“If at any point you get tired you can rest in child’s pose whenever you like, for as long as you like.”

That’s the phrase I hear every time I go to my local yoga class. I hardly ever take a child’s pose, but sometimes having the option is all you need. Sometimes we don’t just need a break from our day or our practice, but what we really need is a break from ourselves.

The question then becomes, how do we manage?

During the Diamond Jubilee in London, I kept asking myself whether the Queen takes a break from herself and rests in child’s pose too? After all, being the Queen is a great privilege, but a great duty and limitation to your personality as well. I imagined the crown laying heavy on the head of the royal that rests in child’s pose.

How about yourself? Do you manage to take a break from yourself, or do you remain trapped in your own habits, ambitions or lack thereof? In other words, have you ever rated yourself restricted (R) while resting in child’s pose?

To me, resting in child’s pose without the heavy burden of your thoughts blocking your experience is the ultimate privilege. I am grateful every time I get there.

Esther Geis is a self-taught visual artist mostly  working in the media of oil paintings.  Her works express  a philosophy of “joyful complexity”, a counter-philosophy to the ideas of the era of enlightenment. Instead of trying to grasp the world through categories and classifications Esther’s works aim to express the need to see uncertainty, nuance, context, non-linearity as well as unexpected extreme events (black swans). She grew up in Hamburg, Germany. She completed a full education in law in Berlin (1&2 State exam) and holds a Masters degree in law from the University of Glasgow. Having spent many years with law she finally found her true calling in art and moved to the United States to marry the love of her life and pursue her dream of becoming an artist. Esther lives and works in London together with her husband Francisco. Her works are in private collections in the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain.

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Editor: Maja Despot

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Art by Esther Geis