Sun Salutations

/ roughwighting
Boston, blizzard, snow, Sudan Licht

Photo thanks to Susan Licht (http://lichtyears.com/)

The outlook is bleak for millions of us as we peer outside our windows. We now live in a gray and white world.

I’m begging for some color. So I go inside to my imagination. Isn’tsnow, birds, New England, blizzard that the place we all should enter, when life becomes too monochromatic?

I want sun, no, I NEED sun like the birds and the bees and all the flowers (not) on the trees… Ah ha, I know what I’ll do.

I stand in the middle of my room in mountain pose, closing my eyes as I prepare for a yogic sun salutation like none I’ve practiced before.

yogahttp://s112.photobucket.com/user/LauraLR198/media/Interests/yoga.jpg.html

I raise my arms in supplication – chanting: SUN.SUN.SUN.SUN.

sunI feel it first. The brilliant warmth of yellow on my face.

As I bend down toward my feet, I imagine the colors of love and hope and faith in the summertime: Pink and Orange and Red and Yellow.

And before I dive into the downdog, the rose light of life appears before me.

sun, sunrise, Kauai

Salute! I intone. TO THE SUN!

Then I bury into a child’s pose and wish upon a mighty star that a rainbow of color will embrace me, carry me through this winter into the possibilities of summer.

Yes, I envision myself, bathed in pinkorangepurpleredandblue.

Sunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.

rainbow, Kauai

I’m transposed into blue light and my thoughts escape like a rainbow. In fact, I become one with the rainbow and the sun and …

…the wind rattles on the window and I plop out of the pose. Another blizzard snatches away my imagination.

forcing tulips, spring, blizzardAll I can do now is force some tulips to bring life into the house, as we peer through the window and salute the victor – WINTER.

My yoga mat, and my imagination, are thrown back into the closet.

 

44 thoughts on “Sun Salutations”

    • I wonder if there’s a record for how many sun salutations have been performed in a day. I keep trying, but so far, not working. Well, they do help me obtain sun in my heart, so maybe they ARE working.

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  2. Spring is on the way to being sprung on you so that you can grow your tulips rather than buy them.I bought some tulips last week also and now the violas are coming out in the garden. bringing a hint of what’s to come.
    I’m wishing your snow away as we speak but unfortunately I can’t do yoghurt to get the sun for you as I’m not your flexible friend.
    xxx Massive Hugs xxx

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    • Oh, I have a feeling you’re much more flexible (minded) than you give yourself credit for. Violas, ah, how romantic and frilly and lovely they sound. Take a photo when they’re up and about and post it on your blog, will you? xoxoxcoldhandwarmhearthugxoxow

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  3. I’d be doing those poses, get part way through and get stuck in a position that I couldn’t get out of till Spring came. Probably not a good thing. Come on Spring, come on Spring…please!

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    • Funny thought, and actually, I have been in a downdog wondering how the heck to get out of it. 🙂 Maybe we should add a mantra to the yoga: comeonspring….comeonspring….comeonspring………..

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    • I have NO DOUBT that we’ll still have those snow piles in May. And then, how will our little daffodils spring out of the ground? Oh boy, now I’m going to worry about them for the next 2 1/2 months. Think my neighbors will consider me a bit bonkers if they see me in late April out in the garden with a blow dryer?

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    • You are more than welcome to come jump in our (8 feet now) snow pile(s). Warning, though. Many people who have tried such a trick have disappeared and never been heard from again. :-0

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  7. No doubt, the sun would look pretty good to folks back east. I have no doubt at all. But one look out your front door makes me want a snow day this Friday. A three-day snowy weekend all cleared up to a Bay Area “fog along the coast” Monday sounds pretty good.

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    • I admit, a blizzard weekend is pretty darn cool. It’s stormy and windy and romantic in a winterized fairyland kind of way. The disturbing part is that it’s all still there on Monday, only not as white and really really hard to walk through. San Francisco fog…? I LOVE it (particularly the fog horns groaning morosely throughout the bay).

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  8. I’m going to go against the grain here and offer up a different perspective 😉 The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence – in this case, quite literally. Our grass here in Florida is become a crusty brown color with the relatively cold temperatures.

