Top of the Femur

I have seen my teacher slow down Surya Namaskara a couple of times in a couple of workshops, and every time it makes me a little bit crazy in my head. Good crazy...I think. But, truly, it messes up my mind.

"Roll over the tops of the femur bones," he says with a dreamy, lulling voice, as he dives forward, dividing his body in half. And we follow slowly. And as I follow, I feel like I'm rolling all the way back into my life, all the way into the middle of my own confusion and worry, right into the center of pain.

I should note here that I have much, much less pain in my heart than I used to have. And I think the lessening of pain over time has come from mentoring, beautiful friends, my amazing partner, my child, and my practice. In fact, I often try to go back to my pain, just to check up on it, just to revisit...and I am taken aback to find that I can have to look hard to find it. Like Waldo... It's sort of like Waldo.

But there is something haunted in the tops of my femur bones, for when I roll over them, I could cry. I never do... And it's not exactly from physical pain that it makes me cry. And I am humbled by how much easier it gets with every sun salutation. Nevertheless, it's so hard. I feel an undertow of something...and it lasts into Uttanasana, into Ardha Uttanasana, and catches me — just to make sure I'm paying attention — before I jump back. And once I'm in Chaturanga, it's gone. Like being at the bottom of a hill.

In the next sun salutation, it returns.

There's going to be some sort of showdown, I think, between Uddhyana Bandha and the top of the femur. I am optimistic that it will be a peaceful conflict, and I am fantastically imagining that Uddhyana lures what's haunting that space into its embrace, softens it, and melts away whatever Grinch lives there in that pinnacle of the body. I don't think it will be long from now.