From Anna-Kaisa
This is from Anna-Kaisa:
Hi all,
Just some thoughts to share. As some of you know I have had a tough/busy year with work with days starting at 6am, often working Mon through Sun of 11-36hr work periods with no sleep in between. Therefore, I have been an invisible member of YiY shala at times. This week I have been able to attend mysore classes thanks to my vacation. Anyway, what I wanted to say is that it was a feeling “of coming back home” when I came to YiY after not having been there for a little while. It reminded me again how ashtanga unites people. Even if you miss it for a while you always come back to the same practice, same breathing, same chanting. If you travel and go to e.g. an aerobic class in another country, you are clueless with different teachers, different music, different steps, different language, etc. But when you go to an ashtanga shala, you are instantly at home, you just do your own thing, hear the breaths around you and the familiar chanting in the beginning. And another comparison, to aerobics again, in aerobic classes you do the same moves at the same time in the same beat of music with everyone else but yet there is more unity in ashtanga despite the fact that everyone starts at different times and is on different stage in their practice. Those thoughts struck me this morning when I was struggling, feeling rusty, my neck feeling like a piece of hard wood, trying to get my body do something it has done before but it didn’t feel the same as before. The state of mind (and body) changes periodically and over time but it was still the same ashtanga, the same breaths, same rhythm of movement.
One summer night, out on a flat headland, all but surrounded by the waters of the bay, the horizons were remote and distant rims on the edge of space. Millions of stars blazed in darkness, and on the far shore a few lights burned in cottages. Otherwise there was no reminder of human life. The misty river of the Milky Way flowing across the sky, the patterns of the constellations standing out bright and clear, a blazing planet low on the horizon. It occurred to me that if this were a sight that could be seen only once in a century, this little headland would be thronged with spectators. But it can be seen many nights in any year, and so the lights burned in the cottages and the inhabitants probably gave no thought to the beauty overhead; and because they could see it almost any night, perhaps they never will. ~Rachel Carson~
So, even though days are different and practice may not always feel that great, I hope you all who practice every day at YiY see the beauty of it (am sure you do!) and how lucky you are to get to do that every, or at least almost every day. See you all again at YiY at sunrise.
A-K,
What a nice letter.
J