Location: Waldport, on the Oregon Coast
Inside an old building that looks from the outside like half of a tin can, we gathered in a circle with our yoga mats and blankets. It was hot in there, the lights turned down, red lamps glowing off a molded ceiling that looked as if it were carpeted. It reminded me of an Indian sweat lodge.
Two yoga teachers were offering a special “restorative yoga” class to help us de-stress during the holidays. We drove through the rain to meet late on a Sunday afternoon. Although I have been doing yoga off and on since my teens and seriously for the last couple of years, this was big league yoga. Several of the students were yoga teachers, and I could tell by the way they immediately settled into deep meditation that I might not be able to keep up.
But I did. With Indian music purring in the background, the teachers, Ursula Adler from Switzerland and Brigitte Herold from Germany, led us through long, long periods of meditation, followed by rapid-fire asanas (yoga postures). I could do them, but as I looked around, I couldn’t believe how flexible some of these men and women were. Where I could barely touch my ankles, they could reach far beyond their feet. But yoga is not a competitive sport. You work from where you’re at. I must have tried too hard because I’m still sore.
The second half had us holding various poses for at least five minutes at a time. Many seemed easy enough, stretching out over a folded blanket on our fronts, backs and sides. There was chanting and soft talking as Brigitte quoted a sage who said that when we accept that the life we have is the only one we get and stop worrying about what other lives we might have led, we will stop suffering.
I keep thinking about that as I deal with various challenges ranging from stove troubles to family members and friends who are terminally ill. Couple that with last night’s sermon at Sacred Heart where we met for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. When God asks us to do something, do we say yes, like Mary? How many times do we say no to what God wants us to do because we’re busy or it seems too hard?
Back in the sweat lodge, the teacher instructed us to surrender into the poses. “You have nothing else to do,” she said. What a thought. You have nothing else to do. Not just in yoga, but in whatever we do, if we live in the moment and enjoy the one thing we’re doing, how much happier we might be.
I didn’t come here to sermonize. I just want you to picture this circle of people lying completely still, breathing softly into gray wool blankets, feeling the warmth of their breath on their own faces, red light glowing overhead, music playing softly, and this sweetly accented voice saying, “You have nothing else to do.”
Think about it.
***
Today a book called Doga arrived in my mailbox. After all this serious yoga, it is truly delightful. It’s a collection of photos of dogs doing yoga postures and explaining them to us stiff-bodied humans. Yoga comes to them naturally, and we have much to learn from our friends the dogis (pronounced DOH-gees, as in yogis). Every page makes me smile. I bought it used on Amazon.com. You can, too. Sometimes what you have to do in this moment is laugh.
Namaste.
Unleashed in Oregon 