Yoga Spirals
For many years I've contemplated the spiral nature of life, death, existence, breath, yoga.
Certain patterns, habits, thoughts, energies seem to arise again and again to offer a new, fresh, slightly different look at their presence. And every single year, we spiral in, we spiral through, we spiral out. With the seasons, the holidays, the weather, we arrive. And it could be said that a year ends and begins. Yes. But a year is also just a hallmark of time. A circle with a beginning and an end. From a larger vantage point, this circle of a year doesn't actually end - it simply continues around the next curve of the spiral. Even when our "time" here on Earth ends, we continue to spiral into our next layer of existence.
We have the opportunity to see every yoga practice, every pose, every mudra and yes - every breath as a spiral of letting go and taking in. Of descending into earth in a downward moving spiral; of moving upward into the heavens with an ascending spiral. Both happen contingent upon the other, both happen with many simultaneous functions. We do of course experience ourselves as a point of reference ON the spiral.
But (open your mind here...) we are also the spiral itself. As my dear friend, Dennis Kiley (http://www.denniskiley.com/) says, "it's not either/or...life is both/and." If we can begin to look at our yoga and our lives with just this one tiny adjustment - of both, and - we could begin to witness our own immortality. We would see we are BOTH the reference point on the spiral AND the spiral itself. We would see that we are BOTH ascending into the heavens when we practice yoga AND descending down, rooting into the earth.
Yogi Bhajan, master of Kundalini Yoga, said when it comes to yoga (and everything for that matter...as this is taken from his philosophy on life), we should start where we are. When we start where we are, we honor the spiral of our lives. We look at what is here now. We jump from this exact place of comfort or discomfort. We know that the spiral will continue to turn and we will have a chance to experience it all - in other words, we know that everything changes.
I am starting today from a place of sleep and then waking. And I realize both states depend on the existence of the other. I sit down to meditate and realize that I bring the richness of my life to the mat while simultaneously letting it all go - all of the stories within that richness - in order to experience myself as the spiral itself. I cant remember not existing and yet I cant recall when my existence on earth actually began. While there may be a point in time that I can say I was born, I realize that I have also always been...here...on the spiral of existence. There have been other forms, other seasons, other years, other lifetimes. But my essence, it's always been here without my wishing for it, practicing it, or grasping at it. Its the one thing I can never change, that can never be born or die. Because it is the entirety of the spiral itself.
Certain patterns, habits, thoughts, energies seem to arise again and again to offer a new, fresh, slightly different look at their presence. And every single year, we spiral in, we spiral through, we spiral out. With the seasons, the holidays, the weather, we arrive. And it could be said that a year ends and begins. Yes. But a year is also just a hallmark of time. A circle with a beginning and an end. From a larger vantage point, this circle of a year doesn't actually end - it simply continues around the next curve of the spiral. Even when our "time" here on Earth ends, we continue to spiral into our next layer of existence.
We have the opportunity to see every yoga practice, every pose, every mudra and yes - every breath as a spiral of letting go and taking in. Of descending into earth in a downward moving spiral; of moving upward into the heavens with an ascending spiral. Both happen contingent upon the other, both happen with many simultaneous functions. We do of course experience ourselves as a point of reference ON the spiral.
But (open your mind here...) we are also the spiral itself. As my dear friend, Dennis Kiley (http://www.denniskiley.com/) says, "it's not either/or...life is both/and." If we can begin to look at our yoga and our lives with just this one tiny adjustment - of both, and - we could begin to witness our own immortality. We would see we are BOTH the reference point on the spiral AND the spiral itself. We would see that we are BOTH ascending into the heavens when we practice yoga AND descending down, rooting into the earth.
Yogi Bhajan, master of Kundalini Yoga, said when it comes to yoga (and everything for that matter...as this is taken from his philosophy on life), we should start where we are. When we start where we are, we honor the spiral of our lives. We look at what is here now. We jump from this exact place of comfort or discomfort. We know that the spiral will continue to turn and we will have a chance to experience it all - in other words, we know that everything changes.
I am starting today from a place of sleep and then waking. And I realize both states depend on the existence of the other. I sit down to meditate and realize that I bring the richness of my life to the mat while simultaneously letting it all go - all of the stories within that richness - in order to experience myself as the spiral itself. I cant remember not existing and yet I cant recall when my existence on earth actually began. While there may be a point in time that I can say I was born, I realize that I have also always been...here...on the spiral of existence. There have been other forms, other seasons, other years, other lifetimes. But my essence, it's always been here without my wishing for it, practicing it, or grasping at it. Its the one thing I can never change, that can never be born or die. Because it is the entirety of the spiral itself.
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