I have my laptop open on the bed facing me and the closet doors at just the right distance so Natalie can see me from head to toe.
We need to readjust the placement of the laptop or mat every week as it’s hard to find the exact spot for the laptop on the Queen sized bed that’s always rumpled.
My cell phone, tissues, and eyeglasses go in the grandchildren’s dollhouse that’s sat untouched by little hands for months. Natalie has me start on the floor, sitting on my turquoise mat with red Indian flowers to do small movements that will ease and warm up the joints.
Don’t tell Natalie, please. I hate beginning like this. No slumping or your back curving, legs folded and crossed in front. My hip joints are my Achilles heel, and this is the hardest yoga pose for me.
With the Zoom miracle of this extraordinary Covid-19 reality, I am able to continue my once-a-week live yoga class in the privacy and aloneness of my house, though not wearing my glasses renders me blind. Flat Natalie on the laptop six feet away is a wash of black or red depending on today’s bodysuit or mat color. So I rely on sound. “Don’t anticipate. Wait for it!” she snaps. A lesson in patience and letting go.
After a sequence of stretches on the floor, legs raised against the wall, use of blocks and straps for correct alignment, we move to standing flowing movements that force me to breathe more fully, more deeply—a relief from the largely static days at my desk.
We begin with Mountain Pose
grounding feet on the mat
legs hip distance apart
tummy pulled up and in supporting the spine
the skeleton realigns
arms down at my sides, hands facing out
I lift my chest and upper torso
back of the neck is long and light
a slight arching backwards
that I feel on the muscles of my back
what a pleasure to discover muscles on my back lifting and arching
Natalie directs me to lift my arms in Exalted Mountain Pose
then collapse gently from my hips into a fold
letting my back hang down loosely over my legs
head down
shaking it “yes”
motioning “no”
releasing the stresses of the day
releasing all the words
Then hinging up into a flat back
“like an ironing board” or “a tray for tea and crumptets”
and unfolding into Mountain Pose again.
We move into a sun salutation sequence, balance poses.
Now it’s time for Savasana or Corpse Pose.
Natalie leads me into a squat and I release my back into the mat. She waits until I lay my thinly folded blanket under my head and cup it around like a nest, as she would do tenderly in person, Pre-Covid. “I’m your yoga-maid,” she’d say when she’d tuck the blanket over and under my toes on chilly winter days.
Natalie’s voice drops. She leads me gently into the relaxation. Her voice drowns in Zoom static, breaking like a tide rolling in and collapsing in pockets of rocks, hissing, and receding. I’ve learned to accept the drowning electronic sounds. I imagine I’m lying on the sand by the Pacific Ocean of my childhood. I let the sounds wash over me.
Thoughts slide off my body. My breathing is deep. If there’s pain in my life, the tears will come.
Ten minutes later, I will sit up slowly and stand. Calm. Floating on air.
Yoga definition: to bind or to yoke. A discipline developed in India over thousands of years, yoga aims for a union of body, mind, and spirit.
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SPANISH PHRASE OF THE DAY:
YOGA– La unión de cuerpo, mente, y alma mediante la práctica de asanas, la respiración, y la meditación
YOGA – The union of body, mind, and spirit by way of a series of physical practices, breathing, and meditation