“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
- William Blake
Every inhale is an invitation to experience fullness. Each full moon is a moment to see fullness. For every posture we hold and try to perfect, expansion and contraction of the breath dare to disrupt that stability. I may never perfect a certain pose, but that’s not the point - I’ve discovered that the point is to embody the fullness of where I am in that pose.
Women have a special privilege: we get to echo cycles of filling and emptying. We are small oceans, dancing like tides. Through feminine biology, menstruation and pregnancy give us the chance to be our own personal moon and surf the waves of high and low energy, and outer and inner life.
In her book Yoni Shakti, Uma Dinsmore-Tuli talks about how the cycles in a woman’s life - menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause - prepare her to deal with change and transformation. It sounds so simple, but it really hit home for me when I thought of times that I don’t feel wonderful, for instance, right before my period. I often get caught in a mental state where I think those feelings will last forever; it doesn’t make sense, but I get wrapped up in it and have a hard time remembering what it is like to feel good and energetic again.
I’ve come to realize that part of that discomfort at the end of my cycle is how I hold fullness. What is it that is filling me up at that time and why am I so often uncomfortable containing it? Sometimes I fill up on stress and anxiety and only during the second half of my cycle does it become apparent that I’m just now slowing down enough to realize that I’m holding onto unhealthy thoughts, habits, and patterns.
These days there is a movement towards connecting with menstruation as a spiritual practice. Sound strange? Sometimes it’s hard to feel any sacredness in something that brings pain, discomfort, and inconvenience. The good news is, this is a chance to practice tapas, that yogic principle that encourages us to accept discomfort as a helping hand toward mental and emotional purification. Not quite the same as the idiom, “No pain, no gain.” Think more along the lines of wondering whether something is actually painful, or just seems painful because you resist it.
When I feel tired, grumpy, or crampy just before or during my cycle, I now know that it’s my body’s call for rest. I don’t resent the discomfort if I see it as a sort of enforced meditation time. It’s sort of akin to someone finally realizing the value of savasana at the end of the yoga class. Before, I would I find my mind stewing in the belief that I would feel crappy forever. But what goes up must come down...and then go back up again! When I hit that low, I remind myself ‘hold infinity in the palm of my hand, and eternity in an hour,’ as Mr. Blake once wrote. I know busy yoga mamas often don’t have an hour to feel that expansive high that comes with a long yoga session, so let’s aim to hold eternity in a minute.
P.S. the video is not super clear throughout….but let’s take this as a cue to practice with eyes closed to bring the attention inward.