Heart-center

Heart-Center

my yoga practice seems to provide some larger lessons lately, and right now it's two particular poses that have expressed something important for me to remember and incorporate more frequently in my life. Both of these postures have the same issue of heart centered balance and the grace of trust and letting go. There is a tendency of leading with my head with Standing Bow pose as well as with Warrior Three and almost instantly I find myself moving a little to quickly in my lean forward, unable to establish a true, sure, sense of balance and power, falling from position and having to restart the pose. Yet when I remember to lean forward from the heart-center, trusting in the intuitive wisdom of my body's natural grace and desire for balance - I enter both postures with assurance and ease, fully expressing the power of my heart throughout every aspect of each pose. 

it's a beautiful thing to happen. 

my life is often lived through the mind, thinking and then rethinking again certain issue until I lead with a head centered posture of expectations that seldom meet my true goals and wishes. Or sometimes it's an impulsive thought turned to action that immediately leaves me far from my starting intent, off balanced, and unsure of my stance. It's not that thinking is wrong here, planning is important and needed for its follow through. But there is wisdom throughout the body, an intuitive balance not to be ignored. The lesson for me is to listen to the whole expression of the body, hearing my heart-center's gentle urging to lean forward with a sense of love, trust, and ease. I ignore this to my own peril, it's a quick lesson of an immediate fall from the grace of my original position. 

the heart-center is sometimes mistaken as a sentimental expression of love and the imaginative romance of paperback novels, not to be trusted in its whimsy. Yet the heart is a true center of power and wisdom, a place within the body telling of real love and the deep intimacy and romance that life offers. Listening to it's voice, and I hear my heart urging me to lean more fully into life, embracing uncertainly and risk of a fall for the grace and beauty of a living from a place of love, defying gravity with the trust, balance and poise of my surrender. 

 a posture of faith. 

and also it's a repeated lesson it seems, relearned with every practice, and never truly perfected. Yet each time I fall from either of these postures there is the immediate feedback from my heart-center reminding me of its power, asking me to trust once more and commit myself to leaning forward, living beyond the grip of either failure or fall. 

it's the lesson that these postures offer. 

~

Peace, Eric