Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I can move through a motion like pulling a curtain back in the morning and feel this awareness of young Erin, 8 year old Erin, who has grown.
Hard to put into words, this awareness feels like « oh so this is what happened ». There is a quality of wonder and appreciation. Like I am seeing who I wanted to be when I grew up and stepping into the power that it is, in fact, me.
In teaching these days, I try to provide a path to this feeling. Many times in my personal practice, my hand will find its way to rest on my rib cage or my one foot will tuck under the other and I’ll witness the other worldly way the body comforts and supports itself.
I believe it is in the moments in yoga when the body interacts with the body or when the breath guides the body into a pose (either through vinyasa or through restorative release) that doors open to connect with who you have always been.
When you witness your body and allow yourself to delight in things like « huh, this is how you like to stretch when you wake » or « how funny I always go to the right side first », you invite the same observatory appreciation to things like « I laugh like that when… » or to parts of your personality that are truly you; unmasked and unmade by others.
All the sudden, you trace your hand under the running faucet or you smooth the sheet in a way just so that you see yourself. Your movement, a constant paintbrush – your energy, a constant color.
I believe these things to be very, very true. As in these things, we come to a place of non violence – of grace – within ourselves. This place fruits compassion for others, an honor of limits and space for self study.
It’s in yoga, I find the heartiest season of advent: the expectation of peace, the surrender to goodwill, and the rest available in what we can imagine an unconditional, non judge mental love feels like.
The refuge.
The light.
Frozen Spaghetti 