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Tuesday 29 June 2010

Why Yoga?

It has been with me through at least 8 apartments, a handful of boyfriends, a lot of weird acting auditions, many different countries, and various jobs. It has been there through my skinny wardrobe and my not so skinny wardrobe. Feeling good and feeling bad. Being happy and being, well, hormonal.

Yoga is like my houseplant, Palmy. He, being named for his attribute of being a palm tree, has been with me through thick and thin. He has even driven across country with me…twice. Palmy is just a part of my life. One day you wake up and realize that you’ve spent a third of your life with a houseplant. So too, I am starting to get used to having yoga around. It is like the song, “I’ve grown accustomed to her face”. Yoga is like that. It is the Eliza Doolittle to my Professor Higgins. At first it seems like a good project. And then you can’t imagine life without it.

It doesn’t mean that one day you get it, or you master it, or it becomes easy. It just means that practice makes practice. Yes, that’s right, you heard me. Practice makes practice. And that is yoga. And that is why yoga. Yoga is a mirror for life and it is also the leveling stick. I do yoga until my bubble comes up in the middle. And I have to do that over and over, day after day, because the stick is always moving and that bubble is always floating away.

I’ll never “get it”. I’ll never own it. I’ll never master it. I will always be chasing it, like a butterfly, content, sometimes, not to catch it. And like my Palmy, or Higgins’ Eliza, I realize that my life is better for having yoga in it. There would be a little tear in the fabric of my existence if yoga weren’t there.

So, for as long as I get to do yoga, God-willing that will be a long time, it will be a gift in my life. I don’t get to keep it, but I get to enjoy it, and give it away, perhaps to continue the gifting of the gift. Yoga, like all of the best things in life, is beautiful because it reminds us that the greatest things cannot be owned. Great things will grace our lives if we appreciate them, share them, nurture them, and let them go when it is time.

Kids will grow up and leave the nest, parents and loved ones will pass away, eventually our own bodies will fade. Fact. The things that mean the most to us will all have to be let go of one day. It makes me wonder why we hold on so tightly to things that don’t really matter at all.

Why yoga?

2 comments:

  1. This just inspired me to renew my dormant practice- I could use some centering! Thanks pilar- love tim

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  2. That just set my compass true for today....thank you....blessings.

    ReplyDelete