Ineffable

I’m reeling.

Not just wobbly from physical fatigue as muscles I didn’t know I had assert themselves with increasing soreness. I’m also reeling mentally from so many new ideas and possibilities…

I’m just back from a weekend of workshops which involved some of the most physically intense asana and pranayama practice I’ve ever attempted, some of the most heartfelt dharma talks I’ve ever listened to, and the sweetest, most joyful kirtan I’ve ever lifted my voice to join in.

I’m wondering what I might have learned over this epic weekend where I was turned inside out and upside down and my brain was spun around multiple times with new ideas (or old ideas that I’m hearing as for the first time).
But I’m also trying to let go of the habitual questioning and analysing and just allow everything to soak in and fill me up and allow my heart to expand gently but surely and to let that be enough. Otherwise what is the point in trying a new way of things?

For certainly this weekend I did things I didn’t know were possible.
I’m quietly awed at my 25 breath Urdhva Dhanurasana. Not because it was a long hold and “ooh, aren’t I strong now”, but for the strange moment of clarity and contemplation it brought (most unexpectedly). And for the prolonged sense of expansion it offered me as I went a tiny bit beyond the beyond into a different relationship with my body and mind, and time took on a new meaning.
I’m less awed at my ability to hold half headstand (the ‘best’ inversion I could manage) for a count of 108 because by the end of it I was a shaking wreck and the mental commentary on my mat was frankly quite hostile and I’m not at all sure what muscling through gains anyone. (Comments welcome…)
And for this reason I’m ambivalent at best about the curious position (no asana I know!) which we were required to hold for some prolonged count. I simply couldn’t commit here since it felt like a shoulder injury in the making for me. But I so disliked being shouted at for being weak… 😦

And after all this physical work, there was space for meditation and savasana where time just stopped, there were no thoughts, no concerns, no sensations even. An absence of the quiet fear that I notice is often with me. Only a feeling of sufficiency. And an innocence too, perhaps.

And then kirtan when we whispered and loudly rejoiced alternately, gathered together in the twilight. And I felt as though I had been born for this moment, to be here at just this point in time with these strangers. A connection more innate than any common notion of intimacy.

Oh, Yoga… Is it like this?