Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Going in Deeper



From my teacher tonight: In yoga, there is only so much you can do, so far your body can go, and then you have to take it deeper within.

I have been contorting myself in all manifestations of forms since about 1997. Yoga is familiar to me, it is comfort, I feel at home and it helps to ease my monkey mind. But I still can't do Lotus. I still can't do a lot of things.

My teacher's words resonated, and I wondered how I can apply this outside the studio. My job is to help people -- journalists in particular -- become more aware of the (very worthy) environmental initiatives of the company where I work. In three+ years, there have never been two days alike. Yet I get it, at this point. I'm good at my job and I can do it just fine. And because I am grateful to be working, it might be time to do what the teacher said -- how do I go deeper? Find more meaning and nuance?

As a person who has never married, I'm thinking it may be the same with matrimony. Once the rings have been exchanged and the last bottle of champagne swigged by your bridesmaid (who hooked up with someone's cousin? who would have guessed?), you've crossed what some people consider the "finish line." But what if marriage is the starting point? The point at which you've extended every joint and every muscle as far as it can go, according to Earth physics, and then it's time to go deeper into the relationship. Time to explore the space and the nuance and the rich layers of this other person, of yourself, of the two of you together.

What say you? Is marriage a beginning, an ending, or a middle?

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1 comment:

The Cigar Maiden said...

This is one of those "do I dare answer" questions. For me, marriage in the past has been an ending. A band-aid on an already-dead relationship, if you will. Later I would find that marriage can definitely be a beginning if you want it to be. Going deeper might only mean accepting the next phase of something...and if that's what it means, I can't wait to go even deeper.