Full Moon

Last night, the full moon was amazing. As I drove home in the early evening darkness from a 4:30pm yoga class with my daughter Sadie and my son Matthew in the car, I felt blessed on every level. There was finally a fall chill in the air. My cozy sweater was making sense and I was feeling right with the world. Content. In the moment. In my car, following the moon home and I had just practiced yoga. The effects of the practice had landed softly in my heart and bones. My brain was relaxed. My throat was relaxed. I was in a place of knowing and feeling.

I felt right, I felt new, I felt love. My children had just practiced yoga as well. Yes, even Sadie. While I held gentle warriors and triangles in the earth studio with Cynthia J. as the teacher, Caelum, the children's yoga teacher in the sun studio carried Sadie on his hip. As I heard the sound of my ujaii breath and was gently reminded to make this yoga practice right for me, I could here Sadie's cooing throught the walls of my studio. It was very faint, but I could here her calling out in excitement to the other kids as Caelum and Dawn taught yoga postures to 12 children of various ages. Many of them siblings like Matthew and Sadie. Both of my children were so content when we left Samadhi. Matthew couldn't wait to come back next week. He commented on how much he liked shavasana. Caelum had brought in his xylaphone and played this while the kids rested in corpse pose. After class, as we were putting our shoes on, Sadie was busy talking at everyone in the yoga studio who passed her by. She seemed to have a smile and/or advice for anyone who looked her way.

Everytime I see a full moon I am in awe. It's beauty and newness never wear itself out. It is the most patient presence I have ever observed. It's face is non-judgmental and kind. I find it puzzling to think of all the people that a full moon throws out of kilter. The full moon has a bad rap for lunacy. I don't get that. To me it has the opposite effect. A quality of stillness and steadyness coupled with an illumination of a presence I can only describe as the beloved.

Tonight, I think about the moon and how it is continuosly creating. I feel that way about my own yoga practice as well. No matter how shitty, cranky, ugly or out of sorts I am feeling when I begin my practice, I almost always feel different by the end of shavasana. I feel new, I feel love, I feel grateful to be alive. Everytime I bear witness to a full moon, I am in awe at it's beauty and simplicity. I do not take for granted that I have lived through another cycle. The full moon almost always surprises me. Catches me off guard. Takes me out of any self-doubt or pity. I do not keep track of ithe moon's patterns but I feel steady knowing that it cycles with or without my knowledge. I feel reassured knowing it will cycle long after I die. When I complete a yoga practice, it is the same sort of feeling. I feel a steadyiness about my existance. Anxieties and judgements have been cleansed away. I am brought done to my essentials. My blood moving through my veins, the beating of my heart, and my breath. All that matters is here in this moment. All that matters is love and in that moment of fullness I am able to pause.

I love this poem by Lalla. I have every word of it memorized in my body.

The Soul, like the moon,
is new, and always new again.

And I have seen the ocean
continuously creating.

Since I scoured mymind
and my body, I too, Lalla,
am new, each moment new.

My teacher told me one thing,
Live in the soul.

When that was so,
I began to go naked,
and dance.