Friday, April 8, 2011

Always a Beginner

Each new day, I step on my mat, there is something new to discover. Yesterday, I had a conversation with my warrior postures. Start with my feet. How do they connect with the earth? What happens if I put a little more weight into the inner edge of my heal? Moment by moment, checking in with Anusara's Universal Principles of Alignment (UPA's) and loops as I work my way through my body from my feet all the way to the expression of my fingers.

As I work with these postures that I've done a million and one times before - how do I keep it fresh? How do I continue to learn new things? There was a moment as I worked with the placement of my femur bone in my hip socket in Warrior II, examined the relationship between the four corners of my foot and the freedom in my pelvic floor, I realized - of course it's always new. Each new day, as the story of life unfolds, we are privy to new realms of the self. The way I felt my hip socket 10 years ago and my relationship with my hip socket now are completely different. The basics are where I get to explore the deeper realms. By creating a strong basic foundation, as the practice unfolds, integrity can be maintained in the complicated positions. If every day I step on my mat with the intention to learn something new - they journey is endless.

With about a week left in my journey, I've been pondering coming home. For the past 3 months I have been traveling into essentially, the great unknown. There have been guidebooks, friends and pushy rickshaw drivers to guide me, but the true travel began when I lost my guide book. I must have had a different look on my face as I got off buses because even the rickshaw drivers didn't bother me anymore. Something shifted. I've been doing this traveling on and off for14 years now. I have a pretty good idea how it works. My first trip compared to this trip are quite different. Just like my relationship with my hip and femur. I've got pretty comfortable with this life as a traveler, moving from place to place, living out of a back pack, making new friends and stepping into the great unknown every day. Every day I learn something new.

The paradox of this travel thing is now that I am preparing to come home - home now seems like the great unknown. When talking to friends and family from home, I realize how far away I am. I know everything will be just as it should. The right classes will land in my teaching schedule. The whole process is like starting new again. Come back to the basics. As I come home and humbly work to fill my class schedule at the local yoga studios, all I can do is make my offering and hope you all show up to play along!

To quote one of my greatest teachers: "My wandering nature is always focused on voyaging back to the Source.  And through it all, I really don’t know what the practice of yoga is; all I know is that it always meets me where I am, and never leaves me where it found me."  

Namaste

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