Root Your Practice in Simplicity
by Kate Bush
We are in full fall mode now, which is always an exciting time. Back to school, back to business, with lots of demands on your time. I love the cooler weather, bright colors, and the leaves surfing on the wind, and yet, we all have to watch out for those ballistic acorns falling from oak trees.
In the rush and grind of activity that is underway and will continue to ramp up through December, I am grateful to my yoga practice for reminding me that it is the simple things that nurture us and help us thrive.
Yoga gives us the designated time and space to tune into the power of energy, breath, and connection—aspects of our experience that are always there, but so easy to overlook.
To understand the way energy works, consider the seed, or the acorn! That simple, little nut that contains a single seed might seem to be just tree detritus, something to be raked away, but it carries incredible potential. It can be food for people and animals. It can also get moved by a small animal and be stored and then forgotten in an auspicious place.
There it can settle in, send down a complex of roots in the soil and grow into a towering oak tree, providing shade, consuming carbon dioxide, and producing a multitude of acorns that can start the whole process over again.
All that possibility in one dense little acorn.
Yoga can work in an analogous way. Ashtanga is an energy practice, and the seeds that we can cultivate are the silent impulses of our being. When your mind is quiet, you can witness and nourish the wordless surges of energy that set big things in motion.
Yoga creates the conditions to listen to the deepest elements of your being, and to cultivate the seeds that develop into a world where you can be at home.
We all know that attention to the breath is essential to a deeper practice, but focusing on the subtle ebb and flow of breath and the prana that moves on it is the first casualty in a distracted world.
When we can stay tuned into the breath for a sustained amount of time, it has the power to light up every cell in our body with energy, with consciousness, with intelligence.
The goal is not to catch every bind, or put your legs behind your head and smile for the camera. The goal is to feel yourself fully alive, to encounter your edge and then realize you can breathe through it. This gives you strength. It gives you confidence, and a track record of self-reliance on a cellular level.
When I committed to my yoga practice, I had young children and was early in my career. Soon after, the economy started tanking. It was stressful for everyone, and yoga provided solace in an extremely anxious time. Mid-morning there were packed rooms of men and women seeking a reprieve from the cutbacks, the job losses, and the pervasive uncertainty.
The first time I got an assist in a vinyasa class, it was a watershed moment. I was so moved by the touch of another person who did not want anything from me. It was a healing experience, making me feel connected to a human and caring community. Around that same time there was a study that found that infants who are not held often fail to thrive, which came as no surprise.
Yoga, Ashtanga especially, harnesses the power of human touch to support, to teach, and to lead, without asking for anything in return. So, if you feel like you are being buffeted around like a leaf on a breeze, remember that your mat, a warm clean room, and friendly faces are there to support you.
Remember that you have the tools to shore up your reserves and connect to your source energy. And remember this profound lesson that yoga can teach us if we are there to receive it — the simple things have all the power.