Yoga and the Spirit
I've been practicing yoga on and off now for a couple years. I learned that yoga was a combination of exercise and spiritual meditation, I always refused to attend a Bikram yoga class because it negated every spiritual aspect of this ancient ritual.
On our last full day in Marin County a yoga teacher and dear friend of one of our teachers came to lead a yoga class. Almost 20 people took up the living room, dining room, and entryway of our home away from home.
Dia led us through breathing exercises and asked us to set an intention. Only it was like every other yoga course where I've set an intention for the practice. This time, Dia asked us to think of something we wanted to let go, something that we needed to process and work through.
Throughout the practice Dia kept having us return to this central problem or question or struggle that we needed to work through. She reminded us that yoga is so often about finding the balance between discomfort and serenity...channeling our struggle into the aches. Then, at the end of the hour one long practice we released all the tension we had been carrying, internally and externally, subconsciously and consciously...
After there were hugs and tears and a connection was formed between each other and Dia and, sappy as it may sound, the universe.
Practices like this remind us to continually ask questions, to always seek to find the balance between discomfort and serenity, and to find a way to sometimes, leave our past in the middle of the woods.