Ch-ch-cha-changes...

Okay, I have a bit of a confession to make...

My practice, as of late, has been a bit, um...oh my god, I can't even say it...my practice these days has been very...quiet.

Now, let me just say this, in my own defense...I have been teaching A LOT, I have been studying a BIT (not as much as I should), and I have been meditating A LOT...but the moving and the stretching and upside-down-ing...not so much.  I just haven't really been able to get it up (pun intended) for my physical practice the last couple weeks.

Now if you are very wise you might be thinking something like, "well, Lia...asana is only one of the eight limbs of ha-tha yo-ga" (and in this scenario you would be pronouncing "hatha" like "hot-ta", because you are fancy and you have learned your Sanskrit pronunciation properly).  But eight limbs ain't going to get me any awesomeness points on the handstand meter, okay my little blogosphere swamis! 

Part of this slowed-down-ness is due to being in the midst of wedding planning, which is at once stressful and amazingly sweet, but which requires large swaths of energy.  So most often these days when I have carved out time to practice, all I want to do is close my eyes and sit in the center of my own chest.

Which brings me to the other culprit, this...this love-affair I'm having lately with meditation.  Talking endlessly about yoga is obnoxious enough, so I'm really going to hold myself back from talking about meditation, but I swear I seemed to have cracked some kind of code--the how the hell do I do this code of meditation.  And it's nice.  And I want to do it more.  (For now.  Please, god knows, don't hold me to this). 

And lastly...and this is the thing that is maybe hardest to admit...my practice is (gulp) changing.

Right now that means it feels like it's not as "cool" as it used to be.

Right now I feel like a practitioner without a home team...not quite doing it like them, and not quite doing it like them, either.

Right now I feel like my initial ancient impulse to just move, move, move, express, express, express, achieve, achieve, achieve...has, without my say-so, been replaced.  And it's been replaced by this pesky desire to get quiet.  To feel every little microscopic nanosecondish flutter of my insides.  (though the desire currently stands solo on one side, while the ABILITY still lags pretty far a-field).  But, still.

And I have to admit, I'm a little confused by it.

I'm confused that I am so resistant to letting my practice change.  I'm confused that I still apparently have "cool kid" and "not cool kid" divisions in my head when it comes to what people are doing and why.  And I'm confused to find myself in this place, where my physical goals seem to be taking a back seat to some other things.

So I try to remember that change is important.  I try to remember, in some kind of larger way, how easy it is, even with the things that by their very nature encourage change and fluidity--how easy it is to get stuck in a certain WAY of doing things.  And to decide, just by the very fact that you have done it this way 1,000 times before, that it is the best way.  And to remember that that might not be correct.

And then I think...may I BE so lucky.  May I be so blessed to have my practice change like this, again and again, as I continue down this road.  May it bend with my life, and be quiet when there is too much noise, and be exuberant when there has been too much dullness...because this, I have to remember, is one of the great gifts of yoga.  It will take you as you are, no exceptions.  And no matter how bumpy or smooth your heart, or your mind, or the shell of your body, it will fold around you...and fill in all your empty spots.