High-Five and Namaste

I sat down to write this post, and I got nervous. Because, really, this is the first time I’m putting something out there, into the internet ether, as myself. So I invited my happy shining light friend to write it for me. Which sounds a lot sillier written down than it does in my head.

I learned this trick from a good friend and member of my yoga tribe, Cory Halaby. Cory writes for the Elements of Yoga blog, Nourish and Flourish. (If you don’t know Elements, I suggest you check them out!) There is a post by Cory where she describes a meditation which I remember well, and parts of it that I’m less sure I remember at all…

In this meditation, David Vendetti directs us to imagine a light in the center of our bodies. And then we are told to expand this light to every other person in the room. To paraphrase Cory, this elicited a wordless and profound understanding that we are all one. I remember well up to this point.

She goes on:

I don’t recall if he then suggested we contemplate these lights high-fiving each other in greeting, but that’s how it went down in my head.  My radiant inner light transformed itself into a shaggy sort of cartoon light, with eyes and arms, similar to an illuminated Captain Caveman (indicating that my subconscious illustrator was formed on a Saturday morning somewhere around 1980). I picture the light as an inner little buddy, who doesn’t speak much English, but is fundamentally enthusiastic and has lots of friends.

I may never know whether this really happened. As soon as I read it, my image of that day forever transformed to include bounding shaggy light creatures high-fiving (also, dancing and laughing) all over the yoga room. And now, every time I begin to lead a yoga or meditation session, every time I meet someone new and get a little nervous, my little light friend goes and greets all his old friends in the room. And I feel better knowing that, maybe without the other person ever realizing it, we have already met and greeted and known each other in all the ways that really matter.

A teacher I met in my travels said that before every teacher training she led, she’d put it out there into the universe that she’d like some old friends from her past lives to be there. To me, it sounds like the same thing. This light in me recognizes the light in you. We are one. And this website and blog is one way for me to shout that out.

Namaste, friends! And high-fives from my light to yours.

Carmen

~ by Carmen Celeste Thurston on March 6, 2011.