tightrope walking....how does one do it??...an impossibly beautiful vision..a singular breathtaking feat of mindful focus and carefully placed soles
i have always been fascinated by the seemingly inhuman abilities of the circus folk...all that shape shifting, tumbling, limb origami and almost bird like behaviour on the trapeze..i know its a cliche, but i have often dreamt of running away with the circus next time they roll into town!...in fact this desire peaked a few years ago whilst witnessing this god like man of sculpted torso, eyeliner like when spiderman went all crazy bad, clad only in the tightest of pvc shorts, spinning around 100 feet in the air, only his manly grip on the rope resisting his fall from grace! sigh! my heart skipped a beat, and my mind went into overdrive ;-)...anyways, i digress....
learning to balance on our yoga mats is a continous process of yielding and lifting, of shifting weight and expanding into the space...we cannot balance if we are too collapsed as all our weight will simply pull us towards gravities fate...and we will hardly remain standing for long if we become too rigid, forcibly willing ourselves to stay up straight!...there has to be a middle way, a path that dances between the two, requiring that mindfullness and focus that the magic of the tightrope walker demonstrates with all his beauty...the path of effort and surrender
as the spring equinox delights us with equal day and night, and the coming lighter days and shorter evenings welcoming in the fire, the yang energy, we stand at the apex of this shift of the seasons...this particular seasonal shift i feel is the strongest we encounter all year...we seek to shrug off the old skin that we had snuggled deeply into through the winters quiet times..time to slough off the heaviness and take a lighter, more feathered coat!...this waking up can be tricky..if we go to fast, ploughing ahead we may lose ourselves and the wonder and magic of every precious and rich moment...too slow and we get left behind, decay and inertia squeezing our newly grown skin which struggles to breathe and spread its metaphorical wings
i had an interesting gift in my dance practice yesterday...i began rooted to the spot..feeling embodied, my legs felt solid and still...and yet my hands were playing a chaotic melody on some invisible piano, fingers beating against my thighs..ok i thought, now what?...staying with the movement my arms began to join in, waving and circling, shoulders releasing and side ribs rising and falling...this continued for some time, and i wondered how long i would be engaged in this repetitive rhythm...after some time, something shifted..my arms and hands began to soften, and slow...at the same time, my feet began to lift, one and then the other, marching on my still spot...i noticed that now, my whole body seemed to be in synch...and without reason, or effort, i began to move around the space, here and there, my feet lightly treading into moments new...
what had happened? well, i realised that in order to move with ease and freedom into the next steps of my 'life', my legs and feet had to become more alive and awake, and at the same time, my arms and hands had to slow down their impatient motion..only then, at the point of balance, did i begin to fly! :-)
so, as we gather our selves for the new journey into the unknown before us, make like the tree (another cliche perhaps in the yoga world, and yet so so full of truth)...find those roots, the stability of the earth within and around us, and from this place, fuelled by the sustenance of the breath, allow your wings to lift you upwards and into expansion, into life itself
walk the tightrope of every moment dear ones, awake, alive, lightly and with patience...sparkled bejewelled sequinned catsuit optional ;-)!!
