It was perhaps because it was the most moonless night of the year–the last absent moon of winter–when absence and darkness reveal the plenum of potentiality, that I was able to see (and photograph with a phone) some of the stars recognized as the constellation Orion, despite the lights of the city.
When I was coming downstairs in my building today, I overheard someone say to her colleague, “she said it wasn’t yoga; it was a core workout.”
I didn’t hear anything else. I wonder whether it was the teacher, a student, or an observer who was the “she” being quoted. I wonder what the person I heard speaking and what the person she quoted meant by yoga.
As for the “core workout,”I’m pretty sure, based on the location of the conversation–stairwell in a Federal office building–that by “core workout” it meant a class in the gym focused on toning and strengthening abdominal muscles.
In contemplating this snippet of conversation, I decided that yoga is the best core workout I know, if by core we mean center or essential–the very heart of being. What is yoga other than practicing and applying certain techniques to try and better live and act from the core of our being? Toned abs, if we get them, are just a bonus.
The elevator I rode to my fifth floor office this morning was very full. Several of the people in the elevator were wearing visitor badges. As I walked on, I heard a woman say to a colleague, “…if you get a good one, they can do amazing things. I had a frozen shoulder, and it was just incredible the change from the physical therapist. I highly recommend [don’t remember the name].” Her colleague, who evidently had extremely limited range of motion and a limp from something with his hip, said, “that would be great, but I don’t have time for something like physical therapy.” They got off (slowly) on a lower floor, leaving me and someone I know who works on my floor.
“He obviously does not want to heal or change if he doesn’t have time for physical therapy for something that is debilitating,” I said. “He would vehemently deny it, if you told him that,” replied my co-worker. The reality is that if we want to change or heal or grow, we have to make an intention and then stick with it. Whether it is healing an injury through therapeutic yoga and/or physical therapy or a more internal shift sought through yoga, we must be steady and committed to our intention.
