boketto
“If we put our little masked self out there, the horror is that other people might accept and end up making love to it, while we starve and die of neglect behind it. It’s much richer to interact genuinely with the world. ”
What is yoga? He asks.
You have to do the practice to find out. I say.
What is yoga to you? He replies. Stubborn.
Why do you want to know? I tap dance around shape edges.
I’m curious. I want to know why you give your time away.
It feeds my Spirit.
What is Spirit?
The light that connects us.
Why do you care?
I want to illuminate Beauty, Hope, Truth.
There is no one truth.
I’ve felt it.
You cannot heal people. You cannot save anyone.
I can be a symbol of devotion, an emblem of What Could Be.
You dream too much. That isn’t real.
None of this is real.
Your philosophy makes no sense. What is yoga? He begs.
Come with me and you’ll find out.
The wanderer seeks without fully actualizing what they desire. Energetically landing took a ten-hour trip through the subconscious (dream state), big cry on a white rug, oil of oregano under the tongue, oatmeal with trail mix packed by Clara, placing Ganesha on the window sill, and a long walk in the woods. My nose has been bleeding since arrival. I’m rooted in the dense scent of butterscotch trees and dry earth.
I attend my first yoga class in Flagstaff. Warrior Flow 1/2. Several photos of maps guided me to the studio. Leave earlier than you need to, Macey cautions. The train that cuts across town comes every fifteen minutes. I arrive twenty minutes early and sip ginger tea on the long wooden bench to watch the practitioners arrive. A girl in a white crop top and jeans mops the floors. Music blares from a bar across the street. I take note of the iPads on the walls with purple signs: Student Sign In. As people arrive, they choose their names on the device and check themselves off. Efficient, I think.
Northern Arizona Yoga Center is off of San Francisco Street. I purchased a New Member Month’s Pass for sixty-five dollars. I can attend as many classes as I want and get access to the climbing gym. The studio is nestled in a bustling area with restaurants, bars, and boutiques. There are yoga classes designed specifically for rock climbers. The studio presents wooden floors and ceiling fans. High arches and colourful tile mosaics decorate the walls and windows. Buddhist prayer flags wave from the doorways, which are propped open. An open concept seating area welcomes with tea and a bulletin board with upcoming events. It’s a young and springy crowd.
A woman in a green tank with matching nails and silver rings walks in and sits next to me. She takes in the scene with a similar eager and fastidious attentiveness to myself. Her blond hair is pulled back in a high ponytail. She wears black pants and leather sandals—her eyes sparkle. We take off our shoes simultaneously and make eye contact, bumping our subtle bodies to break the stormy silence.
Do you know if we leave our bags out here? She holds my gaze.
I have no idea! It’s my first time.
Me too. I’m new to Arizona.
Me too. I arrived yesterday.
Oh! I’ve been here three weeks. Where are you from?
Vancouver, Canada. You?
Mohab, Utah.
You’re so tan; your skin is lovely.
Thanks, I just got back from biking Sedona. It’s beautiful. You have to go.
We carry on like old friends, placing our mats in the center of the studio, positioning our yoga blocks on either side and tucking our bags along the corner of the wide room. A man strides in with dark hair and a thick mustache. He plugs his phone in at the front and takes off his shirt. Our teacher. He walks the room, introducing himself and asking our names. My new friend is called Josie. Students arrive and put their mats behind us. Josie and I discuss work, literature, dance, and the desert as the room fills. I discover that she trained in ballet and shoots film under Desert Analog.
The room falls silent. All eyes are on Josie and I. Just chatting away, as my dear friend back home would say. My heart aches.
We’ve just met. I hear myself say. I’m new here, and so is Josie. My defence for being so loud and at the front of the room when class is about to start.
The teacher smiles, and I decide I like his energy.
Class is acute and amorphous. It is and it is not what I anticipated. The sequence is linear and Ashtanga-based. The teacher, Adam, paces the room and verbally provides adjustments. Josie points her toes and extends her fingertips as a dancer would. We open the class with pilates core and backbends. Sun Salutations and a simple flow with more lunges and warriors follow. I sweat through my baggy tank and relish the rolling thunder in my body.
At the precise moment I decide the class lacks spirit and is more fitness-based than I care for; Adam tells us to close our eyes. Feel the shapes from the ground up, he says. Allow yourself to express each pose through memory. Go inward to discover what you need. You can continue with the same sequence or add to it as you like.
We are left alone, baited through body and breath. I close my eyes. The room disappears. I luxuriate through each sensation. I feel Josie next to me, and my heart leaps up up up. I have arrived. The walls drop away. Adam’s careful pacing around the room dissolves. I sense the rhythms of those around me and connect to the subtle realm where we each breathe and break open.
The simplicity of synchronicity is a sheer delight to me, the unison through unique and distinct movement. I taste the heat in the room. I drink up the storm. Tension dissipates and I feel it: the Spirit. Language, location, and length of time drop away with every exhale. In the dark, I feed my soul. I take little sips of the light around me.
Class unwinds with twists, inner thigh stretching, and folds.
Adam does not teach the same sequence every week. He smiles. Thanks for coming! I will be back, I say.
Out the door with Josie, and we smell the same. Our desire is aligned for a moment.
There’s a bar across the street?
Do you have time for a cocktail?
I do.
We decide to be desert friends over mezcal cocktails with prickly pear syrup. We exchange Natal charts, phone numbers, love stories, Instagram handles, and hugs. We recognize a woman sitting at the bar from the yoga class and wave her over. A moody Capricorn, I enjoy her company immediately. Her boyfriend, CJ, is the bartender, and he joins us for dinner and a drink. He serves me a peppercorn cocktail he learned how to make from a man who lived in Brazil. An engineer with an infinite interest in philosophy, we discuss the haptic brain, meditation, psychedelics, wandering the road alone, breaking habits, and How We Instigate Change In The World.
Josie and I make eye contact: subtle body bump.
Time to go?
Yes. It’s time.
We bid adieu to the group and leave together. Once outside, she promises to text me after her weekend trip camping with her friend. Not her boyfriend; a man she feels strongly for though they are both in relatioships. Monogamous. She worries over her affection: is it because I don’t have him?
Wear the crop top is the parting advice I give my new friend. Dress for the Goddess, as Clara would say; words from her friend, Cindy. Goddess Cindy, we call her. As the words leave my mouth I feel a tenderness for the people who share my predilection for poetry. I dust myself in gold eyeliner and French perfume. For the Goddess.
Wear the crop top; dress for the goddess. Is what I say. Join our circle, is what I mean. We part under a crescent moon with promises to meet again.
As midnight calls, I fly home under a sonata of stars.
Photo source unknown.
