A substantial amount of human energy seems spent lamenting what has
passed, fretting over what may come, and tap dancing around what is at the present.
This chaotic choreography of life is brought into balance for me with
yoga. In yoga’s sequenced movement
matched to controlled in and out breaths resides respite from the fast feel and
weight of life’s momentum and magnitude. Practice on my mat carries over
to daily life allowing time to pass more mindfully, difficulties to be
persevered in patience, work to be balanced with rest.
Even amid attentive acceptance of time I am astounded that the month
of May and the first part of June went by for me in an activity avalanche that
feels like a bleary-eyed blink. Whoosh,
it is summer. Whoosh, 2013 is
reaching its midpoint. Whoosh, my first baby is as tall as I
am. Whoosh, breakfast blended
to bedtime day after increasingly hot day.
Whoosh
defined as a noun means a sudden movement accompanied by a rushing sound.
Whoosh as a verb means to move or
cause to move quickly or suddenly with a rushing sound.
Whoosh – a thing
and an action, movement and sound, a feeling I recognize as adrenaline in my
body every time Superman plants his feet, flexes his knees and shoots up into
the sky. With that sensation, I become
aware of a two-sided sense of whoosh,
one that makes me feel akin to a superhero: strong, reliable, and kicking
butt. The flip side feels like a kid at the start line of a race not sure
where to stand so that when the gun goes off she’s left twirling like a tiny
tornado as everyone else shoots off the starting block and sets to
running. Whoosh!
When we feel lost with no sense of where to begin we might consider
how to feel as superheroes, albeit likely lacking in otherworldly powers and
steel flesh, and connect to our abilities. We possess the ability to
commit to our duties, love unconditionally, increase our personal integrity, make
and manage our mistakes, find and direct our personal power, feel our way with
facts and faith, to breathe.
I work to accept that life’s whoosh
won’t stop, but the whirling post-whoosh
spin response can. Reframing whoosh
as an exultant exhale we might honor ourselves as regular folks getting super
stuff done. And on those days when we are left spinning, twisted like a
top pinched in the fingers of unfettered circumstances, the whoosh can still be our breath as an amazing
inhale filling us and drawing our attention inward where we start all
activities in acknowledgment of ourselves as we are in each moment. We can only begin where we are, wherever that
may be and with whatever way we arrived there.
Where we go – whoosh – is our
daily work.
Suddenly
who o sh(e)
born as me
super light see
matter mindfully
breathe energy
simply to be
who o sh(e)
