Words & Wordless

In Savasana today there was a pool of light in the back of my ribcage, at least those are the words that might describe what felt like a shape shifting coagulation of energy and peace, pooling below my floating heart. My shoulder blades finally melted away and allowed my breath to soften my brain. There were no words. None.

Funny that when I teach yoga I seem to embody my language and words come out for my students to use. These words often drift out of my own muscles or from deep behind someplace where they rise up in my breath. Sometimes when I take class as a student, the words are nearly inaudible to me, as though they represent an energy transfer that is taking place through the sequence of events and my own breath in the space with the breath of others. When my teacher mind is present, I might think “oh that was a lovely word,” but by the time I release into the asana, that mind is gone and so is that word.

And then there are times when my mind is full of language. Words are not objects, not the thoughts themselves, not the feelings. Symbols, icons, scratchings on the stones, my words sometimes are drool, sometimes are the momentary fragrance of a ripe strawberry, sometimes just mud on my shovel.

I suppose I will live my whole life in a tug-of-war between words and wordlessness. I am grateful that I continue to find myself on all sides of that. Each part of the tug has its possibilities.