It doesn’t have to be so hard…

I begin my day in the dark, waking long before dawn, leaving behind my dormitory bunk for a room called Shadowbrook at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health.

The sky is still dark an hour later when Shadowbrook begins to fill with Let Your Yoga Dance teacher trainees who take their place on mats in front of me.

Me?
What am I doing here?
How am I the one up on the dais?

At 6:30 am, we begin the practice of yoga, the last class before their graduation.  After centering, I guide them in a series of warming poses, at which point I look down to see that in my rush to get dressed in the dark, I grabbed the wrong tank top. The one I’m wearing allows my cleavage to spill out each time I bend in front of them.

In a wild act of incompetence (unimaginable in my previous incarnations) I ask: Could someone tie these straps to my bra?

And with that, the spell is broken, the one that divides me from them. Two women jump up to restore my modesty, and I step down off the dais for their help.

“Kelly,” someone calls from the back, her voice similarly freed, “Would you turn off the lights? The sun is about to rise.” (Others nod their approval.)

I walk the length of the room to the back of Shadowbrook, turn the dial, and then return through the rows of mats toward the platform.

Just before I step up, I turn to share something that I’ve only just realized: “I feel so much better down here with you,” I say.

The students smile and tell me that it will be fine if I teach from the floor: “We can see you.”

I exhale, relieved, and guide them through a series of strengthening poses before inviting these brave warriors onto their backs, into the 4th chakra, the sweet pause–the heart of a Let Your Yoga Dance class–that they soon will be leading in their hometowns around the country and abroad.

I return to the platform and bring my knees to my chest, and we roll toward one another,
breathing deeply, in and out, in and out.

When I look out, the sun rising above them, I see as a sea of babies,”A room full of Let Your Yoga Dance Instructors,” I say, “Ready to be born.”

Like soft bubbles rising from the mats, I hear giggles,
which slowly, then rapidly, swell across the belly of Shadowbrook,
and pop into a chorus of joyous release, until no one can hear or cares to hear my directions.

There are still giggles as we lift our legs into the air,
Happy Baby, while the sun lifts over the mountain
birthing this new day.

The last spell to be broken is the invitation to leave behind the mat and come to the front of the room where we gather in a circle, arms around each other’s backs, Virabhadrasana III, Warrior III–flying toward our destiny–as we take in each other’s gaze, as if we are flying in the sky, together, in mutual bliss.

I can’t remember what came next, not the inversion or Savasana, because when the class ended, Pam, came forward from the back of the room to tell me what she now knew (and what we all long to remember):

“It doesn’t have to be so hard.”

After the last of the students thanked me and went off  to breakfast, I returned to my room, changed my top, and lay down on my bunk, pulling the curtain around it.

In raw humility, I began to cry, for my perfect imperfection.

I had wanted to be so much more, but I could only be myself.

Isvara Pranidhana.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

Schrieck, visipix.com

Several years ago, I realized that I was missing. After more than a decade as a wife and mother, I couldn’t locate my own pulse.  When my youngest turned 5, I knew it was time.

“I have a good life,” I said to a group of women around a fire, “Two beautiful children, a wonderful partner, a strong community… but it isn’t enough.”

“We can’t have everything, Kelly,” said another mother, “We have to be grateful…”

“But I want it ALL,” I replied.

I spent the next few years in search of what was missing.

And guess what?

I found it.

I emptied a book-case, cleared a desk, set up chairs, bought a table–and created an office just for me.

At first I was a writer, and then because I was afraid it (or I?) wasn’t enough, I added life coaching, and then dance. Soon I was offering workshops and retreats and classes.

Next I explored activism, and blogging, and travel. I participated in rallies, joined an online writer’s group, and facilitated an international conference in Chile.

I began avoiding my office…

Most recently, I committed to a year-long yoga teacher training program, hoping that it would help deepen me into that which I have. When I returned home after the first weekend of training, I was overwhelmed by how much work lie ahead. “Where am I going to put all these books?” I said to my husband.

“Well, you can’t put them in your office,” he said, “It’s already overcrowded.”

I took a look. I can’t remember the last time I really worked in there. The horizontal surfaces are piled with debris; and underneath it all, I find binders and bins and boxes filled with the endeavors I embraced along the way… to me.

Only now, they’re so heavy, I can’t breathe.

At the end of that first weekend of training, we’re asked to come up with a year-long Master Project and share it with the group. I’m shocked by what I choose, and almost heartbroken by what I don’t–not a single one of my new-found passions or even the book that I “just had to write” last year.

I tell my classmates that what I want to accomplish is this:

…playing with my son.

Kelly Salasin, January 2012