I stole the title from Mompriest, who has offered a wonderful little reflection here. I guess she lifted the title from her yoga video.
I do yoga, in the most elementary, awkward, and almost immobilized kind of way. (I couldn't touch my toes when I was ten; let's not even go there now.) So the first challenge is to get back to that peaceful and yet demanding connection to my body.
But what I really like here is the multiplicity of meanings associated with these words. Off the top of my head:
Grace: a free gift of God.
Grace: God's loving forgiveness.
Gracefulness: the capacity to move with fluidity and elegance. (In my case: metaphorically speaking.)
Gracefulness: the capacity to absorb with generosity and graciousness whatever comes our way.
Gravity: the force which binds us to our earthly existence.
Gravity: the pull which orients our being.
Gravitas: the weight of wisdom which emerges from experience.
Gravitas: the wisdom to reflect with generosity and graciousness whatever comes our way.
Yes, I do see a connection (fourth definitions).
I'm making a little retreat in another month -- a few days away, with some guidance from my spiritual director. I need some time to make some space for the process of discernment ahead. And I need some silence so that I can handle eight days of it this coming summer with more equanimity than I did last year, when the cloud of grief hanging over my head almost consumed me.
I think I have a name for my retreat now. Gravity and Grace. I like that.
If nothing else, I can pretend that the photograph above is of me. I'm good with the body, the flexibility, or the hair.
(Guess I might need to work on that gravitas thing. But seriously ~ I've pretty much had it with experience.)
I do yoga, in the most elementary, awkward, and almost immobilized kind of way. (I couldn't touch my toes when I was ten; let's not even go there now.) So the first challenge is to get back to that peaceful and yet demanding connection to my body.
But what I really like here is the multiplicity of meanings associated with these words. Off the top of my head:
Grace: a free gift of God.
Grace: God's loving forgiveness.
Gracefulness: the capacity to move with fluidity and elegance. (In my case: metaphorically speaking.)
Gracefulness: the capacity to absorb with generosity and graciousness whatever comes our way.
Gravity: the force which binds us to our earthly existence.
Gravity: the pull which orients our being.
Gravitas: the weight of wisdom which emerges from experience.
Gravitas: the wisdom to reflect with generosity and graciousness whatever comes our way.
Yes, I do see a connection (fourth definitions).
I'm making a little retreat in another month -- a few days away, with some guidance from my spiritual director. I need some time to make some space for the process of discernment ahead. And I need some silence so that I can handle eight days of it this coming summer with more equanimity than I did last year, when the cloud of grief hanging over my head almost consumed me.
I think I have a name for my retreat now. Gravity and Grace. I like that.
If nothing else, I can pretend that the photograph above is of me. I'm good with the body, the flexibility, or the hair.
(Guess I might need to work on that gravitas thing. But seriously ~ I've pretty much had it with experience.)
7 comments:
awesome! Yogi's say that it does not matter how "well" one does yoga practice, it only matter that one does yoga practice. The benefits are there regardless. They also encourage us to not be competative with self or others. Yoga is a practice of release and, as they say, as the mind relaxes the muscles will release. SOOOO
many blessings with your practice and your upcoming retreat(s)...
grateful my little meditation spurred one of your own...
Blessings for the retreat...and I'd say you have gravitas aplenty.
The mini retreat sounds very wise and I will start praying for it now. I probably need to do something similar--if you have any prayers to spare for my discernment on how and when I'd appreciate that.
I enjoyed sitting with the repetitions of those words. mini-retreat... I could use one of those.
If you ever host a retreat, I would like to come.
I need a retreat like that - minus the yoga.
I agree with Michelle
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