Sun Salutations and Heart Meditations

This one is highly personal and unedited, as there is a deeper spiritual and social issue I want to get to writing before the thoughts leave me.  So please forgive any jumbled words hitting the page before my brain can redirect them.

This morning was beautiful, the sun just beginning to peep through the blinds about 5:30am or so. There was a lovely warm body beside mine, snoring softly. A night of fixing restorative food from the farmer’s market, laughing,  getting introduced to a new (to me) show, and cuddling was ending with me sneaking out from under the covers and heading for the mat.  Before your eyebrows can shoot off the top of your head, you can get the scoop on my views of sex and relationships in the next post that’s in the pipeline.  Simmer down….

I couldn’t resist; I grabbed my mat and meditation pillow and headed outside for the deck. Just the slightest of chill to the air, hitting my shoulders as I unfurled my mat and placed the pillow at the foot of it.  Typically, we try to face the rising sun for morning meditation and sun salutations.  This proved to be a touch challenging, as the sun was coming up in a location in my new home that left me feeling…well…exposed, on the deck.  I eventually came to a compromise, and settled in.

Surprisingly, I was able to get focused  pretty quickly, tuning out the squirrels who were already up and giving mad chase up and down the massive oak out front, there were few cars peeling out around the corners, and even the birds were somewhat lazily rising in song..no urgency to their trills…just joyful awakenings. A few stray thoughts crept in: wonder if I set up the French press last night (nope), I think the new tomato plants would like living in that little corner…I think I’ll try that idea using the brass bed as a yoga/meditation/sitting area in the little “secret” garden. I acknowledged each thought in turn, thanked it for coming to me, and let it go. Then I got down to the business of just being in the moment.  It is truly difficult to describe in words the experience of a positive morning meditation, but when I brought my hands to heart center, to third eye, and back to heart, I was at complete and total peace with myself and my world at the moment.  I rolled into Child’s Pose to start the gentle stretches that would help my twisted spine wake up and release it’s grip on me.  First there is pain, followed by the gentle release of tension.  Working through modified poses, I have my own version of sun salutations governed by what my spine will allow in that moment, and it’s okay. I don’t have a set routine; I roll from pose to pose as feels right, and hold as long as I feel the need.

As I lift hands to heart center one final time, I say prayers for peace, prayers for acceptance of what is, prayers for my sister and niece as they prepare for a missions trip to Costa Rica, prayers for my children and grandchildren, a prayer for my Dad’s health and heart, even a prayer for my ex that he finds contentment and happiness in his new life.  As I lift those prayers skyward, I say a final prayer for the beautiful man asleep inside, that even if he and I should decide at some point to continue our life’s journeys separately, that he finds peace, love, and acceptance that fulfills his heart and faith. I can want for no more than this for him, is for him to be happy and content.

Namaste