Seasons Change

It’s still springtime, but the past few days certainly have felt like summer. Hot, humid and filled with pool parties and barbecues.

The change of seasons is a time of transition. We’re suddenly wearing our flip flops instead of our boots. The winter blankets come off the bed, the air conditioners go into the windows. We stop putting layers on the baby – just a onsie will do.

These times of seasonal transition can be startling, even disorienting. But they also offer us opportunities to refresh, rejuvenate, and let go. We can shed the things we no longer need and open ourselves to what the new season has to offer. A new season enlivens us, recharges us, and gets our creative juices going.

Like the change in seasons, every time we come to the yoga mat is an opportunity to cleanse, reflect, invigorate, and start anew. Especially during  times of transition, yoga can help us find our balance in an otherwise topsy turvy climate.

Milestones

Last week some big milestones occurred for three of the most important ladies in my life.

Gia turned 2. I look at her and marveled, “wasn’t she just a newborn?”

My sister  turned 40. I went out to celebrate with her and her with her best girlfriends and we laughed and carried on like teenagers. I looked at her and wondered, “weren’t we just little kids? How are we here?”

My mom turned 64. She laughed as she recalled being in college and hearing the Beatles song, “When I’m 64” when it first came out. She said that 64 felt a million lifetimes away.

And here we are.

Time moves on, that’s one thing that’s guaranteed in this life. As new mamas, we want nothing more than to hold on to every precious moment, every special stage. But, no matter how hard we try, we can’t stop time. But, we can learn to be more present, taking in each moment as it comes.

Yoga helps us quiet the mind and focus wholly on the present. Yoga helps us connect with what is happening right now, what we are feeling right now, what we are doing right now. In essence, it helps us live in the moment. When we experience this sense of presence on our yoga mats, little by little we begin to experience it outside in our worlds. If we can do this, then we don’t miss a thing, and every moment we are exactly where we are meant to be.

Tree

For mother’s day, my family gave me a lovely gift: a mural to be painted in Gia’s room. We haven’t decided exactly what we are going to create, but the first image that came to mind was a tree.

Time and again, the tree image has been a source of inspiration for me. I wear a “tree of life” engraved on a necklace; I chose the location for my wedding because of a path of cedar trees that connects two gardens on the property. I have the fondest memories of playing under an enormous weeping willow as a child. I brought my mother to visit that tree years later and told her she was going to be a grandmother.

I love the woods. Trees draw me in.

In my therapy practice, I often use a tree metaphor with clients who are learning to change the way the react to the circumstances of their lives. I talk about learning to be like a tree, firmly rooted and steady, but able to sway and bend with a storm.

In my yoga classes, I often include tree pose, and talk about this very metaphor. How can playing with balance and standing steady, but ready to bend, help is in our approach to life?

A tree is at once strong and beautiful, inviting yet demanding of reverence, powerful yet soft, steady yet bendable. It changes, it grows, it gives, and it takes only what it needs. As mothers, we need to embody these very same dualities. These very same qualities. So we come to yoga, we breath, and we practice tree.

Finding the Om in Mom

Like many babies, the first thing Gia called me was “Mama”.  Sweet, precious word.

A while later, it became “Mommy”. Sweet, precious word.

Very recently, she’s taken to sometimes calling me “Mom.” There’s something so grown up about it, and I’m just not sure I’m ready for that! But, ready or not, here we are. I’m having to face the word ‘mom’.

What have I found when I really look at it?  Well what do you know!  I’ve found om. (Just take away the first m, and there it is!) 

Om is said to be the vibration of all of the sounds in the universe. Om is chanted in yoga classes to connect us to that vibration, and to connect us to one another. Om is chanted to center us, to quiet the mind, to bring us into the moment, to ease the heart, to lift the spirit.

As new mamas, and then as new “moms”, who couldn’t use a little Om?? Who couldn’t use a little centering, a little quieting, a little lifting?

I like to think that on Wednesdays, in Mama and Baby Yoga, Om is the collective vibrations of all of the moms in the universe, sharing this universal experience called motherhood and lifting each other up.

Come find the Om in Mom.