Hello equanimity!

As I walked to class this morning I looked up at the wintry trees swaying in the strong wind, those with leaves fluttering madly, those without swaying their bare branches. Grey clouds scudded wildly behind. It was early and there were few people about. It felt like my kingdom, my territory: I had my place in this world and I was content. I felt so content and peaceful that it came into my mind that maybe I didn’t need to go to class. I was ‘here’ already, feeling whole and gathered and all those integrated feelings I usually get only after class. Clearly I got out of bed on the right side this morning!

But I went to class anyway…

I always learn in class, even things I don’t want to know or didn’t even realise were subjects of knowledge or arenas for experience. So I went today with the intention of experiencing āsana practice when my headspace was already more peaceable than usual. How would this be?

Practice was at once more intensely internal as well as more detached. I was focussed, breathing quite steadily through the practice, but also much less attached to the form of my poses and what I could and couldn’t achieve.

For example the teacher led us into Bird of Paradise pose (Svarga dvijāsana), a pose I used to be able to get a certain way into with a certain amount of grace. But it wasn’t happening today. Hamstrings and hips have been doing a lot recently and didn’t want to be pushed in this pose. For once that really didn’t matter to me. I simply observed this as it was.

How nice this equanimity is! I don’t know where it came from and I’m sure it will disappear as mysteriously as it arrived. But it’s a nice place to be while it’s here. I could get the taste for it.

Hubby’s class didn’t go so well for him and when he got home after me he was feeling angry and frustrated, threatening to wreck my mood. I fixed up his broken zipper, fed him, and listened to his stories. It was nice, for once, to have calm enough for the both of us.

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image sources: https://yogaadandotcom.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/birds-in-trees-full.jpg; yoga journal.com