on movement

I moved in yoga class tonight. Stretched, held, breathed, grunted, made faces, and, here and there, felt flow. Movement, breath, thought, non-thought, and simply being in that space, now, are what yoga is all about.

After class, the teacher told me I had a good practice. She said it was good to watch me.

I have new movement now: that of confidence, recognition, gratitude. My goal of one day doing yoga teacher training in India, of being a yoga instructor myself, seems to have that extra iota of validation that of late it (and I) was lacking.

Tomorrow, I am moving in another way. I am returning to the landscape I love so deeply, the red rocks and brilliant sky and wind-tousled pines of southern Utah.

In addition to excitement and curiosity, I feel trepidation, dread, and sadness at this movement. I see my pattern. Escape. Movement. Reaching toward something, and perhaps running from something else (what, I have yet to decipher).

Fear grips me and sends forth a volume of tears, some of which I attempted to stifle during practice tonight. During the movement of yoga tonight, I cried. The tears were for me, for this place, for confusion, for lack, for love, for loss. This place has been good to me, it has been challenging, it has been hard, it has been unexpected. It has grown on me. Am I giving up on it too soon, yet again? Or am I simply returning to what my heart knows is my deepest truth?

During the movement of yoga tonight, I also had an epiphany. I can always come back. I can dance with movement this summer, with abandon, and enjoy every second of every day (or least make my best effort). I can walk in the land I love, and marvel at its unending beauty, its ruggedness, its deep simplicity. I can be in the moment, and I can stick to it and realize it.

There is a freedom in movement, after all. As there also is in staying still. The latter of which may still be the lesson I most need to learn.

on movement

sand canyon journey

I went with a friend to Sand Canyon a few weeks back. What a beautiful, remote, quiet, immense place! Lots of history there, most of it now blown away into sand and dust.

We saw relatively few other people there, and there was thankfully NO SNOW! (After a winter like this last one, you must forgive me if I rejoice particularly so at the coming of the spring. Of course, just as I write this, the clouds are dropping a slushy rain/snow.)

We explored, challenged ourselves on slight grades of slickrock to navigate, and imagined what it was like to live here, centuries ago.

Take a look and see what you think yourself.

What do your sacred, loved, or even merely once visited but never forgotten places look like?

sand canyon journey