    The places we call home – each one is heaven, and each one is hell. For me, I am living in paradise right now – heavenly climate in the sunshine state, for me. And in a couple months I will be questioning my sanity as I feel the 90/90 mix of temperature and humidity, along with the threat of those pesky swirly storms that wreak havoc on coastal America.

    I have to remind myself that each season is an opportunity to appreciate the positives of today and look forward to the hopes of tomorrow. Stay warm, inside and out, the flowers will bloom soon. Until then, allow the budding musings inside flourish 😉

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    • Ohhh, I love your sentiments of heaven and hell at the same place, and to enjoy the present opportunities. Actually, I do try (it’s just the -5 degrees that gets me, and the inability to trudge through 8 feet of…oh, whoops, I’m not being positive). Seriously, when spring suddenly pops forth in early May, it is the most astounding breath-taking experience, and without the stark gray winter, we’d never get to glorify in the re-birth of nature, right in front of our eyes.

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    • Yoga is an incredible mood enhancer. Really! I’m a different person the minute I step away from an hour class. The problem is that during these kinds of winters, I think I need a yoga class about four times a DAY. 🙂

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  11. It’s shades of gray here in Martinez, but not the white, and lacking your cold. Loved your words as they took me into my imagination and colored my morning. For that brief respite I give you credit and thanks. I have found a CD; Easy Yoga for Arthritis. I can do that, but not the other. I’ll do my own “Sun Salutation” for you this morning and I’m sure it will help. Just not in my time (or yours either). It doesn’t work that way. I’ve been there, and now I’m here, and here is better than there.

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    • You are a brilliant poet/philosopher, Chuck, although you may not know it. May I borrow your phrase – “I’ve been there, and now I’m here, and here is better than there” – sometime, giving you credit, of course? That comment gives me all kinds of musings. Enjoy your yoga for arthritis CD – great idea. Just with the breathing and meditative part of yoga, I think you’ll get some benefit. Here’s to brilliant color in your life – you’ve certainly given out a beautiful light to others. xo

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  12. Forget the Keystone pipeline. Let’s build a pipeline from Boston to California.
    You can shovel all that snow into it and by the time it reaches here, it will be melted and ready to nourish the almonds and cherries in the Central Valley.

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    • Wow! I think that is a TERRIFIC idea. Let’s call the governmental engineers – why haven’t the done this yet? My only request is that they add a little pipeline ‘people shoot’ in there, so I can just jump in and speedily ‘pipeline’ from one coast to the other too. :+)

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  16. Ah, but if we didn’t have horrible winters we wouldn’t be able to fully appreciate the spring!

    Also, my dad wouldn’t have fallen over a Christmas tree in an attempt to flag down a plow.

    So I suppose I’m pro-winter. (Printer?) To celebrate my non-yoga-induced state of mind, I shall have cocoa.

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  18. We have a lot of snow here in Ohio right now. It still looks pretty and I haven’t reached the stage where I need some color. I often remind myself to enjoy it. Just when it seems like winter will never end, Spring arrives. It’s one of the things I like best about living in Cincinnati: we have all four seasons and just when you think you can’t stand another minute of one, the next one comes.

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    • Thank you for this encouragement. I need to ‘change my attitude,’ in a way, and soak in the snow season, knowing that nothing stays the same, everything changes, and we’re all better off for it. 🙂

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  19. Yoga, imagination and sharing photos sent some color into my life today! I like to hear people’s routines and mantras, too. So glad you showed us the rainbow photo, did you feel the rays coming into you on this day? This was an incredible photograph. I love tulips and you chose a bright red color to create some color and take away the drab. Spring will come, but it seems like my fingers and toes never are quite warm enough!

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    • My fingers and toes are NEVER warm during the winter, unless a rainbow is beaming down on me! I’m going to add more bulbs to force indoors – maybe it will give the outside world the push to melt the snow and let those crocus push up out of the dirt. xo

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  20. Ah winter, lovely winter, challenging winter! I FEEL for you, Pam. It can be a constant readjustment of attitude, can’t it? But it’s kind of like stretching, like yoga. We stretch to find the enough-ness in our gray world. And the next day we stretch again. And pretty soon we can touch the sun! Ha ha ha. Well, almost. 😉

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    • As I’ve said to you before (via our blogs), YOU inspire me in your house in the woods. You actually find ways to celebrate the spiritual hibernation of winter. I’m working on it…I really am!

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