Reflections on becoming a yoga teacher....

What is the image of a heart cracking open?  Of a body being reclaimed?  Of a soul coming into the light?  Is it like a closed lotus flower, coming into bloom?  Or a crevice in the earth, widening.... revealing the dark soil and rocks and heat of her very centre?

What is the sound of a heart, yearning to open, to surrender, to deepen? Of a body, finding its true expression and movement? Is it a keening wail?  A low sigh?  Is it a bird song high in the trees?  Is it the sound of the wind in the trees, breathing power into the world?

What is taste of finding synchronicity?  Of connection?  Of the meeting of minds and bodies and hearts?  Is it sweet like a mango?  Or rich, like dark chocolate?  Or is it full bodied and complex, like good red wine?

What is the smell of unfurling?  Of the unwinding of a lifetime of trauma knotted through the nervous system, embedded in the flesh?  Of the peeling away of layers of shadow and illusion?  Is it like an onion?  Astringent and strong?  Or is it the smell of compost or fetid soil?  Or is it the smell of fresh spring coming through the wide open windows as the house is swept clean?

What is the feel of coming home?  Of reconnecting to a deeper truth?  To the core of my being?  Is it soft, like a down pillow?  Scratchy and yet comforting like a wool blanket?  Or is it spacious and hot and wild like a wind-storm under the hot sun of summer?

How do I put into words this journey? How do I even describe when and where it started?  Do I arbitrarily pick the first weekend of classes?  Or do I include the application process?  Or the thought process?  Or the knowing in my body, that has been with me for 4 years, that I would do this when the time was right?

What do I focus on to describe how I’ve experienced this?  The postures? The anatomy?  The teaching? The people?  And where does yoga teacher training end and the rest of my interconnected, open-system, bio-feedback loop of a life begin?  It’s a tapestry .... pulling one thread tugs them all.

This program, this experience, has opened up a world of possibilities – and shined a light on so much of what was already within me.  It has been a year of deep inner exploration, even as it has been a year of learning new skills .... Verb, Body Part, Direction. 

I feel both stronger, and softer.  I have met my edges, over and over.  I have felt into my vulnerability, and fallen in love with my teachers and my cohort.  I have learned to be present with my own experience – if only for moments at a time when it was most painful .... even as I learned that my primary coping strategy is to escape.  But I kept coming back.  And I keep coming back.

I have learned to move my body differently, hold space differently, breathe differently, and feel my way through differently.  I have learned to listen to my heart and my body in ways I never thought I would.  I have found meditation (finally) that feels resonant, and a path that I can see walking.  I have found my direction, that a year ago was so elusive.

I have rediscovered gratitude and possibility, having weathered my way through a dark night of the soul on the journey.  And the journey, of course, isn’t over ....it simply shifts and evolves into a new chapter.