Breathing into my BodyMind

One benefit of being unemployed is that it gives you time to pursue personal hobbies to your heart's content, bounded, of course, by your ever-decreasing budget. Which is why, when I decided to take up Yoga again, I checked out a few DVDs from the library that I will faithfully renew every week until someone else puts them on hold. (Two years ago, when I was also unemployed and picking up yoga, this technique worked for about 3 months).

I've been on my new routine for about a week and a half now. I could barely bend over to touch my toes on the first day. But today I was thrilled when my nose almost touched my knee while in a seated forward bend. I attribute my success to the gentle reminders from my digital Rodney Yee to breath into my bodymind.

My favorite pose by far is chavasana, or corpse pose. It consists of lying on your back, legs stretched out in front, arms to the side, eyes closed. Oh, and breathing into your bodymind. This pose comes at the end of the workout, and is accompanied by pleasant music and the instructor's voice saying things like "receive into your palms", "imagine your tension as a darkness, and let the light heal that darkness", and "relax your eyeballs to the ground".

Yesterday while in chavasana, I had this sudden vision of a scene from the fantasy book A Wizard of Earthsea: me in a small rowboat, wearing a billowing scarlet-violet cloak, rowing in crystal blue ocean toward the end of the world. (Also, perhaps, reminiscent of the afterlife boat scene in Waking Ned Devine.) The thought that accompanied this mental image was that I should write a novel.