Rajakapotasana you do

It’s been two weeks in the new shala. 

Every night I go to bed in bliss, even though my heart is heavy because I have not being able to speak to my children for the last month. 

I communicate with them daily beyond the physical, reassuring them my love. Who knows what they are being told. I’m holding them in my heart beyond any distance, beyond any time and space as mothers do with their children until our last day. 

The depth of their absence has mutated in the past 11 months. In the moment of the traumatic events last November, I was shot in the heart and fell like a dead bird to the ground. The pain was excruciating, like my heart was dying. In those moments of extreme despair I understood the power of prayers and the residue my yoga practice had left in my being. 

I sung the name through my tears and screams. I knew there was a deep surrender I had prayed for for so many years: I was desperate and torn inside, mad with anger at the perpetrators of this infamous actions. Startled at how hate can take the minds of those we once loved and turn them into beasts.

Thank God, I’m not there anymore. The feeling of longing for my babies has become part of who I am. Whenever I see a young boy, I imagine how my children are growing. Their feet, their hands. Their smart eyes and genius minds wondering what really happened and what will the future bring.

I reassure them all is well.

As yogis, our longing for truth attracts souls who are infinitely wise and deep. How amazing this opportunity for my loves to awaken to the truth of this life- even though they will learn this in the midst of an extremely heavy lesson. Love in life sometimes has to be learned by contrast. When it is shattered, when others step into the sacred nature of the most beloved liasons, we learn we don’t want that in our lives anymore and crave like crazy for the reality of truth. 

This has been my personal spiritual path. 

My children are seekers of truth as I am. The absence of their mother will be the turning point for their search. It all depends on our samskaras. Some souls come into this life to learn love is always here, even in the most unexpected and absurd paradoxes. We can choose to become victims of the circumstances or we can use the circumstance to propel ourselves like a rocket into a new reality, a new perspective of life. 

Take the poison and be healed. 

Cycles close and the wisdom  resides in knowing when something has ended. As all transient events and relationships, everything breathes. Pulsates in and out.

I’m pulsating to my maximum,  opening completely to the bliss of this present moment. My teacher holds me steady and his presence is my anchor in the ups and downs of my personal tragedy. Maybe tragedies are there to teach us the marvellous power of love beyond any material event. The infinite connection of who we really are, our connection to each other,  even when the dance is with darkness and we need to bow to it and also say 

“Thank you.”

It’s Thursday and I move through my series swiftly.  When I start, it’s still night outside and when I finish, the sun has come out. I sit in silence after my practice and tears of gratitude come as I am listening to the voice of my guru and feel the students giving themselves to practice in our morning ritual here in Mysore. 

We are all moving together as a whole organism. We are all healing not only ourselves but also those we love. We are insulating ourselves from negative presences and keeping and growing what is real. This breath, these bodies, this connection. It’s so tangible here in India, clear and pristine as the blessed morning sky.

I have homework for next week. My teacher is moving me fast in the series. Massive backbends will open this heart to the limit so I can hold everything life has blessed me with, including those who with their actions think they have hurt me- when actually they have awakened me. 

I’m being born again in this Mother India of Love. I’m dying to a life I was never confortable with and in the process of giving birth to whatever needs to be born. I’m also the midwife and labor is tough, two daily hours breathing through the nuances and corners of Nadi Sodhana and Sthira Baga. Non stop  sublime serenity that comes as I knead my body and mind to the greatness of the healing breath and the dance of the series.  Shakti dances with me and I realise I’m surrounded by her, wherever I am, every second of the day.

The pure medicine of yoga as prescribed by the jungle physician:)