Stand.

Baby mandrill, SF Zoo (born May 7, 2018)

The theme this week was: Stand. Keep the ground. Stay grounded as you move through transitions. Oprah said, “Once you’ve done everything you can, STAND”. Krishna says to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, “Stand in Your Yoga”.

Stand in that place of change. Be patient. Stand in the gap, the transition. Change brings space. If we don’t resist change, we may find it has something to offer us. When we turn toward that space and stand in it and wait patiently, something might open up for us.

Change and transitions are upon us. The fall season brings a change in weather and light. The new school year might bring a new grade, new school, new position, new routine. You may be experiencing changes in your job or living situation. Even if big changes aren’t happening in your life, each of us has to negotiate transitions in our day as we move from home to yoga to school to work, etc.

An example from my own life. Space really changed for me last year. My twin girls went away for college. I lost the anchor of my Mom. There were a lot of ups and downs. It was hard to adjust to the change with my girls as they kept coming home then going back to college. This fall, my one daughter is far away again in San Diego. However, she has given me permission to turn part of her bedroom into my office :) It’s been so fun to get a new office chair and pick out a cute lamp and sign up for an online writing class. It took some time, but space opened up and presented me with this space of my own and a chance to write.

When change comes, we don’t have to act or decide what to do right away. Just try to resist collapsing and giving up, or the other end of the spectrum … busying every minute of your schedule. We applied this concept to our yoga practice by paying attention as we moved in and out of each pose, feeling our footing, our long spine, our strong legs and excavating what we could learn or notice or feel in those transitions to help us more fully experience the pose. Those skills can help us off the mat, too. Thank you Kiran for the beautiful scarf and your kind words to our community. Namaste, Lynn