Awe of Yoga

 I am not afraid of what is about to happen...It's always tempting - no matter how long you're sober.

The house is empty - my wife has gone to a party - my daughters are with their grandmother.

That cheeky imp in the corner of my mind flips a coin in his fingers, and dares me to take a risk.

But it's not happening.

I've made plans.  Up at 5am, writing, then off to yoga at 6am - Sunday morning yoga always has this religious intensity to it - and I know why. 

Is it because as the class comes to an end, and we recline, our backs melting into the floor, pulsing with warm blood; just as we enter the bliss of savasana - the church bells of the cathedral begin to peal and my mind is flooded with all the traditional white bread imagery of orthodox religion?

And as I drift along the edge of meditation and into and out of the gap - the pealing bells regale me with all the images of little old ladies with too much perfume hiding the smell of their urine leaks, or the lonely lost manchild with specks of white hair lint noiselessly mouthing the words to the hymns, or the 2.3 children and the pitch perfect career mum and harried father sitting, erect but disconnected, in row three.

I am thankful and grateful that I am lying on the mat, soaked in my own sweat, my body tingling and little pulses of electro-magnetic sensation flickering along my nerve endings - and my eyes fluttering and breathing that long slow exhale and just feeling my chest cavity collapse and release and hollow out like a old soft melon in the sun.

There is nothing like the deep muscle satisfaction of yoga for me - the absorbing, accomplished feeling that no words can quite capture.  The silent class - working through the poses with discipline and attention.  The sincere respect and purity of moving in utter silence to our global ocean breath.
Bren Murphy - Last 100 Days Alcoholic
So it was a natural progression for me - falling in awe with my yoga teacher.  It has been a long slow imaginary relationship where her voice and simple unadorned commands have me surging to complete the flows in time with the rest of the class.

Me, the 41 year old rusty alcoholic - in awe with the 20-something yoga teacher.  Simple.

She is a giant blonde with muscles and thick arms and legs strong from holding poses and her breath is slow and deliberate and she leans into me to open my hips or loosen my shoulders and I can almost smell her above the distraction of the incense.

She talks through the class and scatters individual pearls on self-development and personal growth as we pant downward dog and I lap it up like brain nutrient in the still-sweat-soak-silence. 

We wash back and forth - like seaweed - a single organism - the class moves and folds and waves and weaves to her command - we hold and let droplets of sweat trickle timelessly off our noses as she counts out the breaths. 

It's is a delicious silent deep burn as my thighs twitch and my glut muscle sears and vibrantly shines as I manifest blood and oxygen to quench it.  My arms outstretched - the opposing tension strung along like wires and my chest and back open and vulnerable and fearless and exposed.

A Tibetan sky burial - me a torn carcass on the rocks - my yoga teacher appears - a vulture - and graces an adjustment with her third finger only - I twitch taller, or curl my pelvis in or scoop my heart with my shoulder blades.  It is a visceral, organic experience.

She talks about her anatomy class - how she went to the morgue - the cadaver on the slab - the muscles cold and dense like livers and the fascia being loosened and me bending and breathing two- three- four - five- six - seven - letting go all the oldness-  the entrenchedness - the ancient toxic history.

Her words and directions kneading my muscles and organs.  It's a silent, unspoken awe.  A never-to-be-lived-love. 

But it's what happens in yoga - I think - or do I feel?

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