Yoga. Tuesday at nine. I am tired and sore. And late. I'd hiked nearly 8 miles yesterday after work and I’d slept in this morning. Then, last minute, decided I was going to go to yoga class.
I am barely going to get there before it starts and so I play with my intention in the car. The idea that springs immediately to mind is diving into infinity. I know. It's a huge, nonsensical intention. It's a fantasy intention. You know: Today, I intend to win the lottery. Today, I intend for ABC to call and tell me they miss me. Diane Sawyer is retiring and wants to mentor her replacement. Me. Today, I intend to talk with God and clear up some questions. No, today, I intend to dive into infinity. I don't know what to tell you. I've been thinking about everything/nothing/the Universe/God/infinity a lot and this intention feels good. I'm not 100% sure what it means but my interpretation of everything/nothing/infinity/Universe/God has been something of a gently undulating ocean. Yes today, if invited, I intend to dive in. Why not?
When I arrive, thankfully, the door is still open and class is not crowded. Once we’ve started, even with my weariness, I am doing more than I've ever done before. Getting closer to some of those balance moves like, "Side Crow with Eagle Legs". Lots of Eagle and Warrior poses today.
We are nearly complete with the first major flow when the song "Faith" by George Michael comes on. A couple of quick reactions: 1. Smile. 2. Then, really? For yoga? 3. Smiling more as I remember my college roommate, Libby, and I stomping the beat of this song on the floor of our dorm as we'd get ready for a night out. I cannot hear this song without thinking of her. She died a couple of years ago from cancer. I gently and definitively feel her presence and mentally tell her that I miss her now that she is gone. Then, that I'd missed her before too. I wonder to her if she is with my father and family; with my mentors who've moved on. She does not answer and the feeling slowly leaves me. Praying Warrior to Extended Warrior.
Now we're in savasana and I am still. I feel suspended in air. Comfortable. Behind my eyes, without any provocation, I see me diving into that sea of infinity; into the large, dark blue-black waters that I've read about or imagined is what I was reading about. Once again, I can feel Libby with me. I am slipping into the sea of infinity and feeling, at first, like I am swimming in temperature-less water, diving, and back bending feeling it all luxuriate on my skin and in my soul. Slow but with purpose. Easy. Not facile, more, with ease. So good and ionized or something. After a time, I realize that there are no bubbles. I do not feel the urgency to go up for air. In fact, there is no up, no place to go at all and I relax. I can see me. Blonde and white and in a tactile, boundless heaven. There. Wherever I've been dreaming about, I am there. I swim more, kicking my legs, dolphin diving feeling something on me but then I see that it is no longer exactly me. It is my line, my colors, my electricity. Then it is no longer my legs. They are flowering vines twisting and spinning in the water. I am not dreaming. I can smell the woman next to me. I can hear others breathing. But I am not with them now. I am alone and not alone at all. I realize that I can be anything I want and that I am not held back by any limitations here, none. I can have vines for legs. I can breathe underwater. Whatever I can imagine I can create! No need for air, no worries about gravity, no time constraints for being under because I am not under or in. I am totally free and swimming in infinity with Libby. It is magical and my color line blends in with the larger, unfolding vastness and I am it. For a moment. And then Melissa starts telling us to move our fingers and I am on the floor of the yoga studio again.
What I feel while tidying my area and rolling up my mat is calm, ease, peace, no thought, no boundary and exhilaration. It seems an oxymoron but thrilling calm; that's what I feel.
The question is: was I really somewhere or is that always in me (in us)? If we could tap into that place and relax, really enjoy what is playfully possible and create from that ease, that thrilling calm well, I don’t know. It’s not where I typically generate ideas. I am usually under pressure, driving to the finish line with a kernel of inspiration forcefully trying to germinate its way into being. What if I allowed ideas to develop through thrilling calm? I would love to know if you do this already? In the meantime, I will play with this and let you know.
In Deepak Chopra’s Book of Secrets, he encourages those who have inspired experiences to use them to create something new. In honor of that notion and my time with Libby in the deep water, I offer:
With you I swim infinity; dive the waters that are the soul,
Of all that is and all that will be; keeper of life as it unfolds.
I swim its waters without effort: weightless, lawless, undefined.
I am blonde and light and flora contained yet unkept by time.
Limits are unknown, words are words just words, no gain.
Meaning is as you make it. Wonder and imagination reign.
Dive and whirl, bend and weave; turn and you can just be.
There is no under, in or out. There is no must or morrow, see?
There is just calmness. Peace. Freedom. Formless everything.
I can as wild as I dream to; I can be any thing.
I am beauty. I am folly. I make no sense with no calamity.
I am swimming boundless without water. I dive infinity.