image by eric

This is no day of rest. It’s a day early and I’m spending it packing and preparing to leave for our trip to Oregon tomorrow, but I feel compelled to write this now, and might as well post it since it’s already written.

I’ve been thinking a lot about mortality. A sometime student of mine and fellow yoga practitioner died this week. He was young, had just gotten married last year and had a baby boy. His death was an accident, a fall at a construction site, and a shock. I didn’t know him well, but I’d chat with him from time to time. He was one of those people who was always around, always said “hello” and had a smile on his face. He was the nicest guy. I just took a yoga class with him a few weeks ago. And now he’s just…gone.

Death is confusing for those left behind. Especially when the death is sudden and unexpected, but even when it’s not it is so hard to comprehend that someone you knew, someone you loved is just…gone, that you will never see them again. There’s a particular difficulty when you didn’t get to say good-bye, when you didn’t realize that the last time you saw them was the last time you’d ever see them.

Yes
by William Stafford

It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could you know. That’s why we wake
and look out–no guarantees
in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.

Maybe you are tired of hearing me say it, kind and gentle reader, but life is tender and terrible, beautiful and brutal — keep your heart open. And may all of us, those here and gone, rest in peace.

Prompt: When we heal our spirits the ripples are felt from the highest branches to the deepest roots of our family trees. What radical act of love or non-conformity did you embrace this year? How did performing this alchemy affect your ancestors and what is the gold waiting to be shared with future relations?

I stopped working out with a trainer. This was one step of a larger transformation, but it was one of the biggest. I decided to take back my own power, my own authority over my body. I no longer was going to move my body the way someone else told me to move it. I was no longer going to feel guilt or shame about how I looked. I was no longer going to control and manipulate and punish my body. I wasn’t going to force it to be anything it didn’t want to be. I wasn’t going to regret or reject or even hate it for being something other than.

At the end of meditation practice, we do something called “dedicating the merit.” Basically that means whatever good karma we’ve generated by way of our practice, we offer it in the hopes that it does some good. When I teach yoga, at the end of class, I say “may the merit of our practice together ease suffering, in ourselves and in the world.” It’s in this spirit I imagine the “gold waiting to be shared with future relations.” Maybe the more women who live in a way that honors their body, in a way that nourishes their whole self, the less suffering there will be in the world. And if I can be just one of those women, an example to those who came before me or those who come after, even if I’m an example that’s not entirely successful, I’ll feel like I’ve offered something of value.