Category Archives: Musings from the Mat

The Practice, Light & Dark

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The Practice, Light & Dark

There are days that practice is full of light, it is illuminating, and we stir from our rest (or savasana) with a sense of being one small step closer to enlightenment.

Then, there are the other times, when practice is like navigating the shadows and we feel obscured by our thoughts, fears, habits, or patterns of behavior.

When we have a light practice, we often rejoice: “Ah, I had a good practice!”

When we have a dark moment: “Oh, I had a hard practice!”

It is all practice. The light. The dark. The shades in between. We appreciate the light because of the darkness, we can discern the dark because we know light. They make the big picture, they make seeing full, nuanced, interesting.
Photo: Mysore practice at La Zone, Maadi

Empty Pots

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IMG_6030A lot of times practice can be sublime, the process focusses the attention, the breath is the only sound…

But then there are the other times! when practicing is like swimming through a thick soupy sea of thoughts and impressions.

Things come up. Issues, worries, thoughts of all sorts and sizes eek up into the surface of the mind, some incredibly insignificant and others quite significant, each attempting to derail practice.

Today was one of those days for me, where the practice wrestles with this comedy of the mind. The breath, still steady and easy regardless, is a laugh track as stuff bubbles up. But even this has its purpose.

Yoga, union, is a goal. But yoga is also a process. And today I observed this process of emptying pots, of cleaning house, the house of the mind and the body. This is the process of letting go and of creation, emptying to make space for the new.

Photo: Pottery at one of the Ateliers at the Darb 1718 compound in Old Cairo. Watch for announcements, will be holding ashtanga and inner dance space there soon!

Your Ashtanga Practice

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Your Ashtanga Practice

Your practice is your own. You breathe at your own pace, you move according to your own range of motion. You decide the effort you put in.

You develop your own sense of independence, cultivating your body-mind-breath as a source of personal power.

The most important thing is to show up, is to be present.

Photo: Independent self-paced practice, Ashtanga Yoga Egypt, Mysore class in La Zone, Maadi.