50 Years of Yoga

 This spring is my 50-year anniversary of starting Yoga. Happy Yoga Birthday, to me!

When I was 16, the sisters at my Highschool – Marycliff – brought in Yoga. Wow! We could sign up for Yoga instead of P.E. I was first in line. Not because I knew what Yoga was but because I didn’t like P.E.

I loved Yoga immediately. I didn’t have words for it then, but I think I fell in love with how the physical was knitted together with the spiritual and that a conscious movement form could be like a prayer.

Yoga continued from then to now, as a zig-zagging tessellating ever-present thread in my life. And by Yoga, I mean the Whole of Yoga –including meditation, study, and breathwork.

And now I can say this for sure: just like good health does not mean you don’t get sick, and a good life does not mean you don’t have trouble, good yoga practice does not guarantee you’ll be fit and happy all the time. (Sorry! All those magazine covers have been very misleading!) But Yoga does reduce and gradually eliminate the mental and emotional suffering that life on planet earth inevitably brings. And it brings happiness for no reason. (mudita” - unreasonable happiness….happiness for no reason….sympathetic joy).

Opening happiness and neutralizing suffering do not require 50 years of Yoga. Believe me, I wasted a lot of time doing my 20s! And I have seen newcomers to Yoga – even when starting at an older age – do a fast lane into its benefits. You do not have to be young and flexible and proud to wear tights. (oh those magazine covers!) Any age, and any ability, is the perfect place to start. Just start. You will not be disappointed.

Here's one of my favorite poems to help me say the way it is for me vis-à-vis Yoga and celebrate 50 years of this practice, that has been a thread I've followed. I've held on to it and it has graciously and reliably never let go of me. 

The Way It Is by William Stafford

 There’s a thread you follow. It goes among

things that change. But it doesn’t change.

People wonder about what you are pursuing.

You have to explain about the thread.

But it is hard for others to see.

While you hold it you can’t get lost.

Tragedies happen; people get hurt

or die; and you suffer and get old.

Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.

You don’t ever let go of the thread.