It is Labor Day, the last holiday weekend of the summer, another glorious sunny day to enjoy! Yet this morning, I am pulling together some thoughts for the session that begins tomorrow.
For those of you that have been regular students will notice a few changes when you come. The front door is now a bright yellow, a cheery welcoming color, I hope!
More significantly though, a few weeks ago I painted over the mandala that was on the wall of the studio as you come in.
That of course is the nature of mandalas, they are traditionally made with sand and then when they are completed they are ceremoniously brushed away to represent the impermanence of all things.
Well I hung on to that first mandala a little longer. It was such a learning process in the creating, as it took almost a year to come to a place that I felt there was nothing left to do. As it has been there for a couple of years now, I felt it was time to start again, after all, it was only my first try. So, not without some uneasiness rooted in attachment I suspect, I painted it over it.
I did leave a basic structure of the outside circle and the center point. I left it like that, structure only, for about a week, planning to leave it empty for the beginning of classes to use it as a metaphor for starting fresh.
We begin again our yoga, with a basic structure of the Iyengar method of yoga. Just as I am using the similar palette for the mandala as last time, with a few additions. the classes will be made up of some returning students and some new ones. So, each class will have a newness to it.
Just as we “can never dip into the same river twice”, asanas that we have done before will be new, as we have changed since our last practice together, our experiences and results may be different. Can we be open to that?
As you will see I could not wait for the beginning of class, I was so excited to start again. I began working on the mandala. I have however left some empty space. I have left it unfinished, leaving room, space for …. what? I don’t know. Perhaps it is finished, and I am leaving the space to remind myself to leave space, to be open, in my my mind and heart to whatever this moment offers.
So here I am enjoying the last day of summer and also ready to begin again together with you, this journey through Yoga where we learn to be open and present to the moment.
Namaste,
Marilyn