Repetition

A couple of days ago, my daughter came home from school and sat on my lap while we read book after book. When we got to Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? we got on a merry-go-round of reading. "More," she said, when we got to the end. I read it again and again, and soon she wanted to skip most of the words and just flip from one illustration to the next. Over and over. 7, 8, maybe more times...and all the while, I kept my focus on resetting my energy, my voice, my patience with each re-read. I imagined that I was reading it for the first time, every time.

This repetition, I thought...how easy it would be to check out. But I do not check out. Look how she is plugged into this book...more, more, more. It is bringing her comfort, exploration. She has new questions with every page turn. She's testing her memory, she's looking for some new way to wrap her mind around matching the images to the words I'm using to name them, she's looking for herself in the book. It's the same words, the same intonation of excitement: elephant! boa constrictor! children! But to my daughter, it is an exploration.

And so it is each day:

Surya Namaskara...inhale, arms up, exhale, Uttanasana...inhale, Ardha Uttanasana, exhale, Chaturanga...inhale, Urdhva Mukha Svanasana, exhale, Adho Mukha Svanasana...1, 2, 3, 4, 5...

Inhale, exhale...find pose, brain sinks into heart...inhale, exhale, deepen pose...inhale, cross legs and lift, exhale, jump back...

Every practice, repeat. Every inhale and exhale a turn of the page, a breath into the next familiar asana, and the repeated undulation of vinyasa. Even the repetition of chitta vrttis...familiar voices: why? Can't do. Did it! Ssshhh. Ouch. Wait...what? Lift...reach...soften...expand. Dinner? Guilt? Worry? Memories... Sssshhh.

It is sameness, this practice. But it is not at all sameness... On the page, it looks like a system of repetition, with the ongoing strangeness of being given new poses when we progress. But we inhabit the practice with the complexities of our worlds and minds and know that living inside of it looks different every time we come to the mat. And we long for what we will find out, though we have practiced the same practice for years.

See, it is a beautiful thing: our love for "more."