A deep day

Sorry for the massive dry spell. It seems as though I forgot my password...silly me. I remembered. I have been busier than usual and during my absence I lost most of my kitchen floor. Well, it isn't lost as much as it was ripped out due to water damage from our fridge which had a cracked housing around the water filter. But that, my friends, is a story for another day. I am trying to avoid such unpleasantness at this time.

I have been in a mood lately. Neither good nor bad...yet both at the same time. It is an odd place and I am ready to be past it, but it is better than the place I was last week. Today has been full of much thought. It didn't start that way, but then I went to yoga. I love and hate going to yoga. I always feel better when I go, but I do not particularly like doing it. I do love having 70 minutes devoted to being in the moment. Yoga only works if you are present in the moment. If your thoughts drift to anything outside of that room or even anything off of your own mat, you will wobble and fall. The other thing I enjoy about yoga is its gentleness. You don't DO yoga...you ALLOW yoga to happen. When you relax into a pose, you can get much more stretch out of it. If you try to make a pose happen, your muscles get tight and you cannot go as deep into the pose. Yoga meets you where you are...in the moment. Don't get me wrong. It is a work out and you can push yourself...but gently. If you have not tried it, I recommend it. It is good for everyone. There is a variation of every pose that is at your level whether you are a former couch potato who is just beginning, or an athlete that is trying something new. It makes me feel like no other form of exercise does. It makes my brain happy.

So, today I did not feel like going to yoga. I pondered a nap instead. I tried to go to the 9:30am class but traffic and dropping off children did not lend itself to a 9:30am class this particular Tuesday. I was going to have to go at 12:30pm if I was to go at all. I finally made the decision to drag myself there and make myself do it. I walked in and there were TWO other people there today. Both men are regulars to J's 12:30pm class. I see them every time I go. One of them, A, is an older man and he welcomed me and let me know that they had wondered where I was. I have not been to this particular class for a while. He asked how my elbow was doing and made me feel like I had been missed. It was a good way to start the class I had not even wanted to go to. Everyone was chatting about different injuries they are healing from, how they got them and different instances in which they had pushed themselves, despite injury, a little harder than they should have. The instructor shared a brief bit of personal info and we decided to start the class more actively than the traditional quiet intro. We were reminded to be in the moment and to be gentle with ourselves...unlike the stories we had been sharing. The class and the moves themselves were nothing extraordinary. It was a yoga class like any other...but it wasn't. At the end we went into our "corpse pose" and relaxed, clearing our minds and focusing on our breathing...just as we always do. Then, we closed with a meditation...Happy, healthy, safe and suffering. We were to say, silently to ourselves, that we wished for ourselves to be happy, healthy, safe and free from suffering. We were to do this 5 times. Then we were to say it for someone close to us, then for someone we knew to be suffering and then for someone we had negative feelings toward. It sounds hokey...but try it some time. It was actually quite powerful. When I returned home I plugged my iPhone into my new speaker...which I LOVE, by the way. The songs it chose to give to me were perfect for where I was and ended with "It is Well with My Soul." That was the perfect song to sum it up...it IS well with my soul, so what ever this is that I am in the middle of, it is what it is and all will be fine as long as it is well in my soul.

I have spent a great part of the evening watching my children's caterpillars as they are in various stages of change. I am fascinated by this process. We have had caterpillars before, but never have I watched them in such awe. How can anyone look at this process and not see that there is God? It is absolutely amazing. They come in a jar and are pretty small. In no time they have grown into long, fat, nasty looking caterpillars. Then the magic happens. They climb to the lid of their jar and hang upside down. At some point I swear that their heads come off because there looks to be caterpillar heads in the bottom of the jar...nasty, but cool. Then they become a chrysalis. I have tried with all of my might to catch this part happening, but I have been unsuccessful. Then, after they hang there inside their little shell for about a week, they come out and stretch their wings and are something completely different. They are something more beautiful. They can fly. Tonight as I watched, though, this one caterpillar who has been hanging there all day was convulsing. He would wiggle and curl a little then relax again. It happened over and over. It looked painful and I began to wonder what it must feel like, this transformation. Does it hurt? It seemed so metaphorical as it is so often painful, this transformation of life. How often do we pulse and writhe as we grow into something new? I wonder if the caterpillar knows that it is on its way to becoming a beautiful butterfly. I wonder if I will remember, the next time I am struggling through a difficult time, that I too am transforming. Maybe I will embrace the painful transition believing that it will lead to a more beautiful me. Or maybe my head will pop off and I will whine to all of you about it. :) Either way, I am glad we are all in this together.

Told you it was a deep day. Lots of words tonight. Many more inside, but they will have to

stay put for now. I am tired. Wonder where my dreams will go.