True Savasana
Savasana is the sweet medicine for which we practice asana.
It is the high note, the deep silence, the resting valley at the end of the turning and the twisting, the rising and the grounding.
It is this that we are actually seeking. That symphony of silence within. The one that pervades the cells and the senses simultaneously.
As a Tantra meditation teacher and a yoga guide who draws from the wisdom of Sufism and the Tao, I have found that the moment we can drop body, bones, blood and flesh onto a resting place and let breath become the vehicle for all our nuances, a deep healing sets into the mind, body and spirit.
When we reach that state, past all movement, when we can simply lie and rest and just let breath do it’s work as we inhale it deeper into the flesh, the fascia and the muscles, an alchemical change arises in that state of just being.
The magic however lies in the truth that Tantra taught me. Which is that sometimes even that restful state does not mean stillness. In fact, stillness is a term that continues to obfuscate the yogis’ mind. For stillness is but a breath long. But simply resting means simply being. Being there in all your wholeness, in your halfness, in your completeness and your incompleteness. It’s like walking into a garden where everything grows. A wild garden full of the sweet scent of potent roses and wild thorns. And that is the all embracing beauty of the life of a yogi. It is the brokenness and the togetherness and the fuller moments and those that are completely lost. It is bringing all of yourself into your bones and acknowledging yourself from that deep place within.
We have to turn to the new rhetoric of not feeling shame for what we encounter in that space. We have to recognize where we are pushing against, resisting and not accepting, for the path of the traveler is full of highs and lows. Nobody’s perfect and we are all a work in progress. There is nothing to hide from. And this fragility that is our human-ness is what makes us the dynamic creatures that we are. This human-ness that has brought so many gifts despite or perhaps, because of the difficult days and the many wrong turns in life.
So the next time you go into the doorway of Savasana, welcome all your gifts, all your treasures of happiness and sorrow, the discomfort and the beauty. Welcome them all and let them rest with you.
