Ron and I started taking yoga classes at the YWCA on New Years Day. The original plan was to swim, but the pool was closed for repairs, so we thought we would try yoga. The yoga classes worked well for us for a variety of reasons. First, there is a yoga class everyday at 10:00, except on Sunday. When one takes a class at 10:00 am on a weekday, one can expect to find others of a similar age and stage of life. Second, the classes are taught by different teachers, so we get a variety of styles – from Drill Sargent Debbie to laid-back, hair-in-a-ponytail Rodney (names changed out of courtesy, but you know who you are!). Third, the YMCA is walking distance from our home in Winston-Salem, and we love to walk. I could list many other reasons, but will wrap up with: yoga clears my head.
I have been trying to clear my head for decades with little success. Somehow yoga takes me right out of myself, and sets me down on this little mat, and for an hour, the world is no bigger, and no smaller, than my mat.
Ron and I took our mats to Paris. Everyday, except Sundays, we do yoga. Ron found some great yoga music on YouTube, and he puts it on the TV, and for an hour the little apartment becomes a little yoga studio. I become aware of the tug of the Earth, pulling me into itself while it spins on its axis and orbits around the sun. I am aware that the sunlight streaming through the hundred-year-old window left the sun’s surface long before that. For a few moments, I am just here, within the four corners of my little mat.
I am working on becoming right-sized. Sometimes during yoga I have a fleeting awareness of what that might mean. Maybe simply that I am no greater or lesser than any other child of the universe, each of us with a unique purpose and mission. We are all journeying together in this tiny sliver of time, all being drawn by the same spinning Earth pulling us into itself. We are much more alike than we are different. Namaste.
Comments