Date: 2012-04-29
To: Goal 3....Yoga
Miles today: 0.0

I awoke this morning, only 3 days before my journey begins, refreshed and ready to put down in writing more of what I hope to gain from my A.T. hike. I'm appreciating a large mug of real coffee and realize it's one of the last I'll enjoy for quite a long time. And since it's helping to clear the last of the cobwebs, I'm ready to tackle goal number three.I have for the past 16 months been studying rather regularly at Dragonfly Wellness Studio in Cape May Court House NJ and believe it has help to breathe life into these old bones. For years I have been drawn to yoga and tried it a few times, but it wasn't until finally going there that I found a "space" that has for me felt like a homecoming. I knew instantly that yoga was going to be a major part of my life and that it would always remain so.   It was not so much the physical space that Amanda has created there, though it is more than lovely. It's what she facilitates in her yoga and massage studio that has been miraculous in pulling me back from the precipice of decrepitude. I walked in thinking of myself as over the hill and was struggling to come to terms with that. And now I am on the brink of departing for the adventure of a lifetime and believe very strongly that yoga has helped make me ready both physically and mentally. I still struggle with the effects of aging process but much less so. Instead of focusing on how to become more comfortable with being "old" my energy is directed by the realization that I don't ever have to be OLD if I don't want to. That shift has been transformative both in my physical body and in how I approach my life.   And so now, if I am to continue practicing I'll need to tranition from an almost exclusively studio-based practice to an almost exclusively outdoor based practice. I've been inspired by the many yoga videos I've watched as they are often filmed with a backdrop of a sunset or on mats in wind blown fields. I want to wake up each morning and stretch myself awake, paying attention to and addressing the effects the hike is having on my body, both the pain and the gain. I want to remember that I'm in no hurry and that the journey is the goal. I want to stop when beauty moves me to and stretch myself into it and feel myself a part of it. I wish to move through a vinyasa and then lay splayed out a boulder or even rock overhang and take shavasana. There is so much to be said for entering a class, the dynamics of the relationships between teacher and student/s and allowing oneself to be guided by her knowledge and intuition. But now it's time to take what I've learned there out into the natural world and to allow the energy of the spring greening as it unfolds around me to guide me through moves and poses. I will miss the structure of organized classes and think I would benefit from occassionally touching base with one. And so I'm outreaching to online forums and to anyone who might read this: I would like to stop in trail towns along the way and take a class. If you know of an ongoing class that I could drop into I would appreciate hearing from you so that I can try to work that into my days. I think it would be way cool to experience different classes, teachers, styles and venues. I would have to be able to get to the classes, logistically speaking...so that would be a consideration as would the fact that I'm traveling with a dog.