"You are here. The moon tides are here. And that's all that matters." — Sanober Khan

As the Winter Solstice comes more near, I have been thinking about the way in which we on this earth are bound to the sun and to the moon. I have been thinking about the big picture of our lives. I am taken with the push and pull of gravitational force that is necessary to sustain this delicate balance of the earth’s light and liquid and the way in which we are suspended—at an angle—in space just spinning and spinning. Like a sailer immersed in the rise and fall of the tides, I notice my own inner comings and goings. I imagine the rivers of my being engaged in a whimsical dance with my lunar partner—ebbing and flowing and then back again with a twirl. The more vast the scope of inner spaciousness I am able to cultivate, the greater my ability to witness this rhythmic cycle within me. I remember recently standing in front of a mirror. Emotion was coming over me like a cresting wave. I remember looking into my reflection, into my eyes. It seemed I could see all the way to the moon. I remember finally settling within myself and recognizing—this is just a tide. This is just a tide, I thought, as I so slowly and so gratefully made my way back to shore.

A friend recently shared an article  with me about the impact of very gentle micromovements in yogic practice and the potential for this subtle and nuanced work to impact healing. Apparently these very slight and attentive movements allow for the brain to track what is happening and create new neural pathways that support restoration of the places in which the body has gone off-course. I found this to be such a profound metaphor for the ways that healing and transformation have worked in my own life. I have never benefited from seeking gurus or grand interventions to make me well. Instead, I have found a steadiness of spirit in the clearing out of a too-full closet, in shoveling wood chips, in getting up with my children deep in the night when they’ve needed me. I notice that with each small act of creativity, of seeing things through, of working, of waiting, of inner-noticing, of accessing my breath, an inner-musculature has taken form and allowed me to grow more sturdy.

It gets dark at around 4:30 in this season here in Southern Maine— not long after we arrive home from school and just about when I start preparing food for dinner. We’ve turned on the music—as we often do—a few favorite 1960’s classics have me singing along as I begin sautéing our supper. Adrian has fallen deep into puzzle play and Jonah is playing around with a  ball we received as a gift when he was so little still. It looks like a small beach ball but it is actually a balloon blown up within a cloth cover. I catch Jonah’s eye while I am singing, his face lights up with a smile and I come out from behind the stove. We begin playing a game in which we each do our own set of dance moves while holding the ball and then toss the ball back to the other person while sticking our “move.” After doing one fancy turn and tossing him the ball he shouts out, “do you do ballet?” It makes me laugh. And then we are both laughing as we get sillier and sillier trying to hold our poses and the ball and balance all that we are made of as the moon makes its way higher and higher into the vast evening sky.