Expressions of Life

I have fallen in love.
Fallen in love with yoga.
It allows me to surrender, to feel, to love, to Be.
and it allows my body a certain stillness that cannot be achieved in day to day life.
I can push myself, feel my outer limits of strength and then curl into myself and honor who I am and what I have within myself...strength, peace, kindness and love.

A few weeks ago I had an amazingly moving experience while practicing yoga at Jai Yoga in Brunswick. My teacher, Jen, is 7 months pregnant. She exudes confidence, patience, calmness and is absolutely beautiful in her expression of her pregnancy.

I was positioned in a corner of the studio, looking out the large windows. The sky outside was a brilliant blue, a few puffy white clouds hung in the air. I gazed down to the crowded parking lot where my van was parked. My van holding my old, decrepit black lab, Gracy.

I was so struck by the dichotomy of my experience. To my right was the perfect expression of life. A beautiful, vivacious, living woman growing a perfect expression of life in her womb. Just outside the window lay my Gracy Lou who, at 14, is at the end of her life. Her hips are failing her, her body is not strong, her hearing is gone, her vision blurry. The perfect expression of  life ending in my van.

I had to hold back my tears. Not tears of sadness...mind you, but tears of experience. The joy of new life, the reflection of a life of happiness with my dog.

As you move through your life today, try to reflect on life...what around you is the perfect expression of life? Of death?

Spring is the perfect time for this reflection. Everything is new...new beginnings...the plants burst forth and put forward their perfect expression of life, baby animals are being born, each of us feel enlivened and ready for our fresh start that is Spring.

And death...what is dying in you? What can you leave behind with the cold and darkness of winter? Don't just put it on a shelf for next year. See if you can release it in the eastern wind that blows the coldness and staleness away.

I dare you.