Surprise!

“Close your eyes.” 

That phrase can be a response to something we don’t want to see—often some act of violence or its after-effects. But “close your eyes” can also be what someone says to you when they are about to give you a nice surprise. In yoga, closing our eyes is usually the first step to practicing pratyahara—the yoga discipline of tuning out the outside world and turning the gaze inward. Pratyahara can provide both a relief from the busy and often turbulent world around us as well as a way of becoming more in tune with ourselves—how am I feeling in my body at this particular moment? What is the quality of my breath right now? What thoughts are going through my mind? But the relief that we can experience by entering into that place of stillness, quiet, and the inward gaze, is never the ultimate point of yoga but rather a first step. For we come to yoga not just for solace (though it can give us that) but for renewal and connection to our full selves. And it is from that place of increased awareness and connection that we are better able to engage with the world around us in light, gentleness, and generosity of spirit. Just what the world seems to need more of at the moment. What a lovely surprise