Aligning with Grace

We can live - or simply exist... We can live simply - embodying the extraordinary in the ordinary - or not at all... We can live deeply, transformatively, and well, and when we do - our life itself becomes our practice... I've been reflecting on the broader meaning and implications of practice. For those of us who practice yoga, we dedicate much of our time and focus on the practice of doing asana - or poses - setting ourselves the goal of achieving certain postures, or deepening in them. But, what happens when you cannot do asana the way you once did? Or, what happens if all of a sudden, for one reason or another - you are unable to sustain a physical practice at all? If you have cultivated a broader perspective of practice as one that is fundamentally a spiritual path, then asana is merely just one aspect of what constitutes your practice. What then, is practice? What does it mean to you? What does it look like now? How will it evolve in 20, 30 or 50 years from now? I picked up a...

This morning, I took my coffee down to the river after my meditation. It is still cold, but at least the biting wind of yesterday was absent. I came down to the river yesterday morning as well, as I did nearly every day in January, three years ago. Yesterday, the river raged as it flowed downstream with great power and strength, skirting the frozen river banks. It seemed very much alive to me. But today, it was nearly perfectly still and I could see the trees on the Maryland side reflected on its surface which was calm and without any discernible motion, like a plate of glass. I walked along the frozen river bank, treading carefully, breaking some ice here and there, and maneuvering myself to the area with rock piles, where I sat once, surveying the river, listening to its lessons, until it invited me in. I left that day, and bought a kayak, and the next afternoon, I launched into the river for the first time in my life. I thought about the fragility of life, and the art and yoga of ha...