Whether it’s my inner-Libra or Northern-hemisphere upraising, my year begins each Autumn.
January with all its New Years’ resolutions and dead-of-winter self-affirmations has never felt like the dawn of much to me. October however, with the school-year and birthday and left-over tans (and fitness levels from swimming) has always felt like a new-beginning for better or worse, for nerves or anticipation, for confidence or upset.
This Autumn has started a whole new year that I perceived as much more familiar than it actually was. I neither prepared for the newness nor gave myself credit for ANY successful adjusting.
On the advice of nearly every single person around me, I stopped to look around…
…and as I did I saw a mat my sister gave me last birthday: green, for yoga, and all rolled up from the last session that took place MONTHS ago.
Yesterday, I went to a yoga session with that green mat and connected to a practice I’d long forgotten. It was hot yoga on a very cold day so the warm humid room was very welcoming.
This new year, the ’09/’10 one, yoga and otherwise, I really hope to achieve many new things from both the perspective of a true beginner and of an aspiring expert. ‘In the eyes of a beginner the possibilities are many; in the eyes of an expert the possibilities are few.’ * http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JceGBL2kYk4 for more. This, from today’s Uptown Cinema find with the roommate. *
Yesterday, on my mat I felt just fine groaning through inflexibility and feeling like a total doofus. Today, I feel just fine sore in truly random places sitting here reflecting on the whole process. This winter, as so much new begins, I commit here on this blog to find comfort in the familiar: in yoga, in swimming lengths, in reading, and in writing, and in coffees with friends, and time with family, all those things that don’t feel so different from Edmonton, or even Red Deer, or even high school.
To anyone reading this: a Happy New Year! …and all the very best in pursuing ANY resolution or working through ANY change or expressing ANY level of gratitude, especially to yourself.
To thine own self: be true. ….and kind. THAT is what I learned this round as I found myself back on my mat…
…trying my very best.