Finally, after more than a year of being home non-stop in lockdown and after my first Covid jab, my husband and I took a much-needed getaway. No flights or exotic locales. We spent three weeks at a lovely lake cottage less than an hour from home. By necessity, it was a working trip, but with a change of scenery. My laptop was one of the first things I packed. My travel yoga mat was the second. What happened on the mat turned out to be an important reminder about finding balance off the mat.
The first several days were cold and rainy, which didn’t afford much time down at the lake. Gradually, the weather improved and the first morning that was warm enough, I slipped out with my yoga mat and headed to the lake. I had noticed the long, rock and concrete pier that jutted out from the shore into the lake. Now as the sun came up over the trees, I unrolled my mat and stepped out of my sandals. As I lifted my arms over my head to begin my Sun Salutations, I inhaled the fresh morning air and the smell of the lake. A lake girl from my youth, I felt something old awaken in me. My movements were slow and easy, like a dance.
Normally, I’m quite good at balacing postures, but as I moved into Half Moon and even postures like Extended Side Angle in which you look up, I was having trouble maintaining my balance. I wobbled or fell out of poses that are normally fairly easy for me. I tried to blame an unevenness in the surface. It was at some point during my yoga practice the following morning that I realized the unevenness was in my own mind.
In yoga, it is important to establish a “drishti” point or gaze point/point of focus. It finally occurred to me that I had become used to practicing in the same small area of my study or in the extra bedroom. Now here at the lake with all the water in front of me and the vast sky above me, I was feeling disoriented. Where to look?
Gradually, I learned to focus across the lake at the distant tree line or at my own fingers where they seemed to brush the sky. I opened myself fully to the connection between my body and all the elements—Fire, Water, Earth, and Air— all present in the sun above me (Fire), the lake stretched out in front of me (Water), the rock below me (Earth), and the winds which enveloped me (Air).
In meditation, the breath is often used as our point of focus, but there might be times it’s just not working for us and we feel either constrained or disoriented. It’s okay. First, give yourself permission to experiment with different anchors of attention. It might be the special seashell on your desk or the tree outside your window. It might be as close as the feeling of your feet resting on the floor. Often times when we feel we are not doing something right or the experience is not the way we think it “should” be, we double down and contract in the body and the mind. The more I felt myself wobble out on that pier, the tighter I became and the more I fell out of the pose.
The beautiful disorientation I experienced was also an important reminder that after being literally closed in for a year, the body and the mind need time to reorient to larger spaces and openness as parts of the world begin to move into a wary truce with the virus. Explore what helps you feel grounded and if during lockdown you discovered that spending time in a garden or working by an open window helped you, don’t throw it away because of the pressure to “get back to normal.” Listen to what feels supportive to you as you move through your day and your meditation practice. Perhaps most importantly, as they say in yoga, embrace the wobbles.
Happy Summer Solstice!
Peace & Love,
Kathleen