than in typical week. A dear friend’s Grandma passed away. She was getting
close to 100 yet the passing was no less painful. A 17-year old local high
school senior passed away following a freak skateboarding accident. Although I
didn’t know him personally, what his family and friends went through hit me
hard. I know many people who were connected to him and it seemed to reach far
into the community-the senseless tragedy of a young person’s life ending before
what seemed to be his time.
I hear stories of illness and violence through
my own clients. It leaves me wondering how can I continue to be a container for
such trauma? One of the most profound lessons of my recent time in India was
that of bearing witness to other people’s suffering. I know that had I not been
firmly grounded in my own practices, then perhaps it would’ve been more than I
could possibly bear.
We practice yoga in moments of relative ease so
that they can kick into full gear when something incomprehensible rocks our
world. It teaches us to have the real, tactile human experience of strong
emotion and then…to let it go-swaha.
This past week I classes I spoke about the
Sanskrit word, swaha. It means to “let go” or “release into the
world”. It’s connected to the idea of non-attachment, one of Patanjali’s Yamas
(Aparigraha). The idea is that we cling onto things in our lives, such as
possessions, relationships and beliefs, thinking they’ll give us a sense of
security. When we realize that everything is in transition, we also realize
that the sense of attachment is an illusion. Everything changes. We will all
make our passing transition one day and holding onto the idea that this will
never happen to us, creates suffering.
What is also created is the realization of how
precious the “now” is. Each moment we live in conscious presence, we open fully
to the moment we are experiencing. This moment…this
breath…now.
The
heavy-hearted experiences of these past couple of weeks reminds me to step
completely into my experience. My intention is to find gratitude for all that I
have, for who I know and for the intimacy of that knowledge and those
relationships. Instead of holding onto the past or launching into the
future, I am in all of my
humanness, with its deep and often rocky emotions.
once said to me, “that experience of helplessness opens the heart”. My thought
for the week is that this is true and many hearts have been broken wide open.
The solace is that we have community in which we hold each other and eventually,
understand that all of us need to let go.
