Good things

Sometimes good things happen while you weren’t waiting for them.

I saw the full moon as I walked home from work, so clear and crisp in the dark winter sky. I had a funny thought: it’s the same moon I’ve always seen, all my life. Some part of me, I think, feels like every time the moon is full, it’s a new iteration. When in fact, there she is—shining like new, but still the same old eternal moon that I’ve always gazed at. She surprises, and she endures.

I got home very, very tired. I put some squash in the oven to roast, and I ran a bath. I listened to a very beautiful sad album while I was in the bath because that’s what I needed to do and it felt good and also sad and also right. There are ways of welcoming grief, when it signals its arrival. I lay down with crystals in the dark with candles after that and cried and did some breathwork and said some full moon prayers. I noticed through releasing that everything started to feel very simple and quiet again.

I came into the kitchen and took my squash out of the oven. It was perfectly done and completely delicious. It was such a sweet surprise. I knew I’d put it in the oven, but somehow wasn’t expecting it to be so good and perfect and just what I wanted and needed.

This made excellent good sense to me. This, to me, is like practice. The practice of yoga, the practice of meditation, the practice of looking after yourself in any way you know how, through teachings and curiosity and accident and coincidence and anything else that lands on your path.

A lot of the time, practice can feel like practice. Like… like sitting down on the meditation cushion because it’s that time of day and that’s just what you do. Like one of the Warrior postures on the mat because you know this strong, standing pose is what you need, even if you don’t feel all that vibrant at the time. Practice. Practice.

But your efforts are going somewhere.

I remember being on a retreat, this time last year. I met a friend there who had been through heartbreak and was still in quite a lot of pain, but was putting in the effort to practice and to try to help himself as best he could. I remember saying, as we stood by the river in the cold, “None of it goes to waste. All of it will help you. We just don’t know exactly how, right now.”

The late yoga guru Sri Pattabhi Jois said, “Do your practice and all is coming.”

And this is what I am thinking about, as I eat my roast squash.

Put the food in the oven. Be kind to yourself. Practice the things you have a feeling are good for you, even if you’re not feeling much at all. Rest. Let things happen. All is coming.