No one teaches yoga to a flower.
Learn bending from her stem,
the supple power of green
no hurricane can crush.
Breathe from the seed.
Without a sequence or routine,
your body is a river of postures
flowing toward the ocean of repose.
The zephyr of this breath
rests like a feather on your belly.
After so many years of practice, can you
give up formal poses and just move
to the rhythm of begonias in October?
Rooted as a weathered oak, can you sway
with seasons of in-pouring and out-pouring,
ligaments softening in the void,
a starry wheel rolling out of your chest,
the axis of the galaxy
poised between your nipples?
Can you dance with the Beloved,
even when you are alone,
your backbone Kali’s wand,
your pelvis her boat, laden
with its cargo of moonbeams,
and let a serpent pierce your heart?
The mind does not survive her thunderbolt of silence.
All that remains is the flesh.
You wander in the wilderness at midnight.
You trust in the candle of breathing,
stepping softly
into the next lit pool of faith.
Your eyes tell beads of gratitude,
pearled on a wordless tendril
of exhalation,
and the fierce name of your Mother
protects you from the shadows of false light.
Dear one, there are intricate
miracles of attention
woven into the quivering sinews
of your heart, each nerve threaded
to a certain ache of sweetness
in the meadows and the woods.
Keep it soft, like the mystery
of gristle in a baby’s crown.
That is the door you leave by,
made whole by lost drops.
Be a connoisseur of tears.
From your sacrum to your fontanelle,
a hollow nerve of liquid lightning hums.
Follow it Om to your toes.
It’s your own dance now.
No more instructions.
The sutras are your bones.
No do's and don'ts in your body,
but majestic spirals of molten stillness
swelling from caverns of marrow.
Micro-movements inventing themselves.
No one teaches yoga to a flower.
Breathe from the seed.
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