Whoosh

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)