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The first urdhva dhanurasana is now similar to what used to be my fifth or ninth or twelfth. Easy, light, open. How wonderful. Not magical, but the product of patient progress.

How did this happen?

Finally, finally, I understand that if I keep doing this very same practice for the rest of my life, it will be an endlessly revealing and satisfying practice.

I wonder a little about where I would be today if I had kept at the first third of intermediate. Maybe “further” along. But at what expense? I am finding urdhva dhanurasana a remarkably complex and interesting project. And now, finally, a comforting project. A clarifying project.

I used to want to GET to intermediate, to GET the first third of the series in my pocket.

Today, I want to keep exploring backbends. Because I am becoming light in them, and loving them. They used to be about what I could get, and now they’re about what I can give over.

It’s definitely squared away my will, which remains, but not as selfishness.

The tightness, the fighting, is past. A new territory is opened up, and I have no idea what it is.

Not knowing is most intimate.

***

Chatted for a while with My Gift last night. She is struggling with weight gain. She’s still small by most people’s standards, but ten pounds heavier than last year.

It really bothers me that she is feeling down about this. Body image struggles take such enormous amounts of energy and cause so much pain.

Need to think about how I can help her keep some perspective.