This morning, in the studio,

a pink sliver from another’s yoga mat

sits before me.

The teacher begins the class

with a reminder to find one’s Drishti,

to hold us in place

and simultaneously allow us to move freely.

This piece of lightness will be mine

and I, simultaneously, accept my role

as its.

The first pose is on our backs.

I close my eyes and roll my bent knees

around its happy color.

I wonder whose mat it was from –

likely a woman’s.

By the time I finish chastising myself for

unconscious gender bias,

we are in our second high plank, my struggling

breaths causing the bit of nothing to shiver.

The Drishti is your anchor, the yoga teacher says.

How can a party-colored slice of rubber anchor

my body, my crazed mind,

when six years of intensive psycho-dynamic

therapy have failed?

Whenever you lose your focus, show yourself

compassion, the teacher comforts.

Simply reconnect, no judgment.

In tree pose I really need the support, and

my Drishti is there,

tiny as a seed, as essential.

I lift my branches to the sun,

to the universe’s vastness.

Rising out of final resting pose,

mind darkened,

I bow to the light within me,

my teacher, fellow practitioners and,

of course, the Drishti –

not mine, not the male or

female whose mat it originally came from,

the hot pink point around which we all

orbit.

Love elephant and want to go steady?

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Editor: Travis May

Photo: Wiki Commons