Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Our bodies want to be well. They want to be nourished, balanced, healthy, strong, energized and vibrant. Our systems are always working towards harmony and vitality. Our bodies are capable of transforming over and over again. Spring is a lovely time to remember that we can renew and refresh ourselves everyday. As we look out the window and watch winter transforming effortlessly into spring it is a reminder that can we do the same thing for ourselves.
Every day as I feel the sun getter warmer, watch the snow melting, listen to the red wing black birds singing, smell the fires burning as people make maple syrup and see the grass return I watch the earth transform itself and I am inspired. It reminds me that I can do that too. I can have practices of renewal and transformation in my life. I can create and recreate healthy habits in my thoughts and in my activities that can support my own well being. I read a meditation quote recently that said “I am endlessly renewed in the present moment.” It was an instruction to take some time out regularly to sit and be refreshed by being quiet. Maybe that is what these practices of yoga and meditation are about - refreshing and renewing. Maybe everything else that happens in a class is a bonus.
I think the lesson here is that we each need to know the things that nourish us and renew us at a deep level and ensure that we build regular time in our lives for those activities. Often when I do my own yoga practice I just begin by sitting (or lying) on the floor, closing my eyes and thanking this ancient living earth that I rest into. I visualize the earth growing flowers and fruit and vegetables and imagine that I am connected to that same freshness - that same aliveness. Every time I walk my dog I pay attention to the renewal and the aliveness that is around me as the sun rises and as I watch the buds start to appear on the trees. It is in these simple moments that my body returns to a state of balance and well being. And then I can step back into my life with a sense of harmony and do the great things that I want to do. Maybe it is that simple.
Here is a favourite poem of mine about spring written by Mary Oliver.
Somewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staring
down the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early spring
I think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tongue
like a red fire
touching the grass,
the cold water.
There is only one question:
how to love this world.
I think of her
rising
like a black and leafy ledge
to sharpen her claws against
the silence
of the trees.
Whatever else
my life is
with its poems
and its music
and its glass cities,
it is also this dazzling darkness
coming
down the mountain,
breathing and tasting;
all day I think of her -— her white teeth, her wordlessness, her perfect love.
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