Space for Change

(As featured on Elephant Journal)

There is a quietude that always exists within.

I’ve learned about it, read about it, talked about it, strived to connect to it, day in and day out. I practice recalling it in my everyday life.

During this time, this quietude has come to the forefront, in the form of an incredible inner universe: the growth of a baby right here, so close, in the cave of me.
In the midst of the day, my mind is drawn inside: by the call of the baby’s kicks, the baby’s dance inside the womb. The many outer distractions take rest for a moment, allowing the senses to connect to a center within.

“Nothing is permanent”, say the masters. And here it is: the absolute time of CHANGE. Starting with the outer sheath, the body, the shapes of bones and elasticity of ligaments. The change in body heat and skin and hair texture.
Scriptures speak about how we are not our body. Transformation and- GROWTH- is now so present on a daily basis, that the belief of being the body ultimately needs to drop, like autumn leaves too crisp to hang on to their oak tree.

But wait…There are all those ways I had perceived myself. The many judgments and fears I had been holding on to, both knowing and unknowingly. There are the fantasies of who I was and ought to become, what I ought to look like, and how fast I had to move.  I find myself trying to hang on to “my old self”, “my old yoga practice”, “my old body”. But, what is left of it today? Nobody knows.

Holding you– little baby– within me, makes all these conceptions far too constricted. You are growing, you need space, you need a nice place to swim and listen to my heartbeat, you need a space to rest, as you prepare to arrive into a new world. And so, you urge me, sometimes gently and sometimes oh so clearly and unconditionally, to let the fears and clinging thoughts in me wash away.

Through the waves of emotions and thoughts, there is now this Quietude.

The silent space, where I can allow these nine months to weave you and me, in textures I had never known, in colors I had never perceived, in tears I didn’t know existed here.

How carefully I want to move, and speak, and write, and sing. Because you are now listening, and my heartbeat and my breath are the threads through which you perceive.

Let there be compassion, let there be peace.
Dear Baby, thank you for choosing me.

 The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear

-Rumi