, I feel hearts more acutely because of the self-study required in this practice. The self is always connected to something larger...the lessons learned on the mat are always about more than the mat. They are a lens through which we can look directly into humankind and imagine its possibilities apart from all of the film of politics, old energies, fear of being who we are.

Commitment

I remember a story I once heard at a wedding. As the priest was blessing the bride and groom, he described an old couple he once knew. The couple had been together for decades, and he was fascinated by the depth and length of their relationship. He once asked them, "How do you do it?" The husband replied, "We make sure to go out to dinner once a week." The priest responded, "That's wonderful. Where do you go?" The husband responded, "I like Italian. I don't know where my wife goes."

I have been practicing yoga for almost a decade, trying lots of different styles and teachers and studios. But I have been in a long-term relationship with Ashtanga. Indeed, there have been many teachers and shalas as the practice and I have moved together, but we remained committed. In this committed relationship, we try not to become too attached to one another. Ashtanga doesn't hold on too tightly to me, and I try not to hold on too tightly to it.

And it has been this way for three years. Almost every day.

One might ask, "How?" I think this question floats just above Ashtanga discourse. And one of my answers is this: we take some time apart once in a while.

Once in a while, I practice something else. I have a favorite Rodney Yee DVD that I love. It's a delicious blend of Hatha yoga, with Ashtanga and Iyengar inspirations. It's 65 minutes, it includes his soothing direction, and it helps me to still feel connected to my Ashtanga practice.

Once in a while, I pop in to the studio down the street where I teach regularly on Saturdays. Just the other day, weighed down by too little sleep and some low back pain, I opted to spend my morning practice at a Yoga Rise class (a beginner-intermediate hatha class) taught by a woman who is becoming one of my favorite teachers. She is Kripalu trained, open minded, and wise. Her class the other day was just what I needed: slow, deep asanas for the knees, hips, and back. I was challenged by the precision of her direction, I learned a new way to see the origin of the backbend in the lower legs, and I was given the most wonderful Shalabasana adjustment I've ever had.

Plus, I get something from this class, and from Yee's DVD, that I never get it my own practice: a guided Savasana. One of the most beautiful elements of Ashtanga is the Mysore practice; it's an intimate, reflective, organic experience with the self, with the teacher, and with fellow Ashtangis. Indeed, it can also be quite astounding to lead yourself through Savasana after a 2-hour practice.

But sometimes, every now and then, I want the voice of a generous, sweet, ethereal yogi to talk me through the melting of my brain into my heart, the releasing of my anxiety into the Earth, and the letting go of tension from crown to toe. I want the smell of lavender oil as a teacher comes round and blesses each one of us. I want the release from my own inner voice.

These days, my daughter—who has in the last several months so gracefully been able to guide herself to sleep—now needs soothing rubs on her belly and back to help her calm her mind and heart and fidgety legs. Now that she is two, life has become a bit more complicated, and life has also become more obviously filled with channels of love that she can tap into when she wants. To manage the former, she lately needs a bit more of the latter. When last year at this time she was likely to wiggle out of a hug, she now wants the snuggles. She seeks them out. She cries when the back tickles in the ebbing daylight of her bedroom stop. I often soothe her all the way to sleep. I won't always. She'll need to learn that she can still help calm her own mind. But every now and then, she'll also need a soothing hand to help her.

This is all to say that the dedication to independence, the ability to calm and inspire ourselves forward in our commitments, is generously supported by the occasional seeking out of relief, of a change of approach, of a change of scene.

It also serves to help us to recommit.