This past week I was with my family camping in the Rockies.  In the days before we left I was feeling bored with day to day activities and also a little stressed trying to prepare for a week away with a one year old.  The trip was long as we stopped numerous times for road construction and to ease Rowan's fussiness.  By the time we reached the mountains I was fatigued. 

With my regular destress routine out of whack with travel and unsuitable conditions for doing yoga I had little hope of relieving my fatigue in usual ways.  After setting up our camp we walked to a nearby river to show Rowan this majesty of nature that she hadn't seen before.  As she clapped and squealed for the fast moving water I noticed the tension in my neck and spine begin to melt.  My fatigue lifted and a renewed sense of aliveness was present.  Certainly, having arrived at camp and prepared our "home" lifted some of the weight off me but there was something very noticable happening as I sat by the river.  I felt everything in me beg to be afftected by it's flow.  Like my whole being wanted to take on it's characteristics - that of fluidity, crispness, clarity.   My mind gave in and all concerns about the past or future became washed away by the sound of water rushing over rock and the crisp feel of misty air.  I've been by many rivers in my life, never before had I been so receptive to letting it run through me.  Not just past me, or near me - but through me.  And for a moment I wasn't the stressed out mom or bossy wife I had been moments prior.  I was the vibratory echo of one of nature's most beautiful gifts.  I looked west to the grand mountain that rested above the river and again felt magnetized to let it in, to be affected by it's immensity.  I felt it's solidity, groundedness and mass and it brought me into a deep feeling of earthiness.  The sun radiated it's illumination right into my very pores.  It enlightened the darkness of my stressful mind while the soft breeze of the day reminded me to breathe.  There was an intimacy with the scene that I had nothing to do with.  The deep, forgotten elements of flow, groundedness and illumination within me were called forth by nature to meet themselves again.  In the midst of this joyful reunion I noted how uncharicteristically my mind let go to this process.  Nature's call to balance was so huge that my egoic mind had no chance of holding on to the negative thoughts and anxiety's it had been grasping, and so it surrendered.  

This experience was so uncontrolled, so wild, that when it started to fade I knew that because I hadn't created it, I couldn't hold on to it.  But it has made me more sensitive to the rhythms of the world around me.  Can I let myself be affected, and perhaps balanced, by the slow steady rhythm of my husband's energy which is so different from my fast paced more erractic rhythm?  What would it be like to stop before the flowers of my garden and let them inside?  To let their soft, delicate nature mirror my own and call it forth in the times when I feel myself hardening?   What is it like for you when you are affected by something completely? 

My daughter, Rowan, is a crucible through which the depth of my yoga practice has been tested. She was only home a month when I was besieged by post partum depression, colic and sleeplessness. One desperate day I settled, with feeble energy, into downward dog. I breathed there, listlessly, and felt my exhaustion. I breathed and felt the sensations of pain, fatigue and self doubt live their way through my body. I breathed until I became completely and honestly present to the deep ache of motherhood – the ache of immense fear, anger, fatigue, confusion – and love.

As I descended deeper into experience my awareness held this ache like an old friend it asked me to change nothing. It did not challenge me to open where I had been tense from hours of pacing with my child. It did not push me to stay and build greater strength where I was weak. Daniel Odier, a modern teacher of Tantra, says; “rediscover the peace of the gaze that wants nothing”. The gaze of my awareness wanted nothing that day; it simply held the immensity of my struggle without demand.

And then my baby began to cry. In days past that would have started my heart pounding but this time was different. The awareness that was birthed in on my mat simply grew larger to include her cries within it's Grace. This “gaze that wants nothing” was big enough to hold Rowan too. In that moment I was not afraid of what the next hour would bring, be it painful crying or playful calm. That day I had rediscovered the peace of being aware without demand. And, I came to realize that my baby's sleeplessness, her cries and her smiles were like the sensations and experiences of a downward dog. Not good, not bad, just simply there – the blessed expression of Spirit in it's many forms. From that day forward I met my daughter in a much different way. I no longer felt the same pressure to “fix” her restlessness or control her schedule to suit my ideas about what should be. I no longer took her discomfort personally as if I had failed as a mother because I had not eradicated her pain. In the past I had “perfectly” aligned everything to get her to sleep and eat. But she showed me that, like in asana, there was a natural intelligence that was moving her young evolution forward in it's own way regardless of my effort and ideas.

Now, with every asana, cry and giggle I am reminded of this Will that is far beyond my own and how it attempts to guide me in the soft moments when my ego forgets itself. My child has caused yoga to flood through my life. She is the ease and difficulty of a downward dog, the fire of kapalabhati breath and the soft silence of savasana. She is the flow of life, without apology and before ego takes hold. She is my child and the greatest asana I have ever lived.

I have had a number of people ask me why I chose Falling Open as the name of my blog and website. Here is what it means to me:

Falling Open : A descent out of the chatter of our minds into the experience of the present moment. A willingness to be aware of and experience all of life that is moving through us, good and bad, beautiful and ugly. As we begin to feel the moment through the perspective of our body the crowded mind begins to quiet. And spontaneously, in an act of Grace that is out of our control, the feeling of Openness arises.  It is the experience of space in body, heart and mind that we all have had in brief moments that we try desperately to recreate.  We believe that if we just try hard enough, eat the right foods, buy the right things, hang out with the right people that we will be able to create it.  But it cannot be created, manipulated, grasped or controlled. It simply shows up from time to time when we show up to ourselves.

I chose Falling Open because it is only through a deep surrender and letting go into knowing myself, in all of my lunacy and glory, have I experienced profound spaciousness, receptivity and flow. This site and my contributions in writing and teaching are dedicated to this. It is a reminder and a invitation for myself and all who join me to let go and know the moment as it is.  To know the feeling of being here. 

We cannot control when we are graced with the profound feeling of Spaciousness , but we can choose to make ourselves “Open to the Openness” as philosopher Martin Heidegger says. So wherever you're at today in your mind, body and heart take a moment to become aware. Notice if you resist this becoming aware.  Notice how fast your thoughts are moving and what they are compelling you to do, are there standards and ideals that have you striving in some way? Perhaps worrying about the future or lamenting the past? What does that feel like in your body? What else is there at a sensation level? Heat? Soreness? Tension? What happens if you don't fight any of it, but simply let it be there? Fall, for a moment, into your honest experience of right now. Then take a breath and then another one, and another one....