Slowly, Deeply

Sometimes I want to lay down. My years living in LA were characterized by feeling like I wanted to be underwater. As I write it, I feel it again though I thought about it last nearly five years ago: submerging.

I know I feel overwhelmed about everything, and if I'm honest, I am overwhelmed by others. It's hard to say how much and how frequently I feel this way. But I do, it's a lot, and I want to lie down, I want to be underwater.

The sensational, optical pleasure of blue water all around me, the coolness of being alone, the performative, isolating act of floating, the peaceful work of moving and being. The resisting of pulling and catching water, the physics of dancing waves, light and motion. It's a relaxing dream, a relief to visualize. I wish life were like this, where I could go for a swim, where wanting to be underwater in LA or Texas wasn't far-fetched, or otherwise a symbol of pernicious emotional states.

On the other hand, I think about my mat. I think about the feeling of lying down on my mat. I see myself on my mat and observe myself on my mat, lying down and doing yoga on my mat like a film in my mind. I see my arms unfurling into a posture, my legs and feet below me, and reflected across from me in the mirror where I practice, or from where I sit outside my body to watch myself. I see this daily. I see what it looks like to invest in myself. I see myself excercising. I think about what self-care is to me. I wonder what's going on in my body and why I work more in my mind than in my body. I wanted to schedule the next nargis posts around more of what I'm doing, do more, work more in my body than in my brain, offering some insights of what happens when I do.

First up on nargis, you'll see the following. I did...:

30 days of an ayurvedic morning routine including
30 days of dry-brushing and
30 days of sun salutations

30 days of abhyanga and a full bathing ritual

30 nights of self-care rituals before bed including
30 nights of moon salutations and
30 nights of sleeping at the same time, early

30 days of hitting the mat, making the mat my home

30 days of working on a single chosen writing project.

30 days of exploring chosen books, and classes with archives kept here, of what I'm reading and working on

...and this is what happened.

Thank you for visiting nargis.