The parallel to my life this spring has been the harried pace I'm living. My husband's office manager of fifteen years has moved on to another job and it is his busiest time of year. He needs help wrapping things up and guess who is reluctantly available? The last few and the next few weeks of my life will be office bound and looking for ways to run his office, hiring more sales staff for next fall, and finalizing his year end. All fine, but at the same time I have two teens in finals, parents who need their house painted, and no less then ten graduation parties to attend.
Yesterday was one of those crazy days where our family drove six hours to attend a grad party for two hours. Yes, we do stuff like that. Upon the arrival home I made a mental note to take a picture of our backyard. It was beautiful and it occurred to me that the beauty would be fleeting. It was a reminder to be present in the moment, a concept that I teach but don't always remember to incorporate into my own life.
So I'm adopting, for a few moments at least, one of the more popular principles of yoga. Patanjali, who wrote the Yoga Sutra defined yoga as “the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind.” He was heavily influenced by Buddhist thought whose core teachings were built around the value of the present moment. A few moments photographing the beauty in my own backyard, connecting to my breath, and purposefully slowing down, reminded me of the power in being present.
Ironically, it was the daisies we call crazy that offered me peace.
As a side note, one of my favorite books on the Yoga Sutras was written by Judith Lasater: Living Your Yoga. I found her explanations of the Sutras and the teaching on application of yogic principles to daily life easy to comprehend as well as an interesting read.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for your comments!