Early Morning Yoga: A Prayer Unfolding

Morning sun pouring in.

I did not sleep well last night. I woke up at 2:30 a.m. and struggled to get back to sleep. Sleep evaded me in all ways. I put on my earbuds and listened to a healing meditation...in the hopes I would eventually fall back to sleep. I did not.

I had slept for five hours so I gave up trying to fall back to sleep and walked downstairs at 4:30 a.m. and started unloading the dishwasher, filling Rosie's water dish, and setting up the coffee to turn on later in the morning when Rick and I could enjoy it together.

Window cleaners were coming at noon and there were items that needed to be cleared away from the windows before they arrived. The window box of succulent plants in the kitchen window and the beautiful suncatchers on the windows also needed to be moved elsewhere.

All was ready for the window cleaners to have easy access to the windows. As I was moving furniture away from the big windows in the family room, I gaze over and see my yoga bench and yoga mat. Always waiting patiently for me. Like a quiet invitation back to myself. Early morning practice carries a different quality than practicing later in the day or in the evening.

The world is quieter. My mind has not yet scattered into the day's to-do list or schedule (other than the window cleaners). Rick and Rosie were still fast asleep and I had the entire main floor of the house to myself. The wood floors remind me of a yoga studio and I do enjoy practicing in this space in front of the windows with the sun and trees just there within view.

My body was tired from tending the garden the day before. My hips felt heavy, my shoulders tight, my spine asking quietly for movement. I did not need a vigorous practice. I needed circulation. Breath. Space between the joints. A gentle remembering inside my own body. Some mornings yoga feels less like exercise and more like listening.

Lighting a candle is a ritual I use to open the sacred space. I roll out my mat onto the wood floor. The middle of my mat is where I sit in an easy seated pose. I close my eyes and begin to practice alternate nostril breathing (nadi shodhana).

Slowly my breath steadied. The noise inside me softened. Something in my nervous system unclenched before the day even began. This type of breathing keeps me balanced, clears my nostrils, increases oxygen flow, and it regulates my nervous system before any stresses of the day start to accumulate.

Practicing in the morning is more challenging because my body has not warmed up yet. But it is quiet and the rest of life has not had a chance to interrupt my practice. It helps me with inner alignment to get on the mat and breathe and gently move.

The hours before dawn have long been considered sacred in many traditions. I believe it to be a threshold time. A time for clarity, meditation, prayer, and subtle awareness arrive softly and have more of our attention. My nervous system is quieter, my thoughts are softer and I can listen deeper within.

The filtered light from the sun shining in the eastern sky pouring through the windows and filtered through the trees out every window on the back of my house is a glorious setting. The light steadies me from above and the earth grounds me naturally from my feet up. Feeling and seeing all of the emerald green radiant energy from the trees, plants, and grasses out the window engages my senses.

As I was sitting and doing a seated twist pose (wringing out what no longer serves) I looked out over my left shoulder and I see the light and shadows from the tree leaves' on the opposite wall behind me.

The filtered light on the walls, the silence before the house wakes, the feeling of becoming steady again after difficult days, the sense that the sunlight and leaves themselves are writing a living calligraphy across my space brings me right to my heart and opens it further.

The trees wrote prayers of light upon my walls this morning. Not static words fixed on a page like my blog posts. But language written in movement: leaf, wind, sunlight, shadow, breath, and time.

A script that changes moment by moment and will never be repeated again. Presence. Yoga brings me to the present moment. When I am present I can notice all of life happening around me.

My 6:00 a.m. practice is not only exercise. It is an orientation. A returning to myself. A way to say, "Before I give myself away to the world, I arrive here on my mat first." Even a short morning practice can shape my emotional tone for the entire day.

The trees stretch towards the light. Birds are singing. Shadows lengthen and soften like I do with sun salutations. My body joins in the unfolding all around. Morning practice gives me that opportunity to not escape life, but to meet it before is has a chance to harden in any way.

A few conscious breaths, a twist toward light, feet on the earth before the noise and chatter of the world beyond this space begins. After an hour long practice I walk over to my yoga bench and slowly draw myself up into a headstand pose.

Drawing myself slowly into headstand changed the entire room. The world inverted. Perspective shifted. Blood rushed softly downward toward my crown. Even my thoughts seemed to rearrange themselves in the stillness.

The windows were being cleaned that day, yet it was my inner vision that became clear.

Namaste,

"The light in me sees and honors the light in all of you." - Angela

Inhale

Exhale

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