Yoga can happen anywhere. We don't need special clothing. We don't need candles. We don't need a playlist. We don't need to practice at a particular time of day or a specific length of time. We don't even need a studio, a teacher, a sticky mat.

I stumbled upon this spontaneous moment of yoga play (circa 2010) today and so enjoyed seeing/sensing the expression of freedom and joy. At the time, I didn't know this photo was being taken. It was not for Instagram or for a promotional flier. This moment I'm being/making was for me and the sun warming my skin and the ocean breeze moving my hair and the effervescent bubbling of my spirit wanting to spread, to flow itself far out into the world.

Of course, on another day, my yoga "snapshot" might look different. I've spent days (years) where you'd find me instead in Child Pose with forehead and tear heavy eyes resting on a bolster. Or lying with my legs up the wall, struggling to slow my breath and calm my madly fluttery eyelids.

On this day, however, the flavour was JOY. Seeing it, I'm reminded of two things. 1) How much Nature draws us into experiencing a deep connection to life, helping us get out of our heads and into the felt sense of being a human animal inextricably woven into the fabric of the world AND 2) Although I can have moments (or years!) of sadness, despair, anxiety, disappointment, part of my essence, part of who I am, despite what has happened to me or will happen to me, is moving, breathing joy.

Sometimes I forget.

"... the claiming of our place in the living conversation, the sheer privilege of being in the presence of a mountain, a sky or a well loved familiar face - I was here and you were here and together we made a world." | David Whyte, JOY

On one of the first few days on our Yoga & NVC retreat, Anna laid out her soul cards. All of us, participants and facilitators, walked into the circle of cards to pick one that called to us. I chose the one on the left.

Today, I discovered an image of me (below) taken at some point over the course of the retreat by photographer Catherine Adam. I do not know which one came first ... Did the card I chose imprint upon me or was it the energy already alive in me that led me to choose this card?

The hands remind me of abhaya mudra, the Buddha's gesture of fearlessness. To me, this gesture has never been about pushing away or transcending fear but rather has always been an invitation to allow, receive, and "own" your fear while staying open, present, and responsive in the midst of and despite it.

In the card, the hands and face appear bloody and while, in the photo, my face and hands look fresh, clean, bright (thanks Catherine), what lies unseen is that my embodiment includes experience that is messy, uncertain, broken, "bloodied" in many different ways and on many different levels.

I do not come "clean", I come as I am. I do not come certain, I come humbled and curious. I do not come destroyed by what I've known, I come saved and made real by it. I come in mourning and I come in celebration.

In every moment, everything that I've experienced and all that I feel comes with me yet it doesn't define all of me. I am constantly being coloured, compelled, and re-created.

In every moment, I am waxing and I am waning.

🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