the movement
honor ancestors, serve descendants, nourish all
What are your preparing for?
A few weeks ago, teachers were preparing their classrooms for the start of the new school year, creating an atmosphere for their students to feel welcomed, safe, and inspired to learn. In the coming weeks folks will prepare their homes and shared spaces for gathering with community, family, friends. We’ll be cleaning, decorating, and cooking with the intention to craft spaces for people to feel embraced, to be nourished, and to be in fellowship.
Acts of preparation don’t only come with special occasions. All my sisters have done variations on bedtime rituals for their kiddos; tubby time, brushing teeth, stories and lullabies and good night kisses. Nightly rituals performed for years on end are all done with the intention to prepare their little ones for sweet dreams.
I get on my mat every morning to move mindfully and breathe deeply to prepare my body-mind-emotion-spirit for healing and wholeness. The action of the practice helps me move into a quieter mind and sometimes even a stillness of body. I slip into an inner expansive sense of peace. I wish I could tell you that I can just drop into the deep quietude anytime, but the truth is, I can’t. I have to consciously prepare my own being especially my mind for a union with silence. In this respect I know I am not alone.
Photo: Hubby preparing dumplings for a family feast!
The roots of Yoga teach us that the goal of Yoga is to establish oneself in a state of Samadhi. The translation of this Sanskrit word is “placing together.” What is placed together? The yogis explain the state of Samadhi is when we, our individual, small selves are merged with all of existence. Samadhi is described as silence, contentment, bliss, pure consciousness, peace. The ancient yogis also recognized that asking the mind to cease all fluctuations, to ready oneself for union with silence, bliss, peace, is a difficult task. Therefore, they offered up multiple paths with various practices within for us to follow. They all eventually lead to the same direction.
Yoga further teaches us that the goal is not to sit on a comfy cushion in a pretty room with soothing music playing and declare ourselves in Samadhi and be done. Rather, as we establish ourselves in union with all existence, we then carry deep abiding pure consciousness with us into all of our lives. This is what the yogis call skill in action, to bring the peace within you where ever and when ever you are. It’s almost as if the sages from 5000 years ago saw the impact our fast-moving modern world and the numerous and powerful ways in which we are distracted. They offered up tools to help us keep us moving towards a common goal of living an entire life in dedication to inner and universal peace. That goal has never changed.
Mindful movement and breath work, like yoga asana and pranayama prepares an environment within us for unity with inner quiet, to “yoke” with peace. All our internal physiological systems are interrelated. When we breathe slow and deep, especially as we take long complete exhales, we shift our neurological, immune, and hormonal systems out of fight and flight mode, and into flourish and thrive mode. When our cellular structures are not stuck in fighting mode our thoughts and emotions shift away from fear, anger, hatred. They move towards possibility, presence, inquiry, discernment, and wisdom.
When we couple conscious breath and mindful movement, we invite more physiological systems to the party, e.g., the musculoskeletal, digestive, and integumentary (skin). Billions of cells within us all are moving and working together, all resonating at the same frequency. Our body and mind are preparing us to meet the universe halfway and to stay for a while. We can simply exist in quietude. As you practice moving towards and existing in that state, it can stay with you in all moments of life, interactions, and choices. Your whole life can become skill in action.
The invitation is to join us for breath and movement practice. Use your own body and breath to help prepare an inner environment for unity with peace.
November 2023