In times of change and transformation (which is, um, all the time), I collect bits of insight like stones or shells and slip them into my pockets and journals for safekeeping.

“…the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such a beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult!”

-The Awakening, Kate Chopin

When the world is in flux and it feels like everything is changing but you can’t quite see through the fog to the other side, sometimes the only solution is to trust that comprehension will arrive when and where and how you need it to.

That’s why finding bits of clarity in the world can feel like such a gift. Like a power-up magic mushroom in Mario 3! Suddenly, height! A bit of perspective!

Last night after a particularly intense yoga class, my beloved instructor Kate P. (you know, the “easy, steady and with compassion” gal) suggested we settle gently into pigeon pose and rather than pulling or muscling ourselves into it, to instead wait, breathe, relax, and “allow a transformation” to happen.  

<Cue power-up Mario mushroom music>

What if we don’t have to understand change that’s happening in our lives? What if we don’t have to be able to explain it, contextualize, rationalize and make a case for what’s happening and why? What if we don’t have to control it, or force it, or predict it?

What if we decide that life doesn’t have to be bad in order for the possibility of something better, or different, to compel you to move?

What if we just “allowed” transformation to happen, the way you allow your hips to slowly open in pigeon pose, and allow the tide to gradually move up to your ankles as it comes in?

Oh, damn. What would that be like?