My Body Is My Temple

We're in week five of yoga school and my spiritual practice is growing. I'm consciously making an effort to follow the Yamas and Niyamas as best as I can. That said, I haven't completely changed my life 180 degrees. More like baby steps. I've been eating less meat, consuming quite a bit less alcohol, meditating a little bit, doing my best to stick to a daily morning yoga and mantra practice, and overall, feeling much more grounded, strong, and stable than ever before.

Mainly, my perspective on life has started to skew. I'm putting much less importance on material goods and societal expectations and placing more importance on making sure life is filled with more sat-cit-ananda, not only for myself, but for my loved ones. I recently found myself encouraging my husband to follow the path that is luminous for him (painting) and to put a cap on that which isn't (selling shoes)—even if it's what pays some of the bills. Something in me has moved past the fear of him jumping head first into his dream.

But back to consumption and spirituality. There is no doubt that our bodies really are our temples. If praying in a church creates peace within and gets one closer to God, than moving in my body is the equivalent. Happiness, for me, comes from feeling strong and efficient, physically. Essentially, it's freedom. And that freedom can be emotionally moving to the point of feeling humbled and connected to something bigger than, well, me. Try climbing a mountain and getting to the summit and not feeling anything at all. It's impossible. You probably feel tired from exertion. But you are also proud of completing the feat you set out to do and in awe of the view or the cliff or the trees or the sky. Whatever it is you feel, it's real and raw and is in direct correlation with the universe because you are responding to the natural world.

Fuel is what got you there, and thus, what you feed your vessel (i.e. body) with is important. Not only will a clean diet create physical efficiency, it also aids in mental clarity. While I have yet to experience any deep revelations in meditation yet, I can imagine they're more tangible with a sharp and focused mind.

Photo by Lululemon Athletica

If you attend a yoga class, you've probably heard your teacher say, "roll your heart open to the sky." Maybe I've been too focused on the fitness aspects of yoga, but it's finally hitting me that all of this heart opening isn't just physical instruction to move your body in a certain direction or the actual anatomy of what's happening (like your heart pumping thoroughly in Camel Pose). Our yoga instructors are reminding us to open our hearts to the world, in spiritual and energetic ways. All of those heart openers (wheel, camel, bridge, triangle, extended side angle) not only move the blood more freely through our veins, but also make us more sensitive, emotionally aware and available to the people and places and things we touch, hear, see, and feel.

I've known for a long time that it's important to take care of my body—but I always felt a level of detachment that I wasn't even aware of until now. Now I know I must also be kind to my body in the same way I am kind to my soul. Because there's no better avenue for accessing my soul and filling it with the good stuff than through my body.

What Is Yoga?

Up until now, yoga was a series of poses I did once or twice per week in a studio with a teacher. Sometimes it involved energetic music or hard-determined focus or bouts of misbalance or crescendoing violins moving me to tears in savasana. It was a mix of physical challenge and physical heaven. But no matter how my practice went, I always left feeling a level of emotional fulfillment I can rarely drum up during a mountain bike ride or a grueling run.

Photo by d. norwood

We've only been studying the philosophy behind yoga for a week now, but it's already changed my understanding of the term immensely. It's no longer just a fitness class at a gym. It's a lifestyle. A lifestyle rooted deeply in ancient texts, words, routines, and beliefs. Yoga, or "yoking," is the act of aligning oneself with the ideals that make up this ancient tradition. Those ideals include not only physical practice, but mindfulness of others, ourselves, and the planet; honesty, compassion, peacefulness, and acceptance of equality among living beings; quieting the mind during meditation; breathing prana, the vital life force that moves on the breath, into the body; finding the contentment in times of challenge; and becoming attuned to the natural world in a way that roots us, as humans, deeply in it in the same way that are ancestors were, regardless of modern society outside the door. The beautiful thing is that all of the above does live within each of us, we just have to call it forth.

The goal is to yoke, like an ox, to the above ideals until one is so centered within them that he or she is aligned with the eternal, or the greater power of the universe. I envision that enlightenment as returning to our natural state—a state that we, as mostly misaligned human beings, have trouble tapping into because it's buried so deeply in our subconscious. Living within the yogic tradition gives us the ability to reach within ourselves and unspool the threads of eternal bliss until, perhaps one day, we reach the actual spool.

"Yoking," while referring to the harness that keeps two working animals in line, also reminds me of the golden center of an egg. If the goal is to get back to the most natural state through alignment, than wouldn't an egg yolk be synonymous? It's pure, perfect as nature intended it to be, unable to get sidetracked as humans can be, nourishes, ignites growth, and is a natural center for life.

In class, a good yoga teacher has the ability to make his or her students recognize the eternal light that lives within each of us. And that's why we often leave feeling a little bit lighter, purer, more joyful. Yoga, for me, will continue to be a physical practice. I'll still waver in balance,  go deeper, bounce a little when Jay-Z's Empire State comes on and tear up after camel pose, but now I understand why. Because yoga is grounded in spirituality. Now I have the knowledge to embrace that side of it too. And, while a full yogic practice may not be for everyone, I'm grateful that it can continue to touch the hearts of students with pangs of fulfillment like crescendoing violins.

Well, hello there.

Hi there. It's me. Ali. It's been a few years since I've posted. After I launched my wedding planning business, Barnwood + Birch, I started a wedding-specific blog here. I coordinated a couple of gorgeous weddings, and then I got promoted at my full-time job (I'm an editor at a national magazine), and voila, all extra time went out the window.

But, now, I'm back. It's funny how, even when you don't blog, life moves full steam ahead.

The blogging bug has been creeping up inside me for a while and I finally found a good excuse to let it wriggle it's way out. I'm taking a 200-hour Vinyasa yoga teacher training at Body in Santa Fe, NM, and am feeling completely inspired to create, feel joy, savor each moment, and harness these feelings into a richer life.

In honor of keeping a regular blog, I decided Almost Crunchy needed a facelift. I hope you like it.

So, throughout my training I'll be blogging. Probably too much about yoga. But, I'll be blogging. And hopefully that will put me back into a regular routine of writing.

And seeing all of you more often. XOXO.