Breath
It changes. It used to be Warrior II, something about being absolutely rooted. Then it was fish, I think at that time I was opening. I was cracked and I felt the light seeping out and fish was what made me feel closer to source. Now, however, it's Dancer's Pose. What's funny about it is that I cannot do it unless my breath is right. That should be how it always is, right? You know when you stand on the beach and each time the water crashes into you, if you just stand your ground you sink further and further into the earth? That is how I feel. I am sunken into the sand and really, sunken into myself. And as I sit down and look around the corridors of me, I wonder where to even begin? Some corners get good light, some walls have beautiful artwork though they lurk in shadows and are covered in cobwebs. There is the faint smell of old, and what I really want to do is throw open the curtains and let all the light in.
My body has been the source of much contention for me. Though it is tricky because as much as it sometimes feels like a prison, it is also where so much of my safety is. I know things here first. Similarly, if it does not make sense in here, then it is not right for me. I quite literally dwell here. Yoga, running, dance...they have been the forms of movement that I have always been drawn to, regardless of my practice (or lack there of). In these forms I realized that in doing them much of the "doing" is reliant on breath FIRST. If you do not breathe, you cannot move in yoga. If you do not focus your breathing in running, you cannot get very far, and in dance...well... I suppose in m(any) forms of exercise it begins and ends with breath; but I know that with these three in particular it beckons an almost meditative state of breathing and it is like something else takes over all together.
It just clicked...maybe these things are the alignment of all the elements. It is when you are most vulnerable yet it is also when you are most powerful. Air in your lungs, fire in your heart, water on your skin and earth at your feet. It IS the avatar state.
So I did some yoga today. Then I looked around on tumblr for cool poses to try. I got some pictures of myself 1--stretching 2--tree 3--dancer. I looked at them, how I moved. How I breathed...and of course I saw my body. Some (increasingly decreasing) part of me saw big legs and an unflattering midsection, but most of me saw how when I let all that go what I was able to accomplish.
If you have never recorded yourself doing something you love, do. It is amazing what you see. It is amazing because in those moments you do not see the negative. Sure you are aware of it, but it is not what catches your eye, it is not what feeds you.
I heard said today, "I wonder what you have to be thinking in order not to be so dire, so hungry for things from other people because you have fed yourself before you met them." That was Bishop T.D. Jakes. I thought, wow...what do I need to tell myself? He continued, "You fall in love with them over something they gave you that you ought to be giving yourself." Ooooooh that hit home. When people tell you you're pretty, talented, creative, whatever. And you eat it up to the point where you're licking the bowl and Please, sir, can I have some more-Oliver Twisting. You strain to see what it is in you that they see that you do not. But what I have learned is that I can see it best when I breathe. When I sit in the quiet corridor of me and turn inwards.
It is the runner's high. It is the the perfectly danced swan lake. It is everything. And I am glad I got a little bit of it today. My prayer is that I get just one breath more of it tomorrow.