This week my slight variation on another beautiful invitation to presence and awareness from Richard Faulds: Centering: Here. Right here, right now, bring your mind [body, heart] to this place and time. Invite it, even if it resists, to sit and witness what it is to be alive. Let there be no ulterior motive in this moment but to be. Rest in the waves of breath and choose to experience all of it. Let thoughts [sensations, emotions] float through and leave again, as the mind [body, heart] slowly settles like snow inside a shaken paperweight. This is all there is. Here. Right here and now.
There are so many things about which we might feel contracted, tight, pressured, fearful in life...I'm always curious how our practice can both build our resilience and strength, and how at the same time it can provide us with a refuge or respite - as sense of "home" in our own bodies and breath.
This week's reading is from Richard Faulds, a senior Kripalu teacher, from Kripalu Yoga: a guide to practice on and off the mat (2006): Being Home: Where can I soften in this posture? Where is the edge between opening and force, the line between "stretch" [sensation] and too much effort? The mind and body serve up a feast of feelings, each breath another chance to deepen and release. The smallest motion or even just a quiet sigh could be all that I require to shift my focus from the outer to the inner realm, a change from feeling lost to being home. |
AuthorMisha Butot RCSW, ERYT 500 is a longtime clinical social worker and senior yoga teacher living in Victoria, BC Archives
April 2024
Categories |