leaf bodies in free fall

Dear Yogis    I am wading in– catching the blog wave but not trying to catch up-just starting with now.  This is my favorite time of year-changing seasons, weather and light.  It is my first fall in Sacramento in two years and I am savoring it.  How does the full juicy summer turn into sere, dry leaves that give their life falling from trees?  So much in transition.  On Sunday, one of the resident trees gave a limb to the season, its wood splitting from an aging branch.  Will it continue to hold its own tree pose?

Now all I experience has a yoga lens and for me, a new focus on the body.  I am constantly asking myself questions like how my body makes the transitions between countries and climates and, is it really the same body moving through each asana?  I am learning about this body in a new way.  Sometime in the last few weeks I realized that of all of the things we are learning, the language of the body has been the most riveting.  It means developing a conversation with my own body- one I haven’t had before– so that eventually, when I guide a pose,  I will know what to say in a way that comes from my own experience.

And the inspiration is everywhere.  Like the tree with the broken branch I find that my body responds to its new posture as I try to steady myself with its new angles-then I think- tree pose- regaining balance when one part of the body feels lighter or heavier.  I trust this process but I do have to watch my staring when it involves other beings…

So- a little off these musings –but I have been thinking of impermanence lately and I am offering a Robert Bly poem here that I heard recently on Prairie Home Companion.  I apologize to the poet if I don’t have the line breaks right- I haven’t seen it in writing.

The nimble Ovenbird, the dignity of pears, the simplicity of oars,

The imperishable engines inside slim Fir seeds.

All of these hint at how much we long

For the impermanent to be permanent.

We want the Hermit Wren to keep her eggs,

Even in the storm.  We want eternal oceans.

But we are perishable friends.  We are

Salty impermanent kingdoms.

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