If I let myself, I can forget about the power of yoga.
I can forget, and think that the practice is only for fit white women of privilege who are more interested in how they look in their hundred-dollar yoga pants than how they function in their communities.
I can start to think that teaching yoga at a time when people are frightened, frustrated, anxious, lonely, or isolated is frivolous. Indulgent, even. Who has time for sun salutations when my job, my housing, my health, my life is at stake.
I can start to think that my practice should somehow be sacrificed on the altar of how hard I should work, on my devotion to the work, that what matters is not my consistency or devotion in caring for myself, but my self-righteous and tireless capacity to care for others.
And then I remember that for me, the practice is an act of prayer. It’s not exercise; it’s liturgy. It’s ritual. I remember that the word used on the New Testament for spirit, pneuma, the word used in the yoga tradition for the vitalizing, energizing life force, prana, are both describing the inhale and exhale that move through my torso and what keeps that rhythm going.
When I was a girl, my mother told me to memorize the Bible, and when I was in trouble passages would come back to me and give me comfort or encouragement. It didn’t work so well for Proverbs or Romans, but it has worked well for Audre Lorde.
This virus, this pandemic, it is scaring people. It is showing us the worst of ourselves: our impatience, our alienation, our ineptitude or confusion, our racism and fear, our demand that others evolve to where we think we are. Fear makes us small, petty, irritable, greedy, and unkind.
It makes us stop breathing. Have you had a deep breath today? Go ahead, take one now. Soften your belly, fill up your torso. Inhale. Exhale.
Take another one.
At times when systems and institutions tell you to be afraid, to prepare for the worst, to hunker down, it’s hard to know who and what to trust. It’s hard to discern what is risk, what’s acceptable loss, what’s necessary or superfluous: until you hold up your values. What do I value? Healing. The practice and experience of restoration, in relationship—with one’s self, with one’s community, with one’s environment. Or put another way: am I whole? Are my relationships whole? Am I right with the Universe?
What do I value? Transformation. The opportunity and practice of growth, of becoming a new, expansive, changed person, from center to edge, completely and thoroughly. How will this circumstance offer me the chance to do something new? Who might I become in this work? How will it move me closer to the center of myself?
I also deeply value Community. A year ago, when I was considering what to offer the next three years of my time, attention, and money, I chose an in-person program because being in space with others matters to me. I appreciate the energy, the vibration, the nature of others, even when they piss me off, because we live social lives. We may have buried our faces in screens and lost our attention spans and our capacity for patience and interaction, but we use the internet for social interaction (the best and the worst of it). I can deal with some of that, but it’s no substitute for the best and worst of in-person stuff.
So now my community has changed. Relationships I’ve built over the last six months or so are shifting, and some of them quite dramatically. I’m one of the lucky ones: I’m not being unhoused in a matter of days, and I don’t have to return (on money I don’t have) to an unsafe or unhealthy living situation. I have a spouse, he has a job, I have a home. We’re both healthy. I’m doing alright.
I’m also grieving. I’m feeling. I’m not going to pretend or be told that I shouldn’t feel some kind of way about what I’m losing.
More than that, I’m grieving with. I’m grieving with my friends who are graduating—maybe?—and my friends who are suddenly moving across the country, and my friends who aren’t sure if going home to their families is safer for them or puts them more at risk.
Finally, I’m leveraging what I have.
I have a table that I will invite folks to. I will make hand-washing a sacred ritual, and we’ll feast and laugh and sigh and ask and listen. I have a car that I’ll pack other people’s belongings into, and take them where I can, if and when they ask me to. I have a deep love of practice, and I’ll dive into that head-first, sustaining my own body, my breath, and my capacity to show up fully. And I have a mat and a smartphone, and a voice that carries. I’ll use those to create digital spaces for folks to get in touch with their bodies. We’ll move together, we’ll breathe together, we’ll chant together, and we’ll create a community of practice together.
Coming soon: a weekly offering of gentle yoga, pranayama (breathwork), samyama (meditation), and community. Please stay tuned. In the meantime, don’t let anyone move you out of your feelings until you’re ready. Breathe. Brush your teeth and drink your water. Wash your hands. Sleep, please sleep. Don’t touch your face. Find something that makes you laugh. Breathe. Eat something. Stay home when you can. Sit quietly, or pray, or chant, or wash the dishes, or do whatever you do that puts you in a state of oneness and connection and surrender. Practice. I will practice, you will practice, and we will see each other in practice.