I wrote this meditation on November 14, 2014, just before teaching my very first yoga class--well it was a practice teach during my Kunga Yoga Teacher Training. It came to me in a dream-like state as I approached this new phase of my life--a rebirth of sorts. It reminds me to embrace each moment, to be grateful for the past + to find beauty in each moment, each breath. I hope you may find this too.
Read the revised version of this meditation on Elephant Journal here.
Picture your birth. The moments just before you see the world for the first time.
Chances are you may not have a memory of your own birth. But perhaps pieces of that story have been shared with you. So take this moment to illustrate your own birth in your mind. Maybe putting together those pieces you’ve heard from the various voices who were there—combining your mother’s recollections, your father’s witnessing eye, your grandmother’s joy, your grandfather’s pride, maybe adding visualizations of photos tucked away in an album filled with pastel pinks or blues, tiny blackened footprints, cards from people you, at this point, have never met.
Feel this moment. The anticipation. The energy surrounding those whose lives are very suddenly going to be greeted with a new life. What is your energy like knowing you are now going to have a chance to live in this same world? To experience a life of your own?
Now, begin to imagine the sounds you hear as you enter this world. What is it like to listen for the first time? What do you hear first? What do you smell? What is it like to smell for the first time? What do you taste? What is it like to taste air + to breathe for the first time? What do you feel? And what do you feel for the first time? Are you excited? Are you afraid?
Perhaps you still come to these same feelings at times. When new things arise. When you meet new people. Maybe you feel great excitement while accomplishing something you’ve never done before. Suddenly you feel new. And other times, when something unexpected happens. Maybe you feel new then too. Perhaps you stumble on your words. You feel immobile. Maybe you feel like you are starting over. A birth signaling the death to an old way of life.
We spend nine months in the water belly. Being in the water is the most natural thing we can feel. The earth’s surface, where we dwell, is comprised of about 71% water. Our bodies, are made up of about 60% water. Another thing that we know about water, is that it travels, just as we do down our paths wherever our lives may take us, connecting us to new places, new people. Some days we may feel like we’re a part of the ocean, surrounded by nothing but hues of beautiful blue, the sun beaming down. Everything is smooth. Everything is illuminated. Other times we may feel as though our patterns are becoming repetitive. In + out. In + out. In + out. Like the tides washing in + out. Back + forth. Ebbing + flowing. But maybe we find a way to break that cycle. And we are lifted into the air, into the clouds, for a chance at a new perspective on the world in which we live. And then, we land in a new place, a new beginning. Perhaps, we find ourselves in a new pond, a new lake, where we know that if we find enough energy, enough perpetual movement, we can journey down the next river where more connections to the earth, to other beings may be found.
It is these connections that we desire within our utmost beings. This is the way it began. At birth. This is also the way it ends. With death. When a breeze floats by or perhaps a storm, + takes all that is physical, material, away it is only our connections that we have left. This is what feeds our soul.
If you choose to really experience each pose in your practice or each moment in life as you did for the first time, maybe you’ll find that your perception of the pose, of the moment, changes. What do you hear while you’re in the pose and what does that teach you? What do you see when you’re in the pose and what does that add? What do you smell while you’re in the pose + what does that remind you of? How do you feel in the pose and how do those feelings alter your thoughts?
As you become aware of all that is coming in to the body + all that is exiting the body—all the sounds, all the sights, all the smells, all the feelings, all the thoughts, come back to the energy you felt when you imagined your birth. How precious is this particular moment? How beautiful is each inhale? Each exhale? Maybe, we can come back to that image of being in the water belly, being literally connected to another person--finding the fluidity in this image + then coming back to your breath.
Namaste.