Week Two ~ Moving Like Water

A Chairde,

I want to say such a heartfelt thank you to everyone who came to practice last Sunday for our first classes back at Thrive! I am so excited and honoured to share yoga with you in this way on a Sunday evening. To have such a lovely space where we can show up together, slow down, check in with our hearts, and make that small and mighty shift towards what feels a little bit better in our mind and body - cultivating groundedness, acceptance, lightness; alignment. It is meaningful work! And thankfully fun too :) 

I am so grateful to say that the 6:30pm Soft Stretch class is nearly full for this Sunday September 6th ~ I have just one space left in it, if you would like it please send me a message ;) I also have four drop in spaces available for the earlier Hatha Yoga practice at 5pm. If you would like to sign up to either class, simply get in touch and I'll save the space for you :) 

Our philosophy theme this week will be to move with and consider the element of water in our yoga practice. It might seem wacky to work with the elements like this, maybe even esoteric, but I have personally found the simplicity of these teachings really and truly beneficial in my own practice. The concept is one of balance; coming back to your middle ground, your plum line. Throughout this term there is an invitation to look deeply at where you are and how you are, and to recognise - with kindness - where you might be out of balance. Be it in your body, in your emotions, in your mind, or even in your spirit. 

When the element of water is out of balance it can show up as dry skin, dry hair, cracked nails ~ it can show up as stagnancy in your mood or energy ~ it can show up as low libido, lack of creativity, that awful feeling of no ideas, no solutions, worry, stress...anything that feels fundamentally dry, stuck, unnourished, or empty. This Sunday in yoga we will move with the spine and the breath to hopefully unlock some energy there, to shift what is stuck. It will be a flowy practice, full of alignment, creative movement, and freedom. Returning to your unique equilibrium is the goal here, and the only way to do that is to be really honest with yourself. To look with the eyes of loving compassion at what is true for you right now...to see it and sit with it...and then move with it like a friend. That's usually enough to invite change and healing.

I'd like to offer a very personal story as an example of this practice. During the summer I had the wonderful opportunity to go to Plum Village in France, which is a Buddhist Monastery founded by the famous monk, author, and activist Thich Nhat Hanh. At the monastery there was a beautiful forest where I would walk alone for several hours a day. In the heart of the forest there was what used to be a small and probably very beautiful river. It had not rained in the area for months, however, and because of drought and record breaking summer temperatures there was now no flowing water in the forest, only a dry river bed laying belly up, with its earth cracked and exposed. I remember on one of my first days at the Monastery, I sat by this empty river bed for a long time, feeling deeply. I had a scrap of paper and a pencil in my pocket, and I wrote these lines:

I come to a dried up river

like I have come to a mirror.

This was an honest moment where I recognised the drought in my own life. Too much stress, too much exposure, not enough space; a soul that felt empty and stuck...it was hard to know it. Thankfully, I was in the right place. Over the next seven days I was offered the chance to come home to myself. I was given the tools and the safety to look deeply at my suffering, to sit with it, walk with it, to cry (a lot), and to work towards rectifying what was out of balance in me...

Now, I come in and out of believing in magic. But I will tell you this and it is true. On my final day at the Monastery, I took a quiet moment to sit and pull out my notebook. This scrap of paper fell out; the one on which I had written the few sad lines during my first day. I remember thinking: wow ~ my empty heart has really filled up! I feel so full! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you... 

Right at that moment, as I was feeling grateful and sitting with the scrap of paper in my hand, a great big boom of thunder sounded over my head...and the heavens poured down to soak the earth. The drought was officially over.

I looked around in disbelief and saw everyone who was walking or sitting near me give a loud cheer of celebration! The sisters had been praying for rain for weeks. I had not known it until then, but I had been praying too.

I would love to live 

Like a river flows,

Carried by the surprise 

Of its own unfolding

John O Donohue

I wish you light and hope to see you soon! 

Le grá,

Macha