The Autumnal Equinox and balance!
It is the Autumnal Equinox tomorrow on Wednesday (23rd) meaning that we have a balance of day and night (light and dark), one of only two times this happens in a year. So to celebrate and to help us ground with all the spacey/mental vata autumnal energy going on, we balanced and balanced and balanced at yoga last night. And I ran out of time to read a quote...
...This quote in fact from the favourite Cyndi Lee (and I am a teeny weeny bit excited about the fact I am on a workshop in London with her and Vicki soon, yey!)...
"Falling is simply part of the process of learning to balance. Every baby knows this. If they stopped trying every time they fell, none of us would be walking today. Being on balance and falling are two sides of the same coin. The way to experience a balanced life includes falling, dusting ourselves off, looking at what we learned from the experience, and getting back on the program. My teacher, Gehlek Rimpoche, explains it this way:
"How does spiritual development grow within a person? It is not going to suddenly hit you. It only works this way - you go and go and fall and get up and move and go and fall. Fall down on your face, get up, clean it up, remove, wash it, put your dust off, go and fall down. Doesn't matter, get up, go. Falling down doesn't matter, get up; fall down - that doesn't matter, get up again. Get up a hundred thousand times. That is what it is really. Nobody is perfect. Nobody can do it right from the beginning. Everybody, including Buddha, went that way: fall down, get up, fall down, get up. And that is what we should do. And if when fallen down twice or three times, you say, "Ah, forget about it," it is worse; that is really bad, very bad. That is shutting down your own development, totally shutting it, like shutting the door. Fall, get up, move, fall, get up, move! Everybody does, it doesn't matter, don't feel bad, but feel happy about it, go ahead. That is how people move, otherwise everybody should be Buddha from the beginning. No nobody is. So don't even worry when you fall down; it doesn't matter, but make sure you get up! That is very important. If you fall down and sit there, you remain there. Make sure you get up. That's what it is".
Enjoy falling, it's your most valuable tool for learning balancing poses. When you fall you learn about how much effort to use, how to stack your bones, how to use your visual focus, how to ride on the movement of your breath...The actual pose is not going to get you through your day but the composure, equanimity, balance, and patience that arises from standing on the threshold of every moment will".
So embrace the falling, the highs and lows, they are all part of the journey. And enjoy the Equinox and ground, ground, ground!
x
