I don’t recognize myself in the mirror these days, like my skin is molting, and the metamorphoses happening so constantly now I feel like a Science experiment. Every part of me being probed, and examined. The universe testing on me—the strange, the real, the painful moments all the time now. Walking out the door is just inviting more change, more spring winds and their wicked play.
Lately I hide as much as possible in a world increasingly loud. Over-populated and far from supporting mental health or personal retreats in order to evolve. If you’re smart, you’ve found a way to buck the system, and take the breaks needed to feel connected again. And that’s the rub, you ultimately need community to plug in. So you can’t hide forever. And this too shall pass, right? In good time. Divine time. Life will flow again.
And that’s the practice to allowing the crazy, the unexpected, and magical in gracefully. There’s a way you can learn to ride the increasing waves skillfully, shed your skin easily, instead of fighting, and questioning why, why. But it takes showing up. Daily. You have to be disciplined, any great artist knows the amount of focus and meditation needed to one day create other-worldly work, takes everything you’ve got.
I have a colleague who’d tell students, the path is not sexy.
And I love that. One, because it’s true. The more spiritual you become, the more conscious you live your life—the more you grow, and outgrow, and change again. It’s tricky. Two, because the wellness market has blown up and no one ever predicted yoga would remain so fashionable. So you have millions of students experiencing radical shifts in the cutest leggings possible.
But we don’t like the upheaval part, the times on our mat, or on the subway, or flight home when you unravel. Dealing with facts of your life which you maybe ignored long enough, and now everything’s come crashing down as it does. This is the path, this is the not so sexy part of trusting universal force, one love…yo—ga. It’s messy. It doesn’t come in inviting packages on the day of your guaranteed tracking.
Life flows, and the tide is stronger than you, but you are part of the pull if you ride it—if you merge with uncertainty. If you surf the not knowing as a mischievous way to move through this funny made up world of ours, you can find moments of peace so grand… And then you’re grateful no matter the chaos—and this is where the teachings get good because there is no prayer like gratitude.
No softening better than feeling lucky for what you have, what you’ve built, what you believe in. You will always have your center, your inner link to Grace, or God, or whatever you call it. But you have to tend center, you have to practice on the days you least want to. You don’t get to move your body only when life is good. You have to show up for yourself especially—when you don’t ‘feel’ like it.
These days I roll my mat out first light and if I don’t practice, I have to step over it on the way to everything else I’m deeming more important. More and more, the daily is where it’s at, every day you try moving through the alien times. You keep waking, and thanking, and practicing you. Change is uncomfortable, but there is something liberating about having no idea what’s up.
I mean maybe weird looks good on us. And the glow from living a life that if not perfect, is your own—shines through. I do know despite it all I’m still creating. Finding that precious time in the day where art moves through me. And I wish that for us all. That beautiful protection in conjuring life force. And putting something down on paper, into a melody, or through a camera lens.
You are an artist. You’re allowed to be different everyday.
Keep On, Keepin’ On,