Practicing at Home: The Invitation

I've been on hiatus from studio mysore going on two months now and have taken to my living room for mysore in the past several weeks.  It all started with the Government Shutdown chaos that resulted in early meetings and late evenings at work.  My body ached for daily folds and back bending and I became irritable and agitative.  I sent a few text exchanges with my teacher to let him know what was going on, and just like that, life shifted. 

There were some empty moments in those weeks I didn't practice.   My creative endeavors waned, blogging included.   A few matters of the heart cropped up also, making me more prone to introspection and stillness.  I beat myself up during that time for not getting to the studio because there were some days I could have gone, but I was too darned tired.   I felt like I was letting my teacher and myself down, but as the weeks went by I discovered that this could not have been further from the truth.

Home is where I began mysore and fell in love with the quietness of the early hour. Mona Lisa, who is keenly intuitive recognized the pattern right away, eyes me passively when I rise and then goes back to sleep.  I wake now at 5:15 AM, which gives me about 30 minutes of extra sleep that my body needs right now since the weather has begun to turn cold.  My building is quiet, and the sunrise over the trees outside my window offers a magnificent start to each day.   Acquiescing to changing body rhythms stoked my internal fire and recharged me.

A friend posted a poem on FaceBook that inspired me into reflection of my grasping and resultant suffering.  Change was what I needed to see that beyond the ebb and flow of seasons and shifts in routine that the core of my being remains steady and I haven't let myself or anyone else down.    The Invitation speaks truth to life for me and I hope you enjoy it also.

The Invitation Oriah Mountain Dreamer Canadian Teacher and Author
	It doesn't interest me what you do for a living I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing. It doesn't interest me how old you are I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dreams for the adventure of being alive. It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon... I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful be realistic to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure yours and mine and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes." It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.