Sunrise Yoga

I start my daily yoga practice as the night sky is just beginning to lighten. After building up the fire in the wood stove, I roll out my mat and begin. This moment, before the sun has risen and before the day has built its own momentum, is quiet, solitary and full of potential.

I take a few deep breaths and feel my feet settle on the earth. I am grateful to be awake, in my body and fully receptive to this nascent moment. As I move through a sequence of sun salutations, strokes of color begin to travel across the sky. Oranges, pinks, and reds dance across the clouds and sky in a constantly changing splash of color. I pause for a deep breath and a longer look. With a grateful sigh, a smile, and a light heart, I always return to the yoga practice after a minute or two. After all, I am supposed to be exercising.

Eventually, a rogue thought breaks my concentration and my gaze moves to the window again. A pang of surprise and disappointment sweeps through my body. The sun has risen above the horizon and the brilliant display that had filled the sky just moments before is gone. The beauty cast by the interactions between sun, clouds and earth was not only vibrant and awesome, but also fragile and fleeting. This truth takes me by surprise each and every time it presents itself.

This time, as I turn back to the mat, I sigh a little deeper, regret and longing tugging at my heart. The passing sunrise is a not so subtle reminder of the other blessings and losses that have graced my life. But a new moment has arrived and it requires my attention. In the final poses, I sink in with deep intention. Body, mind and heart come together with strength, clarity and integrity. As I move, I hold lightly to the beauty and the loss of this sunrise and countless other tender moments from past and future. Each pose holds only my body, my breath and the universe’s infinite possibility.

After growing up in small towns of New England and Wisconsin, Lisa developed a strong connection to the affirming rhythms of the natural world while working in the mountains and coasts of Alaska and Washington. She currently lives in an aging farmhouse on the coast of Maine with her husband, two teenage sons, and a handful of animals. Lisa is a student in the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine (ChIME)’s Interfaith Ministry program and the author of, Without A Map: A Caregiver’s Journey through the Wilderness of Heart and Mind. Lisa shares reflections regularly at http://lisa.steelemaley.io/