"Gifts of Paying Attention"

Yoga doesn't get old. There is always a new space between joints to open up, a new way to make space for the breath, a new way to place the hands or feet or hips or shoulders. For me, there is an expectation that practice will uncover something new every time. And every time it does. The lesson, I think, is two-fold: it is learning not to have that expectation, and it is learning to see the subtleties even more intricately. Letting go of expectation releases us from assigning an ego-driven purpose to the practice. The practice is in the body and in the soul, not the ego. Even if we don't "get a pose," even if our progress seems invisible, even if we encounter a setback, we can witness the differences between today's practice and yesterday's practice and understand the subtle forces that shape practice every day. We show this appreciation on Moon Days, for example, when the gravity on the earth and on our bodies is different than it usually is.

If we practice from the inside out, and from the outside in, then we can take with us off the mat this appreciation for the subtlety of balance, the shape life takes. My friend Hugh, who is songwriter and a yogi at heart, refers to this appreciation as the "gifts of paying attention" in one of his songs.

When I was pregnant, the changes from day to day were very noticeable. My belly was getting larger every day; my body was getting heavier at a pace more rapid than any I had ever experienced. When I stepped onto the mat and began Surya Namaskara, I could feel how my body had changed from the day before because of how it felt in my practice. I think that is a gift of yoga, a "gift of paying attention." My body is not undergoing such rapid change now, but I still maintain the same appreciation for the forces — however small — that influence practice.

Parenting fosters this gift. I have never watched or listened to anything more closely than I watch and listen to my daughter. Every twitch of the face, extension of the arm, iteration, breath. I can hear her breath from my room next door; it wakes me out of sleep. I know her smell. I can hear her among the other babies at "school" without seeing her face. I know her feet, the back of her head, her belly, her ear. And the process of growing up with her — growing up all over again — is swift, yes. But it is also slow...like the journey from waking up to practicing through the series in the morning. In Savasana, I think, "How did I get here already?" And then I remember the asanas, strung together with Vinyasas like beads.

This is why I planned to labour with my daughter without epidural, and it is why I feel so lucky that we could do that together. When it was over, I lay there with her and thought, "How did I get here already?" But I had the sensation of every feeling etched in my memory, an understanding of how she and I moved together from the instant of her conception to the instant of her birth. Every physical sensation, the pain and bliss, shaped by every moment.

These days, I try not to underestimate the power of the moon, hunger, fatigue, thirst, temperature, sound, weather, and pain on the shaping of life.