Several months ago I was having a conversation with my longtime friend, teacher, mentor, Darren Rhodes, in which I was explaining to him why I was reluctant to get involved with a particular project that he is quite passionate about. In no small terms I was attempting to convince him of my incredibly short attention span and vastly fickle nature. It went something along the lines of: "But D, what good will I be? My interests in yoga are always changing. I will like things one particular way and then before too long everything has entirely shifted and I am interested in something else completely. I am not reliable!" Good naturedly, he watched me through this lengthy and immpassioned explaination, and then I think he may have laughed. Like, in my face. And then he said something that was both so wonderfully obvious and so completely surprising that I have found myself digesting it for these many months. He told me that he has watched me show up for the yoga since he has known me. That I have never lost interest. Yes, perhaps things have shifted, changed, evolved- as they well should- but the consistent thread has been the yoga. I have never waivered from that. And the funny thing is, he is totally right. It's not like I lost interest and decided to devote myself to deep sea fishing (even thought that is probably incredibly cool and who knows I very well may!). It's just that for a time perhaps I was really gung-ho on doing major deep backbends and now I'm not so much. Or perhaps I boycotted standing poses for several years and then one day was over it. Or maybe I only ever worked with my timer for like- forever, and then one day I preferred to count my breaths. You get the idea. From the outside looking in- there has been a deep interest in the practice of Hatha Yoga that I have maintained over the better part of 2 decades. From the inside though that realm itself is so vast and so diverse and embodies so many different expressions...
Funny, though. Such a simple and yet very profound insight for me. I think I may generally need to be smacked in the face by what is completely obvious or apparent. Work in progress.