At first it was a bit like moving through muck. No, correction it was like looking at a house that desperately needed cleaning when you don't feel like cleaning.

I'd been back from La Palma six months and I hadn't done any Yoga. I watched my body go from Jubilant, to just ok, to sore and achy, to my body being mad at me, to some sort of rigid fixed form and then finally settle down into full on depressed. That took about 2 months.

As soon as Portland's weather "FINALLY" started looking like summer, I guess my body warmed up enough, loosened up enough, to feel like doing Yoga.

I finally did some simple stretches on my living room floor. It was amazing feeling long unstretched muscles slowly come back to life with new oxygen, new attention but the entire time I was awash in my feelings. I could feel the troubles of the day and more, all of the things that I had been putting off dealing with, putting off thinking about come flooding over me. It was enough to put me off of doing more Yoga for another 2 weeks. Then I moved. My new apartment is connected to a park. Its warm outside and I am literally 10 steps to a huge park. I had to acknowledge that I was depressed and to paraphrase an old hippie 'Just Yoga through it.'

I've been back to the park two or three times now. Each time I would go and stretch it would be a lesser version of the same. All of my pent up feelings would come flooding over me as I worked my way through Sun Salutations or held Warrior 1 but by my second time in the park, I began to notice that things were getting easier. Where the time in my old apartment and my first time in the park were marked by "moving through" my old, stale emotions, this time I was through them by the end of sun salutations and the rest of my practise was (relatively) clear.

I've come from the park again just now. As I practice I am aware of the upset state of my mind and body. The surface of my personal lake is definitely ruffled, making it difficult to see clearly. Still through my practice I am able to gain some distance and some perspective on my emotional state. I am able to see that I am not my emotions but that they do color my perception of the world. I am able to see, that if I simply keep doing yoga things will continue to get better, clearer.

I think that's pretty awesome.

With Love,

Raja Afrika