The Daily Ritual

Life happens in the margins. It happens in the spaces between spaces. Life is things you do while you wait for activities to begin. It is the daily ritual of coffee in the morning and tea/whiskey before bed.

Have you ever stopped to think about the form and function of your routine? We are not only the things we do, but occasionally our habits tell us secrets about ourselves — the selves we think we show no one else. There is so much specialness in the ordinary. 

In my life, I don't associate the physical with any more than what it shows me to be. The world is filled with wonder and grace just as it is. As I turned the page from teenager to adult, I lost some of that for a while. 

Yoga has helped me to find some of that specialness in life that many consider spiritual. The ritual of breath, the crest of a pose that then flows into another, the rest that seals the practice. It is the pieces that make the whole.

I hear in class, and I often say in class, notice what you notice. Yoga is part learning about the observer, the slice of you that is separate from doer — the one that watches. As the observer, I see the sacredness of the transition, the pause, the routine.