recently i spent time in vermont for the final portion of the yoga teacher certification program i have been participating in for over a year with pheonix rising…with each of the four sessions that it has entailed, my times in bristol have been times of lucid clarity, where the business and distraction of the day-to-day vanish and i am able to be present to what is and what is becoming in ways that are always transformative…this last time i was also able to visit the amazing, raging, steady, and still new haven river daily for a variety of swimming adventures…plunging in from various heights from 0-15 feet up, into waterfalls, sweeping current, and motionlessness waters…and seeing that i am a such a water baby, the accumulated result was feeling more at home in me then i have in a long time…
… upon re-entry to my day-to-day, where water sources are abundant but are not easily accessible to swim in daily, where i am committed to working 40 hours a week to help make ends meet, where my children are now bickering in the next room while i carve out time to invest in things that i know will continue to feed my clarity, where it has felt more cloudy than clear as i consider how to integrate the truths i encountered in the hills of bristol and how to allow them to be nourished and cultivated even now in the midst of it all seems far off at times…
…this time when i went to upload this photo of the brilliant blue summer sky, (which was so stubborn to appear with my attempts with my previous post) it appeared without hesitation…and i am reminded that though there is a big cloud creeping in that may look threatening and in fact even if the sky were to be completely grey, if you were to peel away the layers of clouds the blue sky still resides…indeed even when we can’t see it, the blue sky remains. ..clouds are not good or bad, they just are, they are both what they simply are (the day-to-day juggling?) and they may also be opportunities for continued growth and perspective… there is something comforting in remembering that even though the clouds feel overwhelming at times, the blue sky is a constant, it has not disappeared it just gets covered up now and then and might i consider that i have a choice as to where i might focus my attention? maybe my energy is not best spent consumed by focusing on the clouds i allow to create doubt and lack of clarity, but better yet on the blue sky that is our constant companion?
and i am ever grateful for the space that my yoga practice holds to welcome my tapping into the reality of this gracious blue sky that is a constant companion with breathe and pressence even here, even now…
