thursday morning

Just when you think you're out of the woods and things are going very smoothly, you're reminded of all of the parts of your life that you've been neglecting. For me...it's the yoga.

Exercise has never been high on my list of IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO. And unfortunately, I think, it might remain on the low end of the list forever. In my quest to ease the guilt, I began a yoga practice about five years ago. Believe it or not, it really worked for me. I found a great little studio in the heart of Humble, Texas (strange place for a great little yoga studio, you might think, as Humble tends to be quite a conservative place to be.) I pulled myself out of bed three days a week at 5:15 in order to greet the sun and a number of other students for class.

It began with breathing...lots of breathing. There are more ways to breathe than you might imagine, and we learned and practiced many of them. After a warm up, we learned to pose. Great posers we were, shaping our bodies in triangle, warrior, and cobra, pushing our bodies to the limit. And after a little sweating, there was meditation. Actually, the meditation (in corpse pose of course), was my favorite part of the class. After a yoga class, my mind was clear, and it was easy to shut out the voices that seem to be in my head most of the time. With a clear mind, I was able to meditate, allowing my body, mind and spirit to merge into pure energy. Okay, maybe that sounds a little hokey, but there were times when I actually felt myself leave my body behind. But I digress.

Whenever we get too comfortable in a spot - like I am here in the SLRH in South Dakota, the spirit says, "Enough already. You've got work to do." And so the universe sends message after message until you get it. The messages began with a little conversation about yoga, then my body started feeling a bit tight. Last night, at my meditation group, we listened to an audio recording about meditation, and finally, the book I'm reading has an entire section where the protagonist lives in an Ashram.

I get the message.

If I'm honest, even though the thought of re-starting my yoga practice sounds like a big responsibility, I'm longing for it. That sense of connection I feel when I find the silence within. To touch again the divine in me seems like the right thing to do.

Today I will dig out the Native American flute music, round up some incense, and dust off my meditation pillow. I'll start there. Some breathing, stretching and finally some meditation. And as luck would have it, my schedule is somewhat clear (she says as if time is anything but one moment after another.)

Namaste