Dear Revolutionaries,
If you’re new here, welcome to the Rev Fam. We’ve been waiting for you. To our regular practitioners, our newer students and our occasional drop-ins: I’m so glad to be on the path toward wellness with you all. We were not designed to be divided from each other, and I’m glad we are finding each other along the way.
As the year comes to a close, I want to extend my warm gratitude to you. By being fearless and showing up for yourselves on the mat, you inspired me to grow into a more courageous version of me.
Living the practice
How so, you ask? A few years ago, I booked a one-way ticket away from the concrete jungle in search of who knows what. We always cite cheeky ideas like “This is just practice” and “The mat is your metaphor.” If that was true, it was time for me to find out how to live my practice. So I went, with you in mind.
The path of practice is multifaceted. One path, jnana yoga, loosely translates as the yoga of learning or study. I thought I was looking for a physical experience in my travels, but the God of my understanding had different plans. In the most open-minded, unplanned way, I ended up in the mountains, learning almost every day from sunup to sundown. There was text-based learning, conversational learning, a new language and alphabet, and new approaches to ancient ways of prayer and meditation in my daily routine. Physical practice became a distant luxury as my mind exploded with new questions, ideas and answers.
Fix your gaze
What does this have to do with the onset of winter? Thanks for asking! One of the first concepts we learn on the mat is to pick a one-pointed focus, a drishti, and commit our gaze to find balance. It’s a simple, physical meditation technique, yet deeply important to our psyche.
With winter comes more darkness and a tendency to hibernate: to nap, eat more and move less. If that’s our intuitive yearning, how do we keep a well-balanced day while still allowing ourselves to experience winter? We fix our gaze on our point of focus, and we don’t lose sight of it for a second. For me, winter is my time to sit down and actually learn. My one-pointed focus is God as I understand God (and even when I don’t understand), one day at a time.
Come home to yourself
I’m just emerging from a dormant season and coming home to you, the sweetest, most soulful revolutionaries. My winter held everything you’d expect: sugar, coffee, cookies, naps, tears and prayers for brighter days. So while it’s winter for us here in New York, this is my personal spring. I’m rebuilding my physical practice. My body is a total beginner all over again, in the cold and on the mat.
I invite you to come home to yourself, find your one-pointed focus and show up on the mat with me. Let’s go against our nature, bring light to the dark winter, and fix our gaze on our deepest, most meaningful intentions. Here’s to cultivating a sense of springtime potential in our winter days.
With love, Allie
