*
And so the yoga instructor held a class on Christmas day and the atmosphere was very strange. A special day, yes, but in what way exactly? Everything shut down and everyone withdrawn into a familial warmth, except for those without family. For them, all strange.
Was there joy? Merely strangeness?
The teacher went through a sun salutation but there was no sun anywhere. Then she stretched what would not stretch.
Do not force the muscle, treat it like a gentle beast -- it resists when you push hard but there is always a way to coax.
But first of course you must coax the thing that coaxes -- that is the will, the coaxer. It too resists prodding but responds to persuasion. An exasperating donkey of an organ. You must not push past without respect.
Bend the knee and, if you can, lift the foot. Lift it rather high and hold it in your arms, rock back and forth. Hold it with both hands.
Hold it like a baby. You are like a mother, holding this thing, this self, in loving arms, and rocking it with infinite tenderness. Not the self but something closer than the self. Try to love what you have.
So the day rocked within an enormous tenderness that no one quite understood. And you were its child.
*
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