A White Prayer Flag

My mind managed to trick my body into the studio tonight.

Praise Siva. Om hare om.

Deep Stretch - that was the class.

I was gonna to get off easy...no vinyasa, no bleepin' warriors, no Awkward shit. It'd be like yoga in the park. Or spa yoga. Yoga on the Wii. Ya know...imaginary yoga. Just sittin' around in a warm room with some groovy folks thinking about enlightenment.

Enter: Reality. aka Deep Stretch.

There was no escape in this yoga. No, no. It was the unholy opposite of escape.

The deeper and LONGER I sank into a posture - each pose was held for 3 mins plus! - the less I had to distract me from the central theme - letting go. True, we lengthen the side body, we extend the fingers, we focus on breathing, but foremost we surrender to the great force of Mother Earth. That very same force - the planet's gravity - which our entire musculo-skeletal system is designed to counter (and most of our spiritual practice attempts to ascend).

Here's a sexy paradox: yin yoga = hard yoga.

The utter stillness of it all, it's downright maddening. Bent over in a humbled twist of man flesh, there are only so many adjustments I can make, only so many times I can scan my body, only so many chores I can do before I get down to the real work. Letting go.

Breath by breath. Inhaling - creating space. Exhaling - exploring space. Softer, softer, softer still. Melting away layer after layer of previously unrealized tension. (you know the feeling...you're in the full expression of the pose, deep as you're gonna be...but then something triggers an awareness of new, deeper tension...maybe down in your hip...and you breathe and you shudder through its release...aahhh...)

It's too much. I'm not sure I'll be back.

Not until I feel more prepared to swim alongside all which I try to keep beneath the surface.

Or better still, not until I can honestly relax heavy on the earth, nestled in the arms gravity's unyielding embrace.


G'night.
k