The slowing of time
I'm sitting here after navigating a dark drive, a fresh walk and finding my seat in a restaurant and still I can feel the impact of the 2 and a half hour yoga workshop. My breath is easy and slow and the noise of the restaurant is seated firmly in the background of my quiet mind. It is as if time has slowed down so that I have time to take in what I choose and there is no sense of being bombarded by all around me. I have a sense of being detached and yet very present in myself all at the same time. Curious. And of course there is an element of tiredness that draws me towards sitting on the couch with a hot chocolate but that can wait.
My yoga practice has evolved over the last 5 months. It had slipped quite a bit previous to that and even when I was on the mat, looking back it seems that there wasn't much life to it. Out of the blue I was invited to teach at the Celtic Yoga festival in July which deserves a whole blog by itself (tomorrow's writing maybe!) And on the Sunday morning I accidentally ended up in Randall's class. I didn't know the title of the class, I didn't know who he was (Randall O’Leary) except that the organiser Cathy Pearson had studied with him through times in her yoga journey and became great friends over the years so that put him pretty high up there (wherever that is!) And I'd say that within 5 minutes I was hooked. His nature just oozed out with such authenticity. His softness and compassion reverberated around the room. His humour provided a light-hearted sense even in the middle of the depth of it. It was beautiful. The way he taught was different too, new to me, with an easy soft flowing nature. I don't remember much more except that afterwards I went straight to the timetable board and noted every class time of his til the end of the festival the following day. The only thing that stopped me from going was my own teaching which was also pure joy!
One of his classes was gathering Prana from nature and the early morning Monday class was a purification class and what was most overwhelming to me was the simplicity with which he taught. What has previously seemed esoteric was brought not only to the level of grasping the concept intellectually but also brought to the level of feeling! I arrived home and every morning, without any ‘should’s and shouldn’ts’ I rolled out my mat. Morning after morning. No pressure, just curiousity, to see what more I could remember and what more I could feel. And above all I could feel yoga becoming more alive in me again. The ebb was taking a back seat and the flow was rolling in.
But my hunger was growing and this wasn’t enough. I found he was teaching a training in Portugal next July but that being way too far away to wait for I contacted Randall. And through the flow of it we met once a week online for philosophy sessions until this week when he arrived in Ireland and we had some one on one sessions and the workshop today. My mind continues to be blown as I grasp another concept or as something else sinks in, my practice has taken a life of it’s own and I am feeling things I have never felt before and it is both fulfilling and overwhelming and yet the hunger is insatiable and the whole experience makes me smile. While I never fell out of love with yoga I have fallen deeper in love with it. It brings me to a space of love, on and off the mat, not always but so very often and once again I feel great joy for this magic path that just brings us places we never even knew we were destined for.