Month: March 2016

Rising early doesn’t come naturally to me. Traditionally I’d roll from bed with half an hour to spare, and head straight to work via the kettle and maybe breakfast.

But yoga’s morning benefits became too numerous to resist — a hidden blessing of an older body perhaps. I’d regret sleeping in whenever my discipline slipped (consider that a warning). Since then I added post-asana meditation. A penny more focus and a sliver of presence. Worth it.

These days I’ve swapped it around: meditation then asana. I’m interested in what my mind feels like, before I properly waken. I get up, ablute and then sit down, yawning, to notice what I’m noticing.

Mornings stay dark much longer in March. When I sat the other morning, all was dim, but after, as the timer chimed and I opened my eyes, light was all around. I went outside.

The new sun lit up the leaves like stained glass. Birds were all about it. The day had a plan, tickety-boo.

Breath lifted my inner body, my shoulders opened. I scanned the horizon. And I thought, why wait for the sun? Even if the world is grey, or dark, everyday moments (even wretched ones) are precious. Passing away. Never to come again.

How fortunate was that moment of early sunlight! But how just like a sunny morning it was that the universe later manifested me in the murky afternoon, foibled and confused, amidst smog filled traffic:

If we allow, the cold or the grey, just like sunlight in the trees, can draw a surgeon’s blade through our surface worries.

Our compassion for ourselves and others is weak, when all we choose is this single-masted yacht, a cocoon aboard which to sail the vast sea of human experience.

Leap from your craft, I said aloud. Immerse yourself in the waters of happenstance. Occupy love.

At dusk, the cock announces dawn.
At midnight, the bright sun.