Where I live it is very windy. So much wind, sometimes sporadic and swirly, sometimes really fast, sometimes a breeze, frequently moving, and I had really created it to be a cause for my suffering. I hated that wind. Man, it just made me feel ungrounded. How dare it. So one day after a whole entire spring and summer of windyness nonstop, and feeling powerless at being able to do nothing about it, I decided to go outside and just be with it. I have been doing this experiment with just being with things, as they are, especially if they cause me to feel uncomfortable, and the reason I have been doing this experiment is because of situations like this: The “thing” bothers “me” for one reason or another. So I decide to face this “thing” which “makes me” uncomfortable. And then, by doing that, hopefully I gain a new perspective and am able to be at peace with it. So I’ve been in the habit of doing this, “walking into the fire” as I’ve been referring to it. It is not easy. Trust me, I have been taking BABY STEPS. In this situation, the wind was “causing me” to feel ungrounded. Deeper than that, I was being reminded of a lifelong feeling: I haven’t felt safe to ground into anything, incredibly overwhelmed by the constant movement of life - the rushing river that never stops - and confused about what it means being in a body within all of that. So, disturbed by this wind, reminding me of my ungroundeness, I went outside and I sat down. I closed my eyes and began to draw my attention to my breath. And I felt the wind on my skin. I noticed how my breath and the wind were similar. Tuning in to my center, I discovered that while the wind was whipping around me, my body was not moving. I was a pillar, like the eye of the storm. I opened my eyes. I saw the grasses and the trees … Swaying, creaking, back and forth and back and forth. Really tall trees, too! Still standing. I felt my body, with the wind all around, slightly begin to sway too… I started really tuning in to these trees moving… And breathing with my swaying… And then I thought, “the winds… what are these winds? Energy moving… The winds of change… What if the wind is making the trees stronger? Is that is why they stand so tall? What if the wind is making ME stronger?? What if the Winds of Change Make Us Stronger?!” … Well, that rings true, doesn’t it? … When we make the choice to practice yoga, we are stepping into the fire. That is why it is so challenging just to GET THERE. Because you don’t KNOW yet what you might uncover…. But then, once you’re there, on the mat, then what? THEN WHAT??? What IS this thing called ‘yoga’? What does it mean? WHY is it? Why do we want to do it? We start by paying attention to the breath. Why? To focus our minds. Because the breath is constant, mirroring the wind, the constance of change. And, the breath is our source of life. Always being breathed without our thinking. Allowing our hearts to beat. Allowing us to be alive. Why is that? What is that force which makes us breathe? Call it what you wish, there are many names…. I choose to call it a Spirit, the Divine Mother, or the Great Mystery. ... So I wonder what happens when we start paying attention to that. We witness the breath and we discover its’ quality. One thing the breath teaches us is that Things are always changing. ALWAYS CHANGING. The wind is always constant, because change is the only constant. The wind is making us stronger. By pushing and pulling on us, bending us and swaying us. Challenging us! But, WE practice YOGA We bend, and breathe, with awareness, And when we do that, we can flow with the River of Life. We don’t break in the face of challenge, we can bend with it. The changes make us stronger. We learn how to find Center. We learn our inner Truth. We learn to Trust our Bodies. These vehicles, these manifestations of our Spirit in the physical world! Exposed to the Elements, our Natural State is to try to maintain homeostasis. Within all this constant change we naturally crave Stability. Groundedness. Centeredness. But what can we ground into if everything is so changing changing all the time?? There is this feeling of falling, Continuously through space… so where do we ground?? All I can figure out is to do my best to Ground into Spirit. Send my roots down into the ground of the Divine Mother. As I exhale, I breathe into Her, as I inhale, She breathes into me. I become one with the ever-changing-ness. I root into my own Soul Essence, the Inner Truth of My Isness, Is all I can figure out at this point. And so I do this practice. This Yoga. Because it makes things make sense: When I stretch my body out and breathe new life into all the places, When I challenge myself to let go of a story that doesn’t feel true, And come into the story of NOW When I draw my energy into my own center, And let myself be bent and swayed with the River Flow of Life, Staying in my Center while the Winds of Constant Change blow, Every moment dying, birthing, dying, birthing, Exhale, Inhale, Exhale, Inhale, If I can Rememeber that I am Always Connected to Source Trusting that the Universe doesn’t give you what you can't handle, Then I know I can ground into Spirit. We practice To Relax the body, Release the tension, the resistance, the struggle, To learn to Bend with the ever-changing winds To navigate with these bodies, these vessels, As we Flow down the River of Life. Open channels to Spirit flowing, We learn to balance effort and ease, We sway to one side and then back to the other. Our center becomes stronger, Our roots deeper, Our heart more open, more trusting, Our body more relaxed, more free, more flexible and strong as a result. Through the practice we discover our sovereignty, and therefore begin to understand the beingness of all beings The OM The Isness The vibration under all vibrations that is free always The golden thread of truth which strings us all together. The Spirit Within. It is there, this light in you, waiting to be discovered. "Realization is not something that descends from above; Rather, it is an illumination that is to be discovered within.” - Ajit Mookerjee Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu. May All Beings Be Happy.
