Chuggin' Along

Equanimity. Practicing and trying to be present. Trying not to compare today's practice with some "ideal" practice I imagine for myself.

The hamstring is reminding me of my knee. I have to stay present and yet not overly-focused. It's interesting, too, because I am accustomed to the familiar gestalt of my own practice, my own coordination and kinesthetic sensibility, and when one link in the chain is different, the whole gestalt shifts slightly.

This shift has ramifications for the meditative aspect of practice. I am not sure, quite, how to think about it. On the one hand, I can usually be absorbed into my breath and just go. But when there is an injury...um, I mean, opening...it seems to indicate that that absorption into breath and drishti might actually be at the expense of attention to the body. Am I letting go of the physical when I practice, or am I just ignoring it?

Ah well, we'll find out eventually. In the meantime, I practiced this morning with a particular delight in each urdhva mukha svanasana. And it seems like an antidote to the compression that I've been feeling in my collarbones from supta kurmasana. Which I didn't do today. Nope. I practiced slowly and methodically to kurmasana, at which point my hamstring seemed to indicate that THIS was my downfall. Oh yeah, that business of cranking my hamstrings to get my heels off the floor. My new, fun trick.

I can't help wondering how it would have been different, if I had been more thoughtful, and perhaps less inclined to press my forehead to the floor and go "Fire hamstrings!" to get my heels up. Sigh.

Still, it was a good practice this morning. At the end, in savasana, the birds were singing and the morning light through the window was warm and cheery. I love morning. My Gift and I make the rounds in the back yard, looking at the roses and the bougainvillea and the hibiscus. The cat likes to come too, but he's in it for the birds.