4.6
February 20, 2013

Mysore Kind of Morning.

Photo: Ashtanga Yoga School of Philadelphia

“Do your practice and all is coming.” ~ Sri K. Pattabhi Jois

It’s not in the “getting,” I hummed to myself with an inhale, look up, exhale jump back, inhale, exhale, jump to a seat; it’s in the “going.”

It is in the receiving and in the letting go.

I am finding that the more one tries to get something in this practice, in this life—the more it will elude us. Such as in the getting of kurmasana. It’s much more fun to be fully immersed in the going to kurmasana—because when I arrive, there will be another pose to get, another thing to get and I’ll always be unsatisfied.

As soon as you have that job, this house, that life—as soon as you practice second series—then you will be happy.

Or, you won’t be.

You see, it is not in the getting.

Inhale. Exhale to fold.

She told me, “You have it at five, which means you have to fight for it at four.”

It is in the going; it is in the moment when, “But I’m fatigued,” is met with, “Then you have to fight it.”

It is in the slam-dunk colliding of someone jumping through across the room. The floating. It is in the uneven floorboards and in the morning heaters clanking.

It is in the going.

It is in that hour when you want to dive under the sheets but he kisses your nose and says, “It’s time–get up.” And he smiles, because you both know that you secretly love the fight between your sheets and your shala.

Inhale root down, lift up—exhale and curl back.

It is in the miracle of your hands finding Earth in that standing dropback.

In the full-body breathing and joy that ripples to the surface as you stand back up; it is not in the getting–let this be emphasized most clearly.

It is in the going.

The absolute pure love of going.

Do not trade me your nine hours sleeping, there is work to be done.

Sweat to be made.

There is sitting with and feeling to be had—no judgment-making.

Just going.

 

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Ed: Bryonie Wise

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