During the puja celebration to honor the reopening of Pacific Ashtanga Yoga Shala at its new location in Dana Point earlier this month, Director and Lead Instructor Diana Christinson presented each participating member of her ashtanga yoga community with a red thread. This red thread is known as a kalava and is used in Hindu ceremonies (or pujas) as a symbol of unity for a community--in this case, the community of ashtangis who practice with Diana at her shala. When Diana presented these threads to us, she asked us to set an intention for ourselves and to commit ourselves to manifesting that intention in our lives. When we were ready, we were instructed to return with our kalava and share with her in a simple private ceremony the intention we had set for ourselves. Diana, then, would tie this thread around our wrists where it would remain as a symbol of what we were ready to welcome into our lives.
For me, this puja thread is now a reminder of the following vow I have set for myself as a daily practice: To take my place at the table. This thread has come to represent both sacrifice and, if not complete liberation, then a genuine sense of it as in and so it begins.
I will be married 22 years in October, and it occurs to me that I have been actively engaged in the raising of children during all of that time. Adjusting to married life included from the start the even larger adjustment to immediate parenthood, which in my case meant step-parenthood. That role, I have learned, demands an ever-evolving sense of adjustment and accommodation. It helps to have a fluid notion with regard to perspective because a step-parent has to juggle multiples of them. And all of the time. Then, when most women my age were celebrating an end to their years of raising small children, my youngest daughter was born.
Did I know how much sacrifice was involved in raising children? Do any of us really know before we embark upon the paths we choose for ourselves how much our lives will change? Not to mention all of the detours that come along unbidden. What would be the point of knowing, really? To take up a path means that we agree to be participants of the journey. Our participation guarantees that we will be changed by the experience. And while we might not welcome everything that happens to us with equal parts grace and determination, it would be dull, indeed, to have events unfold in the way we think they should. How would we find our courage? Where would we discover the voice we never knew was ours all along?
It felt suffocating sometimes, the stark, unrelenting, repetitious nature of parenting. I spent too many years feeling as though my life had been hijacked by the needs of everyone else. Even my husband's ex-wife's desires and complaints and needs seemed to trump mine. At times, I hardly recognized the person I'd become, or worse, I did, and I didn't like myself very much for allowing it to happen. I often found myself inhabiting a space that felt left over after everyone else had taken what they needed. I remember often asking my mother who raised six children how she had coped. How had she tended to all of our needs while biding her time until she could tend to her own. Her response was always some version of I just didn't think about it.
Maybe that is a blessing. Maybe that is the trick of completely embracing the task at hand. We simply do what needs to be done, and we do not compound the work of it by placing upon it unrealistic expectations of how it should be different. I often ask myself now, was her way in the end really easier or harder? Is it better not to entertain thoughts about what we're giving up? Or is it better to acknowledge the sacrifice and make peace with it, accepting that one day there will be time again for something new.
If the Dalai Lama is right, and making ourselves happy is as important to the ultimate equation as making others happy, then I think we have to acknowledge the sacrifice we make as mothers when raising children if for no other reason than to guard against some down-the-road bitterness when our children have outgrown us and our sense of time returns. Otherwise, we might fail to recognize time all over again as a gift. We might miss the fact that we have opportunities still for transformation.
If maintaining a comfortable seat is the aim of asana, then, first, we must lay claim to it. We deserve a seat at the table we set for our lives how ever often the assignment of that seating changes. This red thread on my wrist is a reminder to me that I belong at that table, that I have permission to take a seat at many tables. There is a place for both my presence and my voice--each made all the more rich by all that I have lived.
For me, this puja thread is now a reminder of the following vow I have set for myself as a daily practice: To take my place at the table. This thread has come to represent both sacrifice and, if not complete liberation, then a genuine sense of it as in and so it begins.
I will be married 22 years in October, and it occurs to me that I have been actively engaged in the raising of children during all of that time. Adjusting to married life included from the start the even larger adjustment to immediate parenthood, which in my case meant step-parenthood. That role, I have learned, demands an ever-evolving sense of adjustment and accommodation. It helps to have a fluid notion with regard to perspective because a step-parent has to juggle multiples of them. And all of the time. Then, when most women my age were celebrating an end to their years of raising small children, my youngest daughter was born.
Did I know how much sacrifice was involved in raising children? Do any of us really know before we embark upon the paths we choose for ourselves how much our lives will change? Not to mention all of the detours that come along unbidden. What would be the point of knowing, really? To take up a path means that we agree to be participants of the journey. Our participation guarantees that we will be changed by the experience. And while we might not welcome everything that happens to us with equal parts grace and determination, it would be dull, indeed, to have events unfold in the way we think they should. How would we find our courage? Where would we discover the voice we never knew was ours all along?
It felt suffocating sometimes, the stark, unrelenting, repetitious nature of parenting. I spent too many years feeling as though my life had been hijacked by the needs of everyone else. Even my husband's ex-wife's desires and complaints and needs seemed to trump mine. At times, I hardly recognized the person I'd become, or worse, I did, and I didn't like myself very much for allowing it to happen. I often found myself inhabiting a space that felt left over after everyone else had taken what they needed. I remember often asking my mother who raised six children how she had coped. How had she tended to all of our needs while biding her time until she could tend to her own. Her response was always some version of I just didn't think about it.
Maybe that is a blessing. Maybe that is the trick of completely embracing the task at hand. We simply do what needs to be done, and we do not compound the work of it by placing upon it unrealistic expectations of how it should be different. I often ask myself now, was her way in the end really easier or harder? Is it better not to entertain thoughts about what we're giving up? Or is it better to acknowledge the sacrifice and make peace with it, accepting that one day there will be time again for something new.
If the Dalai Lama is right, and making ourselves happy is as important to the ultimate equation as making others happy, then I think we have to acknowledge the sacrifice we make as mothers when raising children if for no other reason than to guard against some down-the-road bitterness when our children have outgrown us and our sense of time returns. Otherwise, we might fail to recognize time all over again as a gift. We might miss the fact that we have opportunities still for transformation.
If maintaining a comfortable seat is the aim of asana, then, first, we must lay claim to it. We deserve a seat at the table we set for our lives how ever often the assignment of that seating changes. This red thread on my wrist is a reminder to me that I belong at that table, that I have permission to take a seat at many tables. There is a place for both my presence and my voice--each made all the more rich by all that I have lived.
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