Clinging to life is human nature. It’s something we can all relate to, particularly poignant for me on a day when it was very clear that my most recent relationship couldn’t live in its current stagnant pool. I felt a tightness, a clutching, and a clinging, as I lay down to sleep by myself for the first time. Laying in my bed, I opened to The Life Of The River by Krishnamurti. I read these wise words and began to write:
Releasing back into the river of life, everflowing, growing, and changing.
Nothing is permanent.
I will not cling with hope to relationships, to false gods, not even unto love itself.
But I will cling to the life of the river.
Cherishing the goodness of that which greater than myself, knowing that the pieces, particles, and people moving with me along the way are not mine, but rather, they are a part of the life of the river.
It is not my job to pull them along the current.
Just as they should, and in their own time, they will find the ocean.
There is no need to cling or to grasp for that which is so divinely apart of us.
The very thing that is in us, is moving us all.
Drifting, tumbling, swirled and propelled along the same path.
So I taught a class as twisty as could be: malasana twist, childs pose twist, prasarita twist, twisting planks. Finally, a long embryo pose followed by an even longer savasana. “Squeeze your fist into tight balls,” I said. “Hold on so tightly. Notice what happens in your body as you clench. Don’t let go… Now. Release your grip, open your palms. Receive through the heart. Let the current take you.”
And somewhere, amongst all the twisting, the compressed breath, the muscles pulling past and holding onto each other, we find the courage and the good wisdom to let it go.
Releasing what is not serving to find our way back to the life of the river.