Reverse Triangle

Yoga begins with a No Comp clause .
Yoga is an art , a science , a philosophy , a prayer all rolled into one .
Stretch your mind ..balance your thoughts ..and when the mind is stable and in balance - the body will follow . It requires patience and commitment ..and an understanding of how strong your mind is and how far you can push it .
It also fosters in you a greater tolerance - for people around you who might be far more advanced ..or far less flexible than you . And like life ..it requires you to keep breathing .To really recognize and honor your breath ..and listen to it ..better than any music you've heard ..and a more moving realtionship that any you will ever know . ..and realise that at the end of the day ..we all have the same heartbeats and in that rythm ..we are indeed one ..contained within the limitless boundaries of that one truth.

Wendy, my instructor told me somthing today . She said that until we are 25 years old ..our lower back holds some kind of a fluid ..that makes us more flexible and helps us absorb shocks better . After 25 , this fluid degenerates and so we need to keep working at stretching .

I kept thinking about it on my drive home ..its is true ..that the straighter your backbone is ..the harder it is to bend ..especially as you grow older and your perceptions and opinions become more rigid . And we do need to work very hard ..to keep an open mind .

A very close friend of mine works in Delhi , for a NGO . In prior years he used to be very active working with friends of Tibet. In one of our many engaging conversations , this particular one , in the midst of a very strange and difficult phase of my life ..said to me that he wished that I could learn to be like a Blade of Grass .

And today ..several years later , a hour into hatha yoga ....in reverse triangle , I know what he meant .

A quiet prayer for me to be like a blade of grass - that survived the fiercest of storms ..that mighty oaks would falter in ..to be drenched in torrents of rain , gusts of winds ...sway and bend ...but have the gentle strength that came from being flexible to hold on hard to my roots ..to survive to see the sunshine again .

I knew I'd understand what he meant one day ..I just didnt know today would be that day .
Thank you my friend .