namaste

tuesday mornings are sacred.
I love to ride early in the morning (at this time that begins pre-sunrise I also love to sleep, to sit on my couch sipping coffee and read, or to sit in the dark and just be), but on tuesdays I do none of these. tuesdays I give myself the gift of yoga.
I am a yoga neophyte, a newbie, a wannabe. I have been going to class once a week for a little over a year. I have made progress, but it is slow. s l o w.
yoga is a commitment. and I am really quite good at commitments. I am determined, tenacious, and unswayable when focused on certain things. do I love every minute of yoga class? no. can I do everything my instructor ~ the amazing miguel ~ guides us to do? no. do I often look around and think, why don't my heels touch the floor, why can they do this and I can't, will I ever be as good as her? yes, yes, yes. but I keep going. and someday, perhaps, I will be able to hold my body in dolphin or dragonfly. there was a time I couldn't do crow, and now I can, and that is what I must hold inside.
baby steps.
too often we want it NOW, we want it without pain, without effort. and we see others who seem to be having, achieving, accomplishing, and it looks easier than our path. but we cannot know their journey ~ which is likely to have been more challenging than we could possibly believe ~ all we can know is our own.
my yoga classes, like most others, end with a quiet word from miguel which we return to him: namaste. this word can be interpreted in a variety of ways, but my favorite is this: 'I honor the Spirit in you which is also in me.'
so to you all who are reading this, I offer this and send you peaceful energy today,
namaste.