I enrolled in a 300-hour yoga teacher training in October as part of my keep-busy-while-I-figure-out-my-life program. I’ve spent the last eight months bending and stretching in physical and non-physical ways that I didn’t know were possible. I’ve learned a lot about the truth and how its expressed in the body. I’ve learned a lot about my tendency to procrastinate. Its now midnight two days before my final weekend of yoga teacher training and I find myself up to my eye balls in sheets of paper that I’m supposed to have been steadily filling out, writing out the alignments, contraindications, benefits and more for seventy-five poses in detail. I have left myself with forty-seven more to go in less than forty-eight hours. Brilliant. As I sit here, further procrastinating on the work that I could have done months ago, I recall something I wrote at the outset of my training. And I recall that as much as I stress, procrastinate, beat myself up, angst, distract myself, and multitask, I will never “get it done.” When I say “it” I mean it in the grander sense of the word. Yes, I will most likely cross a few million things off my to-do list in this lifetime. But the constant striving to “get it done” is more or less for naught. Because it will never be done. Here’s what I wrote back in September. Maybe I’m just trying to let myself off the hook for not having done my homework, but I think there’s some great spiritual truth in here. Or at least I hope so.

Here I am on day two of this 12-week Gaiam Yoga Club series. Standing Poses Video: check! I skipped two days in between the first videos which are supposed to be done sequentially in one day —too busy —priorities not straight —who really knows why but I keep reminding myself that my timing is perfect and if I can’t seem to carve out 5 minutes in a day to do a yoga video then it’s a growth opportunity! Thank you Colleen for reminding us to come to this gently and not to make it just another thing we need to do. It’s an honor, a treat, a privelege —aaah, now that feels much better.

So I’m doing the second video on Tadasana and I’m giggling with Rodney and Colleen as I spread my pinky toe and press down on my big toe mound and try to figure out how the heck I’m supposed to lengthen my inner heal —another growth opportunity —for now I hope that visualizing it is enough. So there we are —Tadasana. Tadaah! And then Colleen says there’s no pose. It’s all movement. It’s a dance. And I burst into tears! What?! The sheer reminder that there is never an end point —we are never done —it’s all movement —it’s a dance. I can dance in yoga. It’s all movement. I can dance in my life. It’s all movement. I’ll never be done. I’ll never be “there”. There is no pose.

I’m a dancer. I’ve danced all my life and been in class since I was three years old. I’m a very physically capable person and I catch on in dance class, yoga class, and any class fairly quickly. So I approached the Tadasana video with: “I’ve done this before, this is easy” as my attitude. How hard can it be to stand, right? Ooops, my mindbodyspirit had another thing in store for me this morning. Paying attention to the simplest 
”pose” and being fully in my body and standing like a vessel and listening to myself and to Colleen —it all allowed me to hear her say those words: “There is no pose. It’s all movement. It’s a dance.” And being in that place of clear, relaxed, power, where I had let my brain go (as suggested), allowed me to feel into a place of remembering that there is no pose. I will never be done. It’s all movement. Being done is not the point. There is no endpoint. Just be here now. Stand in Tadasana and cry. Let yourself dance it tiny micro movements. Let yourself never be done. Let yourself be.