Reflections on the process of Yoga

You come to yoga perhaps thinking there's a beginning and an end, and a class has an arch but it's not something that is and then isn't. It's alive, it ebbs and flows within us. Yoga is a never ending process of coming together of the many parts of the self that are disjointed.

I love this idea that everything is in the process of becoming. There is so much less pressure to get it right, when you think about anything you start as a limitless process, where you are just the observer of it's unfolding. We are all in the process of becoming and we have these wonderful tools like yoga that serve us as practices of introspection and tools for mental, emotional and physical health. Good things never come overnight, we have to put all our attention, dedication and care into the cultivation of something we really want.

The first Yoga Sutra of Patanjali points to these concepts. Atha Yoga Anushasanam. Now is the time for yoga. Now as this limitless, timeless moment. And in this timeless experience of now we have the option of becoming that which is happening in the mind or choose to see it as passing, untethered perceptions, formations that bind us to suffering past, present or future. If we cho

ose to be here now with the awareness of the breath, and on the special placement of the body and eyes then we can be here now as observers of all that is not this breath in this moment.

That’s Yoga. The word vinyasa itself has that threaded into its meaning. To carefully place something; this shala is a representation of that. The careful placement of actions that crystallize into what is here and now. Each action is not a final destination, it is a continuous process of becoming. So here we are gathered today. Becoming one breath at a time as individuals and as a community. Becoming healthy by cultivating kindness, mindfulness and strength.