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August 11, 2015

A Meditation on Rebirth & Renewal.

Jenny Yarborough

Picture your birth.

Imagine the moments just before you see the world for the first time.

Chances are you don’t have a memory of being born, but perhaps parts of that story have been shared with you. Take a moment to visualize these in your mind.

Try to put together those pieces you’ve heard from various voices—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 may have never met.

Feel this moment. The anticipation. The new life that will suddenly join this expectant family.

What is your energy, as the baby, like knowing you are now going to have a chance to live in this world? To experience a life of your own?

Now, imagine the sounds you might hear as you enter this world. What would it be like to listen for the first time? What do you hear first? What is it like to smell for the first time? What is it like to taste air, or to breathe for the first time? What do you feel?

Perhaps you still experience these feelings at times: when new things arise, when you meet new people. Suddenly you feel new. Like the excitement of accomplishing something you’ve never done before, or when something unexpected happens. Maybe you feel new then too. Perhaps you stumble on your words, or feel immobile. Maybe you feel like you are starting over. These act as re-births signaling the death of 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. Water also 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 and out, in and out, in and out, like the tides washing in and out, back and forth, ebbing and flowing.

But maybe we can find a way to break that cycle.

Maybe we can break free and be lifted into the air, into the clouds, for a chance at a new perspective on the world in which we live. And maybe we will land in a new place, a new beginning. Perhaps, we will 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 a storm moves in and takes away all that is physical or material, it is only our connections that we have left. These are what feed our soul.

If you choose to really experience each moment in life as you did for the first time, maybe you’ll find that your perception of the moment, or the yoga pose, changes. Think about what you hear while you’re in the moment, or in your pose, and what that can teach you. What do you see when you’re in that moment or pose and what does that add? What do you smell while you’re in that moment or pose and what does that remind you of? How do you feel in the moment or pose and how do those feelings alter your thoughts?

As you become aware of all that is coming in to the body, and all that is exiting within 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 and exhale?

Maybe, we can come back to that image of being in the water belly, being literally connected to another person. Find the fluidity in this image, and then finally, come back to your breath.

Namaste.

~

 Relephant:

Embracing Beginner’s Mind.
~

Author: Jenny Yarborough

Apprentice Editor: Gabriella Sweezey/Editor: Travis May

Photo: Author’s Own Image

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