In case you haven’t noticed, Christmas is just around the corner. Should you need a reminder at any point in the next couple of weeks, you can spend about 30 seconds with my son whose birthday is just days after Christmas. To say this is a big month for him and that he is excited would be an understatement.
I will say that there’s nothing like being around a child, especially during the holiday season, to reignite your sense of wonder and amazement. Children have an incredible curiosity about and get such delight in exploring themselves and the world around them, even what we might consider with our adult minds to be most mundane. This makes sense because for them everything is new. For us, well, our lives get full, our minds get busy, and we take everyday things like gravity and physical movements (just two things which seem to be particularly interesting to young children) for granted. But a baby, for example, is fascinated by the subtle movements of her own hand. To her, watching it is like magic… and it kind of is! Flash forward just a few years, and my almost four-year-old is amazed by the strength of his legs and his ability to bend his knees deeply and then jump, catapulting his body through space.
Children remind us that physical movement is an exploration and a celebration of what our bodies can do, and not punishment for what we ate, nor an opportunity to practice aggression toward ourselves or grow our shame. Movement is an exploration, celebration, and expression of you and your truth, and if you like, also your prayer of gratitude.
“My body is the altar and the poses are my prayers.” — B.K.S. Iyengar
How might you move through your yoga asana practice or even your whole day if you were to move in this way? Can you soften to that sense of wonder that lives within you? Tap into your spirit of play. Cultivate a feeling of curiosity, and then follow that curiosity. You just might stumble upon joy and amazement, as well.
“…slowing down and opening up allows us to enter a state of wonderment and humility in the face of the vastness of creation. This state is one of worship, a silent and embodied worship that is not necessarily shaped by specific ritual. Rather it is shaped by our intention and our willingness to understand on a profound level our small place in the Universe. This embodied worship allows our kinship with all beings and all of nature to become more than just apparent to our conscious mind. This kinship is now lived from our very cells.” — Judith Hanson Lasater, Living Your Yoga
Krystal Barschig 