My restorative yoga is bringing the body's song — the rhythm I cannot see with the eyes except on monitors and charts and in sensory physical signs — back. Softer edges, a quieter wake up into the day, a loosely-held acceptance around the mystery of untidiness.
A couple of weeks ago, my teacher came to my house for a private lesson on restoration and modification to bring the body back into alignment with its own nature. In the beginning, I wanted to cry about it — it was so hard not to practice hard. But he told me that learning restoration would increase my range, would help me to work with injury, pregnancy, aging. And so I listened and kept the faith.
Since then, I have been restoring each day...waking up, trekking to the shala, taking my 6 blankets and strap and blocks and bolster to my corner of the room where we all practice. Coming to terms with using the wall for Surya Namaskara, trying to imagine the Earth and Wind. Seeing the breath, the beak of the bird in the palette sipping slowly, the winding and uncoiling Kundalini. Softening the knees, the spine, the hips, the shoulders. Feeling depth in these cornerstones of the body and wondering how I couldn't feel it before in Marichyasana D or Supta Kurmasana or Kapotasana. What the hell?
Calming the heart, softening the belly, quieting the brain.
Opening, and opening more. And finding even more ways to open. My body has been listening, and now ever so faintly the song of its nature is returning.
The constructs of life can disrupt the body. We know this.
"Restoration" can take us back to pristine places of listening that peel away layers of doing and being and achieving and earning, uncovering the basic beauty of raw humanness that I — to be quite honest — have been intellectualizing away.
Now that the rhythm is back, I will nurture and protect it. This will not be easy.
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