Autumn is a time of transition and I have enjoyed reflecting on this in the world and all of our lives and how we approach change.
The whole world is made up of permanence and impermanence, or the ever changing and the never changing and reflection on this can be very revealing. Perhaps consider what aspect of yourself feels like it is in a process of change and transition at the moment. It could be ideology, home, relationship, career, season, identity, frame of thought or your studies…. Then maybe hold this in mind as we reflect further
Though we are always in a process of change we often skip the transition period and want to move quickly to the next “apparent” fixed aspect of our lives. Wonderful Nature has provided us with natural transition periods so we can arrive balanced and more prepared when we meet the various stops in our lives … crawling before walking, adolescence before adulthood, pregnancy before birth. There is a wonderful analogy with the seasons: spring before summer; autumn before winter …the transition months have a beautiful quality of letting go and shedding plus the impulse of energy to grow. We need these transition periods to prepare … if we suddenly get a heatwave in April we feel ill-prepared and out of balance. However, “out of season” events also keep us on our toes and can help us forge a way to a new season. For example, Covid and Black Lives Matter can be seen as events for which we were not given a true transition period, but where we had to leap forward and adapt anyway without good preparation.
In life we can often want to rush to the next fixed event and miss out the transition … the exam, solving a problem, arrival at our train destination. Transitions are nowhere near as rewarding for the ego as arriving and completing something. The transition process means we have to meet face to face our ignorance, the discomfort of not knowing, confusion in our minds. This is a beneficial process of learning and a place we have to process in order to grow – it should not be be rushed or avoided.
Transitions in yoga are much the same and can be used as a reflection to learn so much about ourselves. We are comfortable in a posture, aligned well and confident – the bones absorb our weight and the muscles are used to the pose. We are then asked to move to the next posture which may be unknown to us … how do we feel? Are we reluctant? do we hang around as long as possible or do we rush to get to the next one quickly? Moving slowly through transitions is more demanding mentally and physically as it forces us to face our confusion, inability perhaps, wobbles and maybe our darkness. Ultimately this journey is necessary if we are to meet the true nature of ourselves and reality.
Our next blocks of yoga sessions on Tuesdays 10am (online) and Thursdays 5.50pm (in the garden if the weather allows) will incorporate looking at transition in ourselves as well as working on alignment, core strength and some new yoga flows. As always I will also weave the ancient wisdom of yoga philosophy into our classes.