The Dance of Remembrance

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There are so many days when I wake up and feel wonderful.  The sky is bright, my children are laughing, the world is alive and full of promise.  Living my yoga is so easy on these days.  I walk the walk with steadiness and ease.  My breath is available and my body is a well-tuned vehicle to support me through my day.  It feels as if a world full of unimagined potential is unfolding right before my eyes, beauty, joy, love, and gratitude abound. 

To abide in this space of joy, you must also dance in the shadows.  We all know this dance; it comes to us in many forms, as a myriad of masked partners waiting to whisk us away from source, away from our light, and into the depths of forgetting.   It is in this forgetfulness, this lack of remembering that the dance begins.  Negative self-talk, self-defeating behaviors, depression, greed, fear, and feelings of being incomplete are just a few of the steps as we are waltzed around the prison of our own mind. 

I am well trained in this dance; I know every step, every dip, and every steady move that takes me further and further into the shadows and away from source.  I have been there, laying on my mat, trying to just breathe as wave after wave of paralyzing emotion chokes each inhale and exhale, as if I am drowning on the very breath that I hope to save me.  I have been there, practicing, but really just going through the motions.  For a yogi, what’s worse than losing your connection to your practice, to source?  Is not practicing more heartbreaking, or getting on the mat and experiencing disconnect?   I have been there, angry for no reason, and lashing out, hurting the people that I love and that love me most. I have been there, overtired and feeling unappreciated, as I try to inspire my children and students.  I have been there, full of thoughts, ideas, and knowledge, wanting to share them with the world, or at least my friends, but remain silent.  I play small, I keep to myself, I keep the light of creativity bottled up and hidden, because some days my fear seems larger than life itself.  

 When my world gets heavy, I doubt myself, as a mother, a teacher, a friend, and as a positive force to make a difference in my lifetime.   I feel small, incomplete, and unsure if I am capable of living up to my potential.  Then I think back to my training and the wisdom of Tantra yoga and I am reminded that this is a dance of remembrance. 

We forget for the sheer delight of remembering.

In every breath and movement, every joy and sorrow, every celebration and devastation, we are invited to remember.  We remember that we are not separate from the light, but shining rays of light embodied.  We forget this, over and over again, for the beautiful, sometimes heartbreakingly painful experience of remembering.  Just as we dance in the shadows, we exalt in the light.  Our continuous dance partner, our lives, guides us. Life takes us into the shadows, to grieve, to mourn, to feel detached and then back to the sweetness, to moments of clarity and of understanding.

We are all struggling with our demons and at times with just living. These destructive dance partners ache for our attention and  at times need to be faced.  Remember, this is a dance; every step that takes us away from our light will eventually remind us that the light exists. It is because of the forgetting that we are allowed to rest in the sweet delight of remembering.  When we rest in that sweet place, we are radiant.  We are full of a better knowing of ourselves that might have been hidden, had we not ventured into the darkness.  Our time away from our light, hiding in the shadows has been fanning the flame of connection all along.