Yoga, For The Love Of It

Meditation and asanas are a call to curiosity, a beckoning to explore through movement and stillness the presence that animates these bodies. Who we truly are is always present, through practice we are invited to come home to the “knowing” of it. Stepping on the mat, stepping off the mat, practice ripples. All ways a letting go and a gathering in. Always an invitation to “know” that I am not living a life, I am life; I am not doing yoga, I am yoga. 

The asanas honour this physical temple where “I am” temporarily resides.   They are an experiential invitation to come home to this present moment, this body, this breath, this spirit, this mind.  Like breath that which invites us inward invariably echoes outward, with no separation only a flow that is our natural birth right.

Practicing the asanas with beginner’s mind and the knowing that less is more, I learn to let go in an organic way unfolding like the frond of a fern. In the trust of letting go, in body, mind and spirit, in allowing there is a sense of being practiced, being breathed.   

Paradoxically with the letting go, there is a gathering in, a centering that through trust and presence evolves naturally. Really being present with no where to go, no thing to do is the gateway to allowing the asanas to express through the body. It is a give and take that although it sounds separate when spoken or written is as fluid as the ocean expressing itself in waves yet always still the ocean.  Always a pointer to true you.

This movement is as natural as the breath, a smooth flowing from inhalation through still point or turning of the breath to exhalation to still point to inhalation. Harmony between entering in the asana, holding it and then coming out of it. Again the natural stream of consciousness expresses self. Like the inhale, exhale and still point of breath the wholly, holy three, each equally as important as the next, not separate but a synergetic dance of continuity.   

Practicing asana is a calling to turn inward.  To mindfully bring breath, body position, state of mind, opening of heart and spirit into equanimity.  A spaciousness that plays the body like a stringed instrument where the tuning is harmonious. 

Asanas are a physical expression of meditation, they are an experiential way of falling in love with the moment exactly as it is. It is a relationship that grows with trust, that what unfolds, what reveals, what falls away is as it should be.

I love yoga.  Yoga loves me. Yoga is love.