This morning, in the studio,
a pink sliver from another’s yoga mat
sits before me.
The teacher begins the class
with a reminder to find one’s Drishti,
to hold us in place
and simultaneously allow us to move freely.
This piece of lightness will be mine
and I, simultaneously, accept my role
as its.
The first pose is on our backs.
I close my eyes and roll my bent knees
around its happy color.
I wonder whose mat it was from –
likely a woman’s.
By the time I finish chastising myself for
unconscious gender bias,
we are in our second high plank, my struggling
breaths causing the bit of nothing to shiver.
The Drishti is your anchor, the yoga teacher says.
How can a party-colored slice of rubber anchor
my body, my crazed mind,
when six years of intensive psycho-dynamic
therapy have failed?
Whenever you lose your focus, show yourself
compassion, the teacher comforts.
Simply reconnect, no judgment.
In tree pose I really need the support, and
my Drishti is there,
tiny as a seed, as essential.
I lift my branches to the sun,
to the universe’s vastness.
Rising out of final resting pose,
mind darkened,
I bow to the light within me,
my teacher, fellow practitioners and,
of course, the Drishti –
not mine, not the male or
female whose mat it originally came from,
the hot pink point around which we all
orbit.
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Editor: Travis May
Photo: Wiki Commons
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