Grounded

I showed up for a yoga class this morning, first thing, in the same sanctuary I call home every Sunday.  I've done just a bit of yoga over the years--but never in my church, never in that space.  And what a revelation.

It turns out you experience a space altogether differently--when you're on your back, when you're learning to breathe, when you're stretching muscles and ligaments and heart and...who knows what else.

I saw angles I'd completely missed.  I noticed the fog licking the huge glass windows.  I experienced something like my breath breathing with the space itself.  With grace.  With the other practitioners.

And I felt the floor.  I mean, I've been standing atop that floor for ten years: saying things, reading things, praying things.  But this morning, I felt the floor.  I was grounded there.  Our teacher invited us to go deeper: to sense not just the sanctuary floor, but the building's foundation.  Not just the foundation, but the ground, the rock, the earth beneath it.  Not just the earth, but the wisdom that hallows the earth and makes it sacred and good.  Wow.  I reached deep.  I felt that.

I believe that mindfulness is a core Christian practice; it's surely one of mine.  Day to day, I do what I can to pay attention, to be present in my life and to my life.  That presence is God's gift.  God's sweet grace.  My breath finding me, leaving me, finding me, leaving me.  I'll go back to my new yoga class next Thursday (8:30 am, Santa Cruz friends, at the church).  And I'll practice some more.  On my back.  Learning to breathe.  Opening my heart.  Finding my ligaments.

And it's good.  Very, very good.