from September

I'm writing this down so that I don't ever forget it:

Tonight I went to the sound bath with Emily and Austin, and I was a part of something. A community - of the three of us, of the yoga studio that has facilitated more healing than I ever thought possible. A place where I know people's names, and they know mine. A place where I have cried silently, time after time. Where I have shared breath and energy and cosmic movement.

When I asked Austin if he had ever done this before, he laughed incredulously. He settled right in though, covered himself with a blanket and lay patiently waiting. Em arranged herself with more difficulty, in affectionate acceptance of the reason she has three more months of folding pillows into nooks and under joints. 

Others around us gathered bolsters, rolled out mats, situated their bones and hearts around each other on the floor. We whispered about nothing and everything. The teacher placed little lighted candles around the room and in front of our feet.

And as silence settled across the space, Em gently squeezed my wrist and smiled at me with such warmth and sweetness that my heart filled my body to the brim. In that moment, I am so aware of the love inside my body that I cannot help but grin and cry. My friendship with this woman has changed my heart in so many ways I cannot always believe it, and it is with honor that I lay beside her, and her husband, and her growing baby boy, breathing in gratitude and breathing out I love you.