Took a beautiful class last night at my beloved Laughing Lotus (that's right, we're back in NYC for the holidays, ah sigh)--which always feels to me like coming home. Even though the studio is blowing up in popularity and expanding and expanding and expanding, I have just sweated and blissed-out and suffered so many hours on those floors, beneath those colored curtains and spinning fans...as soon as I step into the place I feel remembered. If not by the people who are there, which changes of course, and becomes less defined the longer I'm away, then at least by the walls and the ceilings...even by the bathrooms, which I spent many a night scrubbing in return for my free yoga classes.
On this trip I have been longing to MOVE in the way I only feel moved in my practice there. So, as quickly as I could after arriving, I got my butt to class.
And as we began, Ali (one of my most beloved teachers), talked about how valuable the Vinyasa practice is because of it's constant changeability. (I don't think she used that word...I don't know if that IS even a word, but I like it: changeability. It reflects what it is.) She talked about how important a practice it is for life, because of this ceaseless motion--something that is so FELT in a Vinyasa yoga class, and can be much more obscured in life, as we all try to pretend that it isn't the case. That things are not, as they are, always always changing. And I felt so moved by this. Even though it's not a new idea--I've probably heard and even said it, a hundred times over. But yesterday, having barely just arrived back in New York, back in our apartment in Brooklyn, back to all our books and plants and dishes and things that have just been left here, waiting for us, back to our old neighborhood, which is more new every time we return (new shops, new people, new atmosphere)--I needed to be reminded. I needed to be reminded not too hold on too tightly, to anything.
I read once that all suffering is caused by stopping the natural flow of the mind.
And I remember when I read this I imagined a factory--some great conveyor belt, carrying on it all my thoughts and feelings and ideas, and that in its natural state, in its prime-functioning state, that conveyor belt just smoothly silently steadily flows. It just moves by, carrying all of the stuff of my mind. And everything goes along swimmingly on that big ol' belt, until I see something that seems broken or put together wrong, or maybe just an empty space I feel shouldn't be there. (I'm the foreman in this factory, I guess, or maybe just the conveyor belt operator...that's still up for debate). And when that happens, when I see something a-miss, I get all into a fuss and I pull the red lever that stops the movement of the belt, everything comes grinding to a halt, and I rush over and start fiddling or fixing or what-have-you, trying to perfect the products of my little mind-factory.
And of course, of course, this is where the trouble begins.
Things back up. Production slows. People get frustrated. Everything, which was moving along of it's own accord before I got involved, starts to feel...overwhelming.
If I could just leave that belt alone...if I, if we, could just allow it to carry on, just allow even the broken pieces, the gaps, the stuff that's upside down or just badly put-together...if we could just allow that to continue its movement, if we could just trust that our job isn't the perfection of what's ON the belt, but merely that the belt continues to turn...wouldn't things be sweeter? Couldn't we just admire? Wouldn't so much more get accomplished?
I am thinking about this so much lately...as there is so much about the holidays that encourages looking forward and back, and I am trying as much as possible to stay steady in the present. But nothing, I've found, roots me quite as deeply and sweetly in the natural movement of my life as does, well...moving. Moving as I inhale, and moving as I exhale. Moving so that my movement is a reflection of my breath. My breath which is ceaseless in it's progress. So, Shanti-towners...if your conveyor belt feels stuck, if you're trying to glue some broken something back together before you let things move again, maybe...maybe just put it back. Release your little red lever. And let your life move.
