I finally got time to practice.
I had a blissfull 4 days with my grace filled family. Check out some photos here!
Although I didn’t really have a chance nor the desire to do a physical practice I found the quiet within the extraordinary experience of just being, enough to keep my practice going. I mean, that being around the people that you love and that love you back is the most rewarding and healing experience in life . You remember what truly matters, what has meaning to you. I felt my whole being release as I woke up in my parent’s house.
As I find myself now in my own home, my body is ready for practice, and yet I still long to stay inside. To cultivate the warmth of family fire within, just a little while longer. I didn’t want to go to a class today. I didn’t really want to see anyone. I wanted to stay in, and yet I didn’t want to practice ‘alone.’ I wanted a teacher, I wanted guidance. Well, thank God for my buddy Hillary! She has just recently started her own podcast, ‘Hillary’s Yoga Practice Podcast.’ Now, of course I have my own podcast and I could have done my own class, but seriously, I have to deal with myself everyday, I don’t want me telling me to do stuff (that would be Elsie overload) Seriously listening to myself talk inside my head and outside of my head, NO WAY!
I digress.
I also felt, I should do a class at home, the podcast way. I didn’t know if it worked. I’ve never done a yoga podcast class. I just thought it was a good idea. Oh my goodness! I loved it!!! mind you, Hillary and I speak the same language so I totally understood what she was talking about and I have the upper hand as I know the names of the poses and all that jazz, but she’s just such a great teacher and I loved it that she was in my house! I had the feeling that I had someone there with me, guiding me, and yet I still found the privacy of ‘my practice’ that I longed for. What was also fantastic about the whole situation is that it still poses really great obstacles to work through. I found myself zoning out, and also getting preoccupied with all sorts of stuff to do (other than practicing). That’s so cool! It was such a great way to see how unfocused I was, how ungrounded my mind had become and how as I allowed Hillary’s voice to fill me from the inside out I was always brought back to my mat. Hillary said, “flexibility is listening and breathing.” I found that particularly poignant for most of the time we tend to rush through things, either ’cause we don’t like what we are doing and just want to get through it, or we’ve been there done that, some ‘ol same ‘ol, so we blaze through stuff. It’s in the moments when we listen, when we breathe that we find our greatest flexibility and it has nothing to do with being able to bend down and touch your toes. That flexibility that Hillary spoke about is available to us at every moment, regardless of our physical bodies. We are all able to delve inside, and become more and more aligned. *sigh* Man, this truly transformed my humble little apartment into a yoga studio of my own design.
This whole yoga class podcasting thing is great! It both gave me a unique and private experience while at the same time it allowed me to be a part of something bigger 🙂 I’m so happy that I had that, as my first yoga class of 2007. The coolest thing ever…
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cool
I SIMPLY LOVE EVERY CELL IN YOUR BODY MY DEAR FRIEND.. TEARS WERE IN MY EYES WHILE I READ YOUR WORDS.. WHAT AN HONOR TO BE YOUR FIRST CLASS AND HAVE YOU TAKE MY PODCAST – YOU ROCK ELSIE IN EVERY WAY I WISH TO BE AS OPEN AS YOU. I LOVE HOW YOU GO INTO THE UNKNOWN WITH ENTHUSIASM AND I DIDNT KNOW I SAID THAT ABOUT FLEXIBILITY – THANKS FOR THE NEW SET OF EARS AS ITS WHAT WE HEAR THAT IS IMPORTANT. XO TO A GREAT 007