“Yoga does not just change the way we see things; it transforms the person who sees.” BKS Iyengar
I have been fascinated with transitions for most of my life. What is happening between the main action and events of life. Where your mind goes in that blank space between chapters; what happens after the director says cut and all the actors exhale.
Transition time is the most volatile in nature…there is a vulnerability of being – the blur of movement between posed shots.
I find it in turns frustrating, revealing, challenging, scary, and somehow inspiring. It is the in-between time that so much of life contains, and yet, it isn’t the large draw. It can be a brief moment in time, like the dancer breathing heavily in the wings, right before the grand finale…or it can be a transition of years, in that liminal space of puberty or perimenopause.
I want to honor the transitions in my life, with the same respect that so many of the milestone moments and achievements receive…and yet, they are so often awkward.
Can our transitions (and here I’m thinking a lot about transitions in aging) be imbued with grace, with breath, and with an elegant authenticity? Or is the nature of transition that we are not at our best selves, that it is in fact a time and space of allowing ourselves to release into our awkward nature, to not “be on stage?” Can we move from one state to another with a calm and intentional consciousness, without feeling that we have to be “on” all the time?
One of the places I have turned to seek out some answers to these questions is of course, in my yoga practice.
In fact, our yoga practice can deeply inform and elucidate both our tendencies and how to overcome them.
The Strength of Woman
In Geeta Iyengar’s Yoga: A Gem for Women, she opens Chapter 6 (Is Yoga Ideal for Women?) with the quote,
“’Nature meant woman to be her masterpiece.’ wrote John Ruskin. Her beauty and grace, as well as her soft nature, bear witness to this. She not only possesses external beauty, but her soft and graceful form belies her firmness of character and power of endurance.” Geeta Iyengar
A woman is a creature of endurance…of flowing through those multitudes of life-shifts, and finding a way to sustain her Self, to recreate herself, and to withstand the onslaught of life. Is there not a tremendous strength in softness? In some level of malleability, whilst holding firm in her spine? I find these images, this language begging for exploration on the mat. It sounds quite like the practice of yoga.
The Posture Never Ends
Rolf Gates in his co-authored book, Meditations from the Mat, Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga, writes on Day 35,
“The posture never ends.” Rolf Gates
This quote has resonated with me for years. It was a bit of an enlightening moment for me. The yoga style he teaches is a flow/vinyasa form, which doesn’t have as many “breaks” as Iyengar yoga. But he acknowledges that flow yoga isn’t necessarily the only form of yoga to be effective at conquering transitions. He continues,
“The lesson remains, however, that it is our tendency to pay attention to the postures themselves, but not to the spaces in between. So it is in life. We leave one relationship or job and set our sights on the next. We cross one item off the to-do list and dive into the next chore. The illusion is that the posture ends. The reality is that the posture never ends, it just shifts from one form to the next, one lesson to the next, one opportunity to the next. We remain life’s student whether we are inhaling or exhaling, in a relationship or out of one, saving the world or looking for a temp job. The posture never ends.” Rolf Gates
There is something artistic in this view. In seeing the continuity of the brush strokes of life, of the cyclical rhythm of breath, of the swaying dance of relationship.
Mr. Gates’ insight in how the posture never ends, but instead simply shifts form, gives over the great sense of connectivity in our lives and in the world itself. It reminds me of the law of conservation of mass in physics…that matter cannot be created or destroyed, but rather only change in form.
If we apply the law of conservation of mass to our personal transitions, dealing with our aging, with our relationships, with our bodies, with our energy…I believe it can help us tremendously to develop compassion for when we need to devote energy to resting or healing, to develop inspiration for when we need to devote energy to working, building and strengthening, and to develop discernment for finding balance between the two.
We are constant yet not fixed. Our identities often have a thread of steady self-concept, despite the many shifts in our life circumstances and growth. A work in progress, but with something grounded, engraved that comes from our past. This seems to be one of the difficulties in aging itself. How do we reconcile the aspects of ourselves that are more resolute with those that are in flux? Particularly when the flux is (either perceived or in reality) a state of decline.
Nothing Like the Present
This is where returning to the moment, to the present, is so useful. Both in our yoga practice, but in all things off the mat as well. Without the present moment, we are lost to the nostalgia of the past or the dreams of the future. To past traumas and future worries. We are trying either to get back to something we had, or lean into something we want.
It is not that either territory is to be avoided completely. History, both our personal one and in general, is vitally important for us to learn and grow. Making plans, setting goals, and laying out objectives is vitally important for us to grow and learn as well. We are meant to remember, to reflect and to dream. To set out a path for ourselves and the world.
But we can’t live in either of those spaces. They are the ephemeral bridges of transitions themselves, neither here nor there. When we connect to our present moment, we become either the pinnacle moment or the transition itself. It no longer matters. And through this connection, through the deep realization of our completely steady and constantly changing contradiction of self, we just may transcend the hardest transitions.