LOVE THURSDAY
Cindy Maddera
Today is one of those days where I've spent a lot of time thinking about what I'd write for a Love Thursday entry. Usually when I'm stumped, I go scroll through images hoping to find inspiration in the daily pictures I take. The easy choice for today would be the picture I took of my scooter this week. The weather has been lovely here and Michael and I have both ridden our scooters to work multiple days this week. Signs of Spring. I expect to see the tulips popping up out of the ground any day now. All of those are easy topics of love and I could probably use a little bit of easy this week. My days at work have been full and at times, slightly hectic. All of us are adjusting to the time change and you can feel the tension in the air from missing an hour or two of sleep.
While my days have been complicated, my evenings have been simple. The menu for the week consisted of familiar dishes with simple ingredients and preparations. There might be an episode of House of Cards or some other show we've saved on the DVR that we decide to watch while eating dinner. Then we put the leash on Josephine and we tug her up the street. Sometimes she pulls. There was an incident the other day with a goose that required some holding. Geese are terrifying. We make it about two blocks before Josephine plops down and says "If you're not going to let me bite on every single leaf, I'm not walking any further." So we go home and play tug-of-war with the new toy fox. Michael and I may spend a few more quiet moments on the couch before we get ready for bed. I don't even open my laptop.
Samatva is Sanskrit for balance. There was a time when I taught people that their yoga practice should balance your daily life. That in fact, every aspect of your practice should be about balance. I don't mean the standing on one foot kind of balancing. I'm talking about whole body balancing. Back bends countered with child's pose. Boat pose countered with table top. You get the idea. I always talked about how eventually you find that your practice walks right off the mat and just becomes an extension of your daily life. It's the day you realize you're standing in Tadasana while in the check-out line at the grocery store. Even though I know all of this to be true, I am still surprised when I see it happening in my own daily life. This week has been a perfect example of samatva. It's quite possible that this is true for most weeks. I just had my eyes open to it this week.
Happy Love Thursday.