Some of us might say home means a controlled, safe and nurturing environment, or a place where everything feels familiar, a space where we have permission to be our un-sexiest self or our truest self without any artifice, the abode for your tee-shirt with a hole, home is where your couch is, and of course the cliche-est of them all: home is where the heart is.
I say home is something to clearly write home about.
Home is not one fixed place but it is that one place inside of us which enables us to feel at home anywhere we choose it to be. This place is home with a capital H. It’s a home uncluttered by furniture nor objects, a home with no gates or alarm systems, a home where southern exposures or ample sunshine don’t matter, a home with no mortgages or state taxes. It’s a home with unlimited electrical power and energy, where plumbing pipes don’t leak, floors don’t squeak, nothing breaks, nothing needs fixing and nothing will ever go decrepit. In this home there is boundless space.
Think of it as the dream house that exceeds your wildest imagination.
Everyday, when we come onto our mats and make our bodies assume all these funky postures, we are actually expressing a yearning, a longing for something we can’t always explain. We sometimes feel that we are learning something new, when in fact we are trying to remember that which we have forgotten a long time ago. Every downdog we take, triggers a feeling that is similar to the one we get when we go back to our old neighborhood. We start to recognize people and places. What was once the market place has now become a clothing store, the corner deli is still standing strong and the newspaper stand guy who beamed a smile your way every time you passed by looks like the grey hair version of who he once was. That sense of familiarity makes us feel as if we were, just like back then, on our way back home. We remember again.
But here’s the thing. When we are distracted by our daily lives, the difficulties we undergo, the hardships, the worries, the endless preoccupations that splatter our consciousness with negativity, we forget again and consequently or sadly I might add, we are left feeling tired, drained, exhausted, confused and insecure. We have strayed away from home and have even forgotten the address. We have become “the life is a bitch” bums.
Yoga reminds us that we have a home and that it is not made of walls.
Let us view our mat as the magic road that will unfailingly lead us back home. Let all the efforts we exert help us break free from the ego and wake up from the dream. May every breath we take, every intention we have, every dedication that emanates from our heart, be the key to opening the door into that special home and keeping it open for everyone to come through.
Danielle Abisaab