Immersed

I went this weekend to the yoga immersion in MD and came back feeling just that... IMMERSED. as i was driving home on sunday night i had the image of a wet towel needing a good wringing out. sometimes when i go to these things it's as if i dive into the deep end of the pool and stay underwater there until the absolute last moment, then come back up for a breath. this weekend was like that. funny because it didn't seem like anything much was happening until then i'm driving home and i feel like the entire world has opened up to me.
i think that's why i love yoga so much. yoga says the whole of the world and spirit and everything is completely yours. just remember that and live there and enjoy it as much as possible. (ok, so that last part about enjoying it is more of a Tantric view point, but why would you want to live if you knew life was never fun and always suffering, not much point if you ask me) the weekend was about studying the Yoga Sutras which is the textbook on yoga... many thousand year old textbook. so reading can be a bit heavy but with our great teacher it wasn't heavy but was inspiring. the weekend was full of deep moments surrounded by humor and Grace.
i told max before we left that moses, the teacher, had a kind compassionate touch and funny heart. he never takes himself so seriously that he can't have fun. and it proved true. as soon as he saw me sitting there waiting for the immersion to start, he walked by and tapped me on the head like a puppy dog. that could sound patronizing, but from him it was sweetly endearing and made me feel seen and welcomed. later, on sunday morning he had me and another woman demonstrate a backbending posture that took us SO deep into the pose that our eyes were shining. and he thanked us whole-heartedly for demonstrating because it helped the other students learn so much more. (i SO needed to do that pose and even to demonstrate it and be seen this weekend, to remind myself i still can do it)
then his humor shines through... SO many jokes this weekend. i take my yoga with a light heart, not so seriously, so this was great. Mo would have us working HARD in the poses.... standing on the right foot, left hand on the floor, right hand to the left foot and now twist the uppe rbody to the left and look at the ceiling and smile (we seriously did that this weekend)... it gets to the point that people start swearing. we'd come down and across the room (from more than one person) you'd hear moans and groans and 'Jesus!'... then you'd hear Mo's childish voice saying 'i don't know how many times i have to tell you all, it's not Jesus it's MOSES.' we'd laugh and then the second side of the posture didn't seem so bad. then mind-expanding texts and plenty of seated meditation.
so that was my weekend. and max and sabine survived it even though there was a moment when i think they wanted to give up, they recovered and all are well. this bodes well for my yoga teacher training week in november. bring it on!