Tending to Our Gardens

I planted a garden. I have two sprouts to tend to. I water and feed them. Sometimes I even tell them funny stories. Talking to sprouts is a good way to help them grow, you know. I lost my wedding ring one day. I was so focussed on the sprouts that I didn't notice for a while. When I finally noticed the white band on my tanned ring finger, I sat on my honches and contemplated the situation. Finding the ring was going to take careful comsideration. So I plotted out the area of the garden around my two little sprouts and carefully tilled the soil. I had thought the soil to be poor until I started digging in deep. Under the top soil, I found the black gold that nurtures the roots of my precious sprouts. Down there, in the dark soil, I found my ring. I washed it off with water from the hose. The sun winked at me with a sparkle in the diamond. Tomorrow I will wear my gloves. This is a story I have had travelling in my mind for a few days. Sometimes while I am doing my yoga class, I am writing stories in the air. I know, I know, be present. When I turn off my ego brain, the stories just fill the space. Today was one of those days. I had the most interesting class at Solar Yoga. It was unusually packed by all women. My guess is several of them were moms like me and celebrating our last Friday to enjoy the 90 minute class before our mornings are filled with children and swim lessons for the 84 days of summer vacation. The class was all women. Women of all ages from twenty to mid-sixties. When the instructor came in, she exclaimed, "Do you guys feel that intense feminine vibration?". Well, yes. The class turned out so cool as we worked through lunar postures, and Miss Yogi talked candidly about the difference of men and women and how they deal with challenges. Of course, there was quite the upside down chuckle as we hung in down dog for what seemed like ten minutes and Miss Yogi smilingly says, "See what I mean, if I asked you right now how you feel, you would say everything was fine, just fine. But, in your head you would be cursing me out while you are praying for someone else to be the first one to collapse into child's pose.". And, then we moved into reclined piegon which we held for, like, an hour. Okay, not really. After 83 minutes of sweating and flowing together and one last happy baby, we lied in corpse pose exhausted. A sweet tune about receiving love filled the room. We breathed in one, two, three. Out one, two, three. In one, two, three. Out one, two, three. Tears mingled quietly with the sweat at my temples. There was a sigh. Together, we roll over on our right sides, eyes closed, push with our left arms, and raise to a seated position. I chose half lotus. In one, two, three. Out one, two, three. "Namaste.". That is when I saw them. I saw the husbands, the kids, the mothers and fathers. I saw the pains and the joyful burdens. I saw the laundry and the dead mouse in the garage. All of that, all of their THAT, floated away in a mist of a cloud. As the mats began to scrap along the ground into their little rolls, I opened my eyes and looked over at the woman just in front of me to the right. Her eyes brimmed with tears too. Wow, what a moment. Now, the trick is allowing that to last forever. Oh yes, that is the true challnege. Staying with the power of the present. We, this room full of sweating women of all ages, had joined together, practiced together. We did it for ourselves, together. And when it was all done, after the ego talk that told us we couldn't hold the d*mn piegon for one more freaking second, we released the burdens as easily as a birthday candle dwindles while everyone sings off key. There is some interesting dynamics when a bunch of women get together. Though we may tend to our gardens alone, there is always someone in the next planter box tending to their sprouts or searching for a ring. We are all just here muddling along. When we can see the present for its simplicity of being where we are now, then our garden becomes a neat little planter box with fertile soil instead of a field of boulders. Our sprouts like that.