What we find when we apply a concentrated mind to our world is that the truth has always been there…We cannot spend time in dharana without accessing new insight.

-Rolf Gates, Meditations from the Mat

Day 319 – Being able to move throughout my weeks without a particular goal or direction since dropping pre-calculus has been marvelous.  I’ve started dancing again, allowed my body to rest a bit, read a couple of books, and relaxed at work enough to go to some professional developments without too much worry about my students.  I’m about 4 weeks into a 6-week dance program, which I get up early and do at 4 a.m., which involves pilates and I’m noticing more flexibility and mobility in my hips and lateral line.  I’ve been following keto pretty strictly (except when Fred was playing at the Abbey, where I enjoyed a couple of good dark porters and a gluten-free pesto chicken panini without the cheese).  As we go into the holidays, I plan to keep this “non-plan” and finish off the year with no particular goals.  I hope I either get to do workshops or camp over some long weekends and spring break early in 2018 and I’m not exactly sure what I am doing for school next year (believe it or not, it’s time to start planting the seed).  All in all, I’m feeling pretty mobile and motivated and energetic.  This has been a long haul, probably four or five years in the creating.

Like most things, patience is key.  In the stillness of yoga practice, I came to realize that the answer has been there the whole time.  I feel alive when I move, but I feel better when I listen to my body.    Rolf describes dharana as the “insights, this inspiration, [which] are an energy that has existed in the unmanifest realm and that comes into being through our thoughts, our words, and our deeds.” I’ve come to know a truth about my body, about my habits, about my need for always goal-setting in the process.  This truth was always there.  It’s not an easy truth, however, but I’ll be gentle on myself for now. I’m always willing to learn new things; however, the ones about our own self can be long in coming.  There are no goals or classes to take one there.