Ode to 2020: Yoga in Practice

For so long, Yoga has valued the path of Shiva over Shakti. Promising the calm, peace, and equanimity of transcendence as deliverance from the feelings, uncertainty, and actions of engagement. This idea is the premise of Raja Yoga and Vedanta, eventually you can gain enough mastery to rise above or expand beyond the minutiae of living. But why would you want to? The trials and tribulations are the juice of a lived life. The laughter, the tears, the music, the dance, the rage, and stress is why we are here. To raise and lower the pattern of heartbeat, to breathe not just in but also out, and to love but also to rage, to lose, to grieve.  This invitation into fullness is exactly what 2020 has offered to many of us, and I want to take a moment to give thanks for this year, amidst the world which is celebrating it’s ending.

We aren’t broken when we feel, and 2020 has invited us to feel so many things. We may have forgotten what wholeness feels like, it’s viscosity, its complexity, but this elaborate range of feeling might not be wrong. If we want to be whole, we might need to turn away from an idea of Yoga based on expectations, achievement, and mastery.  It might be time to question the Yoga that is based on the chase to gain and higher and higher levels of perfection that cut us off from the vitality of simply living into (not above or beyond) our days. When we take the time to stop the race to the finish line of life, there is so much to be found. Living into life asks us to be curious about possibility, inspired by potential without the requirement of a safety net or guaranteed outcomes. When we lose our sense of curiosity, we forget the play of light and dark, the collaboration of joy and pain, and we think that discomfort is a mistake to be corrected, death something to be avoided.

Though I know that this will sound unacceptable for many, I am grateful for 2020-for the lessons, the shock, the fear, the utter confusion. For the pause and the raucous uprising, for the wake up call to live as if this thing called life is temporary, precious, and valuable rather than an entitlement. This year has forced my hand, demanding that I live in the places I’ve found myself rather than try to outlive the discomforts or even death itself. I am grateful that I remembered I could dance alone in my living room, that I could NOT answer an email or text.  I was able to hear the sound of silence from my front yard when the world temporarily stopped for a few short weeks. I am grateful for the humbling lessons that I am not in control, and for the invitation to feel what that feels like. I give thanks for the opportunities I’ve discovered, and the tools of connection that our modern world has to offer. And though it was almost unbearable at times, I am so thankful for the lessons on how to truly be alone. There is so much to distain about 2020, but I’m not sure that I am completely glad to see it go. I will lament the opportunity it has provided to step into the mystery with both feet, and sink into the unknown and unknowing. 

I want to take care with what I wish away and what doors I slam shut, and I want to remember to honor the gifts of this strange time and bear witness to the spectrum of experiences it has allowed. I feel grief and joy at once weaving through the individual stories we tell about this time, and that feels important, maybe even monumental. . I want to give reverence for the ways this year opened me in new ways and brought me to my knees. 2020 can be an example of living into the wholeness of life, if we let it. And if 8 months on a calendar can do that for even just a few, I give thanks for it.