a new day

There was such a buzz to the air this morning when I woke up. And then all day, everywhere I went, people were literally bubbling over with a new sense of hope and thrill. Several folks had a visible spring in their step. I will admit, I am pretty excited myself. And relieved.
Today was a fantastic day. After dropping Maple off for her morning at Miss Sarah's, I headed in to teach class. And I do not know if it was my post yesterday or what, but we had a bigger class this morning than we have had all session. We continued to work with the themes of cultivating faith and asking for help and worked toward hanumanasana. Everyone did very well. A few folks are working with some injuries and they just did a great job of really working the actions and doing their best. That is such an intense pose and really such a good example of every drop in the bucket counting. That is one thing that John emphasized over and over again when we were in Boston. How much every effort counts. And that it is really in the darkness that all the seeds of our efforts grow. So really, everyone did very well.
At one point I did ask one woman how it was going and she said "it just hurts". When I asked for more clarification, she essentially repeated the same sentiment. I worked her and the rest of the class through the actions again, and I am pretty sure if I had asked her again she would have given the same reply. (She did however try using blocks on her next attempt and I think that that did make a pretty big difference, at least mentally.) I really want us to get clear on this, because in my mind, if "it just hurts", I am not going to do it. No way. I really do not see the point. (This might shed some light on why it is my husband that is the competitive cyclist and I am the yogin.) However, that said, in my mind there is a very big difference between something hurting or even being painful, and something being so intense that it takes every scrap of my will (and we are really talking about the mind here) to stay with it. But at this point, I also have enough experience to know that when something is really genuinely intense like that, my sticking with it is actually going to result in the opening (transformation, burst of energy, movement of Shakti, revelation: call it what you want) that I am really after to begin with. Hmmh, sounds a little like child birth. Which, for those of us into natural birth is really an apt analogy. That is a different post however, and possibly one that will emerge in the coming months...
This weekend, the lovely ladies in Madison are hosting Noah Maze for a weekend workshop. Very exciting. Not only is Noah one of my favorite people, he also recently became a papa and I have not seen him since. It looks like quite a few folks from Viroqua are headed down for a good chunk of the weekend. He is doing a therapuetics session on Friday afternoon which I am sad to miss but am very happy that some folks from here will be attending. I will be there all day Saturday. Hope to see you there!