New Horizons And Beginnings...

The first day of my yoga challenge and the conscious effort to open my clogged or closed chakras has finally come, and the dawning of this particular sun has already taught me a valuable lesson. Humility. My cell phone's daily horoscope message sounded well into my first real yoga practice in a long time. When the little chiming sound alerted me, I didn't know it then but that text message held a thought that would reverberate though my hour-long session of twists and turns. Mr. Rodney Yee's wonderful DVD, Power Yoga: Total Body workout is a 65 minute routine that will strengthen and fortify both your endurance,form, and flexibility. I found it to be both soul-nourishing and difficult at the same time.The emphasis on breath-work and form is amazing. I must have been a little more then halfway through the DVD when my cell went off. Strangely enough Rodney was taking me through a series of poses to stretch out my lower back and hip region and prepare me for some more advanced positions, the toughest of which I could not fully complete. An asana, Mr. Yee calls the Forward Bow pose, also known as Urdhva Dhanurasana is a posture that I used to be able to fulfill, if not in the most graceful manner, at least with a reasonably correct form. Now months off slacking in my practice later I realized with a significant amount of bruised pride, what I have lost. I failed to cherish my practice daily and be grateful for the gift of my body. This led to losing hard-won goals and accomplishments I had gained within it. I came to see that by neglecting my daily yoga practice, I was being careless with my own body,and the part of my mind and soul that greatly benefited from it. I will endeavor to the best of my abilities not to make that mistake again. After my yoga practice was over I felt refreshed, more aligned in my posture and ready to face the day. I reached down to my bed to where my cell phone lay and checked my text message. It read "Sagittarius, communication is about more than talking and listening -- it's about understanding." That phrase struck a cord with my practice. As I move consciously and wordlessly  breathe through each asana, my body is talking to me. It's telling me things that teach me silent lessons each time a muscle is stretched and protests because of a physically trying position. It's speaking with every ache or pain or ahhhh... as a compressed area is released. It's saying 'even though you haven't been taking good care of this part of me, thank you for healing it. It's been a while so don't let your ego hurt me". My response? "I'll be back on that mat again at 6 am tomorrow morning OK."