I don't know

SO much.

Or, there is SO much to try/read/learn/practice/know. It's incredible, really. Lately, I've been thinking about how many of the things I've enjoyed doing in my life: singing, writing, yoga (heck, GOLF, even!) require lots of practice, study, and self-inquiry. I'm kind of a junkie.

I'm reading a book (finally) recommended to me by a fellow yogini, and it is just great. It is practical, historical, and key to moving my practice and teaching to the next level. I'm pretty sure I'm not one of those yogis whose hallmark will be doing lots of WOW! poses -- that's just not me. Though who knows, practice and all is coming -- but I digress. Rather, I like the idea of introducing students to and using in my own yoga practice on and off the mat the depth and breadth of riches that yoga has to offer. There is history, culture, poetry, anatomy, music and more to be explored. It is, in fact, what makes yoga such a colorful, wonderful thing.

Sometimes I feel lucky to not have the strongest, most flexible practice. Not being an athletic juggernaut on the mat in part allowed me to be open to the other elements of yoga: it's philosophy, language, music, ritual and more. And each time I pick up a new text about it, I am reminded just how much of a beginner I am, of how little I know. It's so freeing to approach life this way -- just being in the moment, empty and open to all that is.

Re-solve

I was never good at algebra, or any math, for that matter. And maybe I'm not really good at solving problems in general. I don't know.

I hadn't really thought about making resolutions, or even about the new year that is upon us. Really, is there time for that? My friend Nancy, the Flying Yogini, got me thinking, though. She posted a little gem on Facebook about breathing through the letting go of things -- my paraphrase -- but you get the gist? It was about letting go. Practicing non-attachment.

I've been resolving to lose weight since I was about 12. I make the resolution every year -- even in the years I said (say) I wasn't making any resolutions. It has always been the thing I need to fix about myself. My self. Nancy's idea about letting things go in the new year somehow led me to the idea that resolutions are really new attempts to re-solve something. Solve it again. So maybe I would resolve to re-solve the weight problem. But I thought more about it.

And I thought about how I might let go of this. Let go of the resolution and the re-solution. Let go of the idea of fixing myself. Let go of the idea that I am less because there is more of me. Loosen the white-knuckled grasp. Let go of the attachments that bind me into this mindset, this heartache, this body. Because that's the yoga. The practice of just being, rather than just holding on.

Huh.

Then another gem from Nancy: "The universe is listening." Write it down, she says.

So I wrote it down here. I'm letting go. I'm not sure I even know what that means, but I have the year to find out.

And now I ask you -- what might you let go of?

It's that old refrain:

The days are long and the years, short.

Six months since the last post? I can't imagine how that would happen, except for the runaway life.

The period since my last post reminds me of why sometimes the most important yoga is off the mat. Finding peace in my breath and in new ways of responding to things has been a challenge as life has swirled around me. As time and money come and go, being content with what I have seems too simple, but it, too, is a challenge. But I know how lucky I am. I know that I only have to tune in to connect to my practice, even if getting to the mat is a challenge. My girls are my yoga. My husband. My house. My chores. Teaching.

Life is the union, the yoga.