Sometimes I forget ...

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