Permission to the Wanderer Within.
4/8/2024
Hello dear seekers,
On this overcast PNW Monday I find myself with a wandering state of mind. Coming off a weekend with extended family, I am present to residue of lingering experience in my body, my breath, my mind and the continued need to digest. Like the photo above, it reflects some of the cloudiness, both light and dense clouds ready to release, and the beauty of earth meeting sky, trees and life, everything just simply acting in it's own nature. As with nature, there are cycles in life. Like the course of a day, what rises, what sustains, and what returns or surrenders back to night.
Our family celebrated a life that recently transitioned to the sky, the stars, the earth. When soul leaves body. In deep gratitude, I was able to hold loving space during this time. From my more frequent visits to this state of love and loss experienced as people 'take off their shoes', I witness more and more that how we connect in grief is often how we wish to live life. Not living so much at arms length, but leaning into that vulnerable courage to be with others as that are, as we are, wholehearted with renewed curiosity and connection. And the remembrance that we are not our behavior, that hurt people hurt people, but is is not our essence. Death's necessary disruption to re-orient us toward the love that really matters.
In reflecting about what matters most, and in this process of authentic creation, yoga as teacher for what's emerged on this page, there are a few learnings I want to offer.
Primary is the permission to live in the wandering. To not know. Might not knowing offer you more freedom? Permission to allow yourself to stay curious to your unfolding. To the gifts of the liminal space of transition from where you've been to where you are going, physically, emotionally, and metaphorically.
Two is in the approach to what you are dedicated. Can you bring intention without expectation? As you meet your responsibilities, your aspirations, the things you care about, can you bring with you intention without expectations?
Lastly, can you bring that sense of curiosity and kindness to your state of mind? Yoga teaches that we move between 5 states of mind. I welcome you to pause. Offer yourself 5 deep breaths. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. With a more steady breath as you read each state, see if you can sense how it lands in your body, curious to how or if it reflects your own mind . Disturbed... Dull... Distracted... One-pointed... Lucid.
For this week, might you offer yourself the permission to wander. Understanding naturally that our mind states, our body states, our breath states change. For the times when you are in the transitions, the liminal state, the dullness, the stress or the overwhelm, might you embrace that wanderer in you? That is curious and with kind intention without expectation to meet the moment. That is trusting of impermanence, curious and unrushed, with a kind and intentional heart. Here with you in practice and with love and light.
-Maya