It's still with me as I integrate back to the life I hold in the Yang of the desert, Albuquerque.
Reflections from a 60th Birthday
vacationing on the beach in another country,
the Mexican people:
warm, open, helpful, welcoming.
Truly a different pace.
Each morning through the window
I would hear the young boy walking,
voicing his wares,
I think he was saying “Orange Juice”
The evening time woman with her bucket,
“Tamales!”
Most mornings, pranayama and meditation occurred just before sunrise on the beach. Evenings were at sunset. Contemplation, Qi Gong and sometimes dialogue with a local beachgoer were all activities of the day.
The red and yellow footed boobies, unique only to the area, so generous to pose and fly around for me. (See video) White egrets display stillness with their delicate, graceful and gentle selves, standing and gazing at the curling waves for hours. The brown pelicans fly in long lines, low over the lapping tides, bop in and out of the waves fast as they catch their dinner. And last but certainly not least, the paradoxical frigates, a shorebird designed with huge wings bigger than its body and unable to partake of the ocean waters since its wings are not water resistant! It’s powerful and artistic flight does well to harass the gulls and the terns until they release their catch.
And just like the frigate shorebird, we hold paradoxes within ourselves all the time: Sense memory recall of the freeness of youth as I walk barefoot in the sandy beach yet the ache in my aging lower back that limits the distance I can now walk on the beach. The joy of vacationing - downtime, relaxation, delicious food yet the ache in my heart witnessing sweating local folks stacked with their wares walking in the heat on the beach peddling to make enough to eat; Nasty pollution in Puerto Vallarta, clear blue horizons over the clear waters in my little beachtown.
In iRest Yoga Nidra Meditative Inquiry, we give time to those paradoxes. We welcome, invite in and become curious about our perceptions, whether they be of the physical, emotional or cognitive nature. One of the processes we learn is to consciously hold both, hold opposites at the same time. This opens neural pathways in the brain. This is the nondual reality that exists, the nature of life. It takes us to a place of Awareness, Peace, Compassion, Calm.
As I birth a new way of being, operating, thinking, in these times, I continuously remind myself that things are not just this way or that way. I don’t have to identify with or bind my attention to my perception of what I see and believe to be true. I can take time to quiet my mind, be a witness of it all for just a few minutes each day. When one practices meditation it creates a third way of seeing, being. Life lives itself. This is being in the flow. This does not mean I don’t act or do, it just means I act and do from a place of authenticity, alignment and balance. It’s a more Yin way of being and it really helps keep the stress and anxiety levels down, which creates health, longevity, vitality, and most important of all, LOVE.
