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Tuesday Off.

Wednesday 4:30 with Amy

Wednesday's class was solid, and fairly typical of recent classes. My knee felt pretty good, but I still had to skip a set of Triangle and Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee.

Once again, I got a compliment in Standing Separate Leg Stretching. I still don't come close to getting my head to the floor, and I haven't noticed any progress in this pose, at least not in how far I go. Sometimes, I feel a better stretch in my inner thighs, and that's what it felt like in this class. I guess my form is improving here, and I can only have faith that that will lead to a deeper, better pose someday.

The day 246 meditation is about connection, and how breath leads to feeling the necessary connection. It makes a distinction between being present, and "right action as it is definced by our lif philosophy." According to Gates, the end or goal is to connect the moment to this philosophy. As the opening quote puts it, we need "to see both the forest and the tree."

As I see it, this is one of those overview meditations. I don't disagree with anything said here, but I don't have any substantial experience that fully relates to this sort of end. For me, its still pretty much aspirational.

Moving on to the day 247 meditation. (I need to catch up some, because I'm going to posture clinic both days this weekend, and I expect to have loads to think about and write about from those sessions.) Here, Gates talks about seeing his face in every face. He's talking about universal love, having the feeling that every living thing is family. In this meditation, he doesn't draw a distinction between a forest or a crowd.

This one comes a bit closer to home. Practice has made me more open to others, at least much of the time. This is one of the things that came totally unexpected, and its one of the best things about the practice. I can't go so far as to say that I see my face in trees, but I think I at least see the direction that Gates is heading in, or the point of his metaphor. But that assumes that it is a metaphor, and I can't say with certainty that that is the way Gate's means it. Rather, it is the best way for me to understand it right now. In a few years, maybe I will think differently?