As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I have recently (and some might say FINALLY) discovered yoga. There is a long story in the road which has brought me to this point–one which I’m sure will eventually be told on these pages–but today I’ll just keep it fairly short and say that Maxfield’s is little over a block away from Laughing Lotus, a wonderful yoga studio which also has a NYC location. Many of the teachers, students, managers and employees of this studio are regular customers at my shop, and after many encouragements (and several free passes) were given to me over a lengthy period of time, a few months ago I ultimately caved to the gentle pressure and attended a class.
Laughing Lotus, I quickly learned, has a delightful practice of assigning a different theme to its classes every month. I find it no coincidence that the month I began attending classes, the theme was “meditation”–I was, at the that time, also reading this great book on Zen, as well as giving serious contemplation to the idea of what constitutes a “moving meditation”–little did I know at the time, but I would soon realize that yoga is, indeed, exactly the moving meditation I needed. It’s both physically challenging and demanding (if you want it to be, which of course I do), while simultaneously being mind-emptying (an incredibly difficult feat in my personal experience) and spirit-engaging. In short, it provides the complete mind-body-spirit alignment (like dancing and sex, when they’re both done right): my ultimate sweet spot.
This month’s theme is “Mudras,” which are (to crib from the Merriam-Webster dictionary) “the symbolic hand gestures used in religious ceremonies and dances of India and in yoga.” When you see statues of Buddha or the Hindu deities, and their hands are in those various gestures like prayer or the “OK” position or whatnot, those are examples of mudras. You could call them “basic hand yoga for beginners” and that would be fairly accurate, although of course I’m also being reductive. Anyway, in class yesterday the instructor began by showing us “The Mudra of Unshakeable Trust”:
As you can see, the essence of this mudra is simply placing one’s hands over one’s heart. The simple elegance of what this gesture signifies when combined with its name was something which struck me like a dorje (sorry, I couldn’t resist the play on Sanskrit words; that means thunderbolt)…basically this mudra is telling you to trust your heart.
What really thrills and amazes me about physically performing this mudra is that every time I do it, I have a distinct and noticeable physical response: my posture straightens. My mind calms. Most thrillingly, though, I actually feel my heart opening, pouring out its energy of love and light…however hippie-dippy and ridiculous that may sound to some readers, I am writing this as a precise description of a physical feeling I experience every single time I fold my hands over my heart in this manner. At the very least, and to be less flowery and spiritual about it, I feel an expansiveness and radiance in the center of my chest, where my fingers interlace.
Go ahead, try it…I’m curious to see what others experience when they do this. Interlace your fingers with your thumbs pointing upwards, and then place your palms on your chest, with your thumb-tips resting just under your collar bones. Breath in, breath out.
How do you feel?
I’ll leave you with that, for today. Tomorrow–unless something more pressing or immediate springs to mind–I’ll give a little more backstory on what has led me to this present moment and the wonderful little gesture I shared with you today.
Namaste…