One day to float on the ceiling

"People travel to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering."

-- St. Augustine

July 30, 2003

Dear Patty,

A group of us were in the hallway at the gym awaiting the start of our class when a well-known Cape Girardeau personage walked through, a bit winded from a workout. Recognizing a few people, he asked what we were waiting for.

"Yoga," someone said. He looked startled, perhaps by the new realization that he knows people who do yoga. He is not one who searches for words, but at that moment didn't seem to know what to say. He attempted a half-serious joke.

"You aren't going to be floating around on the ceiling, are you?" he asked.

No we assured him, no ceiling floating for us.

At least not on Tuesdays. That's on Thursday.

Even now that yoga has become fashionable, misunderstandings about what it is are not surprising.

Many years ago, I went to a Zen meditation retreat where the priest had us sit on a cushion and stare ahead at nothing for 30 minutes at a time. It seemed like hours and gave me a headache. "If you think there's something more to it there isn't," he said. To me he sounded almost apologetic.

There are many different kinds of yoga, especially since the West got hold of it. Some people prefer to do yoga in a superheated room. Some use the Sanskrit terms for the poses. I like the simple descriptive ones: Mountain, tree, downward facing dog, happy baby.

I don't know the differences between the different types of yoga. I do know yoga allows me to settle into myself. It gives me nothing less than control of my mind. In order to do the poses, I cannot be thinking about what I'm going to be doing next week, tonight, an hour from now or in five minutes. I can try to think about those things and I do. The mind is always looking for new playthings. It seeks distraction.

But the nature of yoga is to bring the mind back to whatever the body is doing.

Stilling the mind through yoga or meditation or prayer, the true you emerges. It seems located more in the direction of the heart than in the head. This true you can be found at what T.S. Eliot called "the still point of the turning world." It is the state Sufi whirling dervishes seek, the center of their own being.

"There is a place where words are born of silence," the mystic poet Rumi writes. "A place where the whispers of the heart arise." Rumi founded the whirling dervish sect of Sufism.

Many of us sit in our offices before computer screens for eight-hour stretches, come home and sit some more in front of the television for another three or four hours. It is deadening. Our bodies are crying out to be included in the dance of life.

Stretching the muscles, tensing them and releasing them, feels good. Breathing deeply feels good. Focusing the mind on a single simple thing, on this moment that can't be held onto, reminds you how to be alive.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.