Sangha

Things change when there's nowhere to retreat to, no place to back up inside of and clean yourself off. People don't get much of a chance to pretty themselves up here, emotionally. Every day, you work, eat, live, and sleep in community. You delve into the joy and pain and confusion of practice, surrounded by, and held in the space of intentional community. The edge of that, the sharp corners and grace-filled embraces, has forever changed how I think of yoga.
The other night, I heard a quote: "9 out of 10 people quit yoga, because it's working." I've known that yoga shifts paradigms; it has to. If one is burning away illusions, and truly connecting to one's true soul self, the day-to-day of life is not going to harmoniously and effortlessly flow. There is going to be struggle and pain; transformation is powerful. The piece I never really dug into during my sweet imaginings was how - exactly - this might look with other people in my life, every one of them wholeheartedly engaged in their own struggle and joy-filled journeys.
It's hard and messy, scary and confusing. It's also precious and healing, and has animated my hopefulness around how a journey inward can radiate light out into the world. Brene Brown has said that one "cannot selectively numb experience." In an attempt to blunt the edges of painful sensation, we've cooled our reception to joy as well.  Perhaps there is another way, a way we can learn to breathe it all in. Together.

Truth's Illumination - by Danna Faulds

One glowing flame can

light a hundred candles,

and then a hundred times

a hundred more. I pray to

be such a flame, my illusions

giving fuel to what is real.

Light recognizes light,

and leaps to meet it.

May this sweet contagion

increase until light prevails,

and we all live in the

glow of truth’s illumination.