Tuesday, December 16, 2008

relax your gaze

tuesday, yoga day.
I walked into the building with just a spattering of huge white flakes making their way down from the dark sky.
I walked out to 2 inches of snow on the ground, on my car, sticking to my felt boots.
and it just kept coming, and coming, and sticking, billions of crystals packing themselves into each others space and forming an even, thick carpet across my world.

I am still resisting my new yoga teacher, but only by centimeters now, no longer by the inches and feet of the past. I miss miguel, I miss that workout, but I am teaching myself to accept what is and embrace it, for one never knows the hidden benefit of doing so until one does so.
right?
we breathe in yoga, we stretch and gently push, we align and square hips and drop shoulders and lean into poses. at times my muscles quiver, then shake, and I occasionally lose my balance. then I inhale, reposition myself, exhale, and begin again.
we are often guided to relax our gaze. now, I don't really know what this means. I don't think this is a skill we learn growing up, like tossing a ball or shaking hands or even standing on one foot. I interpret it to mean this: relax your eyelids, expand the possibility of your peripheral vision, and look past whatever may be in front of you. it is the opposite of staring, it is letting your vision just be without challenging it to feed you information.
today is a day of relaxing my gaze.
I am sad that snow covers my world and my bike is relegated to the back corner of the cold, wet garage. I am sad that I am leaving the experiences of my summer and fall behind, that they are now in the "history" pile of my memory bank. I am sad that I keep shoveling the snow away, and then more comes and covers the path I have worked so hard to uncover. I am sad that things are shifting and changing and the world seems terribly unsettled.
but focusing on any of those things does me no good. therefore, if I just look past these things, let them float in my peripheral vision, I can perhaps keep moving forward. one shovelful at a time. with a relaxed gaze, a gaze that welcomes whatever might be in my world.
I guess I'll give it a try.

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