Viparita Karani (Legs up the Wall), aka *Game Changer*

Working with a yoga therapy client last week, I heard myself call Legs up the Wall (Viparita Karani) a "game changer". I immediately flashbacked to a very difficult year and time in my life when I could barely summon up the energy for my own asana practice, let alone showing up to teach classes, workshops, and trainings. I longed for something simple that I could practice and establish as an "anchor" in my life, something that could be both deeply restorative and revitalising. Something that (no matter how I was feeling on the day - my energy high or low) that I could commit and turn to. Legs up the wall. 15 minutes. Every day. For almost an entire year. I set a timer and I let go. No matter whatever else I did on my mat or in my life, I made time for this. Some days I cried, some days I fell asleep, some days I connected to an immense feeling of peace and calm. The practice helped my sleep, it lifted my energy, it gave me a sanctuary within the busyness and often intensity of my day. It supported me in crossing the threshold of more than a few gritty changes in my life. And while I eventually stopped doing this particular practice every day, I was moved when I remembered how it served and how it made me feel - like no matter whatever else was happening in my life, that I could "do", I could "handle" this. And that was enough. What a relief and a joy.

We are always on the cusp of some kind of threshold. We are never not becoming. When we find ourself in a time of transition, it's so important to make time to "tend". To "tend the well" (OUR own well) from which new life will spring. "In Celtic mythology, the holy well is considered the source of life. Certainly because it is the concealed origin from which water springs, but also because it is the gateway between worlds: seen and unseen ... Each of us faces a time when when the holy well within needs tending. When we're no longer able to bestow blessings on others because we've overgiven, or when something precious has been taken from us, or life's demands are too great on our fragile system. But when the moisture goes out of our lives, and we're no longer able to see beauty or converse with magic, we must ask ourselves how we can replenish our well-ness." Toko-Pa