Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Sacred Space

I can't tell you how much I look forward to my time on my mat. Although I keep setting my alarm to try and do my practice early in the morning, before the kids wake up, I typically can't drag my ass out of bed. I mean really, it took two and half years to get Bridger to sleep past 6:30 (ok, past 5:30, but ok), I really really am enjoying being asleep at 6! So, most days, after The Wild Life are in tucked into bed, I unroll my mat, and have my time in my body. 

Admittedly, that means most days I'm a little tired for super vigorous anything, and I tend not to work too hard. That's what studio classes are for. I do try to get to at least one a week. But just the time to notice nothing but my breath, to observe my universe, at a cellular, pranic, macro-cosmic level is lovely. 

I love ritual. When I was a smoker, it was the ceremonial taps of the pack on the heel of my hand, unwrapping the foil, turning up a 'lucky', the raisiny smell before the flame touched and ignited, that first long draw. The evaporation of my near-constant anxiety. I don't smoke anymore. I need ritual. I am still an overwrought, anxious mental being. The shadows are near, and times are unstable. The ingrained coping mechanisms, the urges to cut, or puke, or just not eat at all never go away. That could be exhausting. But it's not. Because most nights, I unroll my mat. I stand at the top, and bring my hands together. My feet and hands tap in time with my long breath. I observe. I choose not to attach reaction to that which is observed. Things evaporate. I finish, laying in savasana, floating on a sea of chi, sometimes in the flesh, sometimes not. I sit, hands in anjali mudra, prayer. I speak.

Om. Shanti, shanti, shanti.
Peace in my mind, peace in my body, peace in our world.
Namaste.

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