“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread,
places to play in and pray in,
where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.”
~ John Muir, The Yosemite (1912)
I went to yoga last night for the first time in two weeks, and in that hot, sweaty, stinky room as I moved through my Bikram yoga practice, I had a beautiful realization. I gazed at myself in the mirror and I FELT my beauty. I saw the shapes I was making with my body as an expression of what is good in me. I was filled with gratitude, a deep sense of peace and just....a feeling of being “enough” and maybe even a little more than that. I realized that each and every time I stand in front of that mirror and face myself, acknowledge my humanity...my strength...my humility, I am bringing beauty into the world.
That’s a powerful thought: I am bringing beauty into the world through my yoga practice. It’s an important thought, too, because when and where in life do we a) realize we are creating something beautiful, and b) acknowledge that WE ARE beautiful?
Last night’s realization was an “aha moment” for me. I realized that I had been avoiding my yoga practice because I’d lost touch with beauty, goodness, sacredness these last several months. Winters in the northeast can be cold and long. This one was brutal...and not just because of the weather. My family was tossed against the rocks with the death of my 22 y.o. nephew in February. Jordan’s passing was the fifth in my extended family since late August and I just lost a dear friend from high school to cancer last month, to top it all off. The grief I’ve been feeling threatens almost daily to swallow me whole. I’ve found myself avoiding situations that evoke emotion, as I seem unable to hold back the tide of sadness that washes over me and seeps out in the form of tears. I don’t like this feeling of being out of control of myself. The tears aren’t just for Jordan...or my stepdad Jack or my friend David or my dog Casco. They are also very much for those left behind. My sister, just two years my elder, and all that she must now endure hurts me so deeply it’s hard to choke back the tears almost every day. My mom, who lost her husband eight months ago, is now living alone in a new and very small space, with Jack’s ashes in a box. Visiting her a few weeks back and seeing the new life she’s pieced together for herself, without her love...her Jack, wrecks me. I go to a concert, thinking a healthy dose of live music might help, but...the performer won’t stop singing sad songs and I lose it and the hot tears flow. Or I’m at a bar enjoying a drink and visiting with a friend and a young man who looks a lot like Jordan walks in, laughing with a couple of pals and the tears spring up without warning. I feel bereft, fragile, broken...
And yet I found my way to my yoga mat last night, because...what else can you do? Life goes on and we must, too. I’ll admit I didn’t want to go, haven't wanted to go. Bikram yoga is hard and I was feeling weak, inadequate, sad, angry. But...as soon as the class was underway and I acknowledged myself in the mirror and began to make those shapes with my body, a change came over me. I entered a very peaceful, focused space inside myself...and it just got better as the class wore on. I am a very focused, serious yogi even on a bad day and I’d lost touch with just how much my practice means to me and DOES for me. It’s so amazingly wonderful to have a place and a practice that can elicit feelings of such magnitude. And I believe this can happen for anyone...no matter if you’re a beginner or a seasoned athlete, whether you are skinny or overweight, flexible or stiff as a board. There is beauty in TRYING. There is beauty in being focused...in listening and following the teacher’s instructions. Your version of that posture is a beautiful thing. You can choose to see it...and yourself...that way. You can choose to be grateful that you are here and alive and able to make those shapes. Last night, I did. It was a lovely surprise. It was a gift, really. A much needed gift. I realized how beautiful yoga is...the postures are...I am when I’m making them. Maybe I’m even beautiful when I’m NOT making them. I got to thinking about it...and I realized that any time we create something beautiful, we ARE beautiful, and we can drink from that fountain of beauty to sustain us in times of loss, sadness, uncertainty, pain. I filled my cup last night with a healthy dose of hot yoga. Earlier in the day, I’d spent time making a gorgeous mixed media collage for a friend. Maybe tonight I will create a beautiful meal for myself and my family. Riding my bike to a nearby oceanside park last week, I snapped a photo of a deep blue sky meeting the horizontal line of a grassy field beginning to green up. Many nights, just being present for my husband, who has had some great struggles of his own these last many months, is an act of profound beauty if I choose to see it that way. Boom..beauty...all around!
Part of the joy and the comfort, for me, is discovering and noticing beauty. Another part is acknowledging it and standing in it. And a third part is sharing it. Whether in the yoga room, my art space, out in nature or in my warm bed at night...I’m learning to be in the beauty as much as I can. I’m learning to stay there for longer and longer. It helps balance out the sadness and the struggles that a normal, ordinary life also dishes out. Where do you find beauty? Do you know it when you see it? Do you share it with others? I hope so. You can share it with me... I’d like to see. Namaste.
"Behind every beautiful thing, there's some kind of pain."
-- Bob Dylan
