Cosmic Shit

I woke up this morning disoriented. My head banging, cluttered with memories of a strange and wild night. Glimpses of my boyfriend, his friend, my younger brother Eli, all in the disarray of the beat of bass, the charge of flashing lights, the glimmer of clinking glasses, the scent of illicit fun.

I opened my eyes, slowly, and ran my hand over the familiar soft fur next to me, Kira, my pup. I hazily saw my room: tidy;. my book, neatly earmarked between Kira’s spotted paws. I saw my still-full glass of water on my nightstand. My thoughts sharpened.

I had come home last night before 10 pm. I had drank two glasses of wine at a restaurant with close friends. None, of whom were in the vivid memory I’d awoken with. I’d driven home soberly, read my book, eaten a very juicy nectarine, and lights out by 11:30, happy. I’d gone to sleep lost in thoughts of new love and unforeseen adventure.

But my head ached. I got out of bed and took a naproxen, laughing ironically at myself. My damn lucid dreams had given me a hangover. My mind, in sleep, had physically affected my reality.

Mercury went into retrograde this morning. By no means am I an astrological whiz, but just like the moon effects gravity, tides, harvest, and a woman’s cycle, I have no doubt that our solar system affects our lives in many, many more direct and indirect ways. [In fact, I feel that people who don’t put some faith in the universe are kind of idiotic.] The universe can play a big part in (get ready for my favorite word…) happenstance.

While shifts in the universe can bring us into alignment in a cosmic sense (yes, Maha, I owe you a dollar) for example, coincidentally seeing an old friend or meeting someone new who will greatly affect your future; it can also immediately take us out of alignment.

The thing about happenstance is that it’s not about you. It’s about what happens to you as a result of your surroundings.  A friend’s agenda, a changed plan, a river cutting off your path, the brakes going out in your car, the vacancy of a hotel, a café’s wireless being down, spilling barbeque sauce down your shirt and needing to change, oversleeping, a traffic jam, a client not liking your work; it all affects your ‘final destination’ and more importantly, the path leading to there. It can immediately tear you from your schedule. It can take your peaceful morning and cause a rift. It can create a fight, an accident, or even just a ‘bad vibe’. So when the world and its uproarious shifts pull us apart, wind us up, tear us down, or threaten our faith and security; how does one come back to their center?

While much of the world is out of our hands, we often forget what is in our control. You.

When I came onto my mat today, disoriented and unnerved by happenstance or Mercury’s effect on my morning (call it what you will), I took a big breath in. I filled my chest cavity with air. My air, the air I share with my neighbor, my kula, my community, my carved out shell in this big, big universe. I smelled the familiar, sweaty, rubbery scent of my mat and recalled that while our earth shifts and moves, it also supports us. Fully. Where would we be without the ground beneath us? It supports  our living, breathing self; the vessel we assume for 100 or so years; the body that we have full control over. Your body.

It’s true that we may not be able to control all of our injuries, cravings, rehabilitations, or certain physical characteristics. But for the most part, our body and what we do with it, is our choice. We experiment, intoxicate, detoxify. We swim, bathe, submerge, dry, and tan. We sweat and we eat. We sleep too much or not enough. And because of what we do to our body, we feel. We suffer, or we feel fulfilled. We sob, or we cry out in joy. We feel physical pain, or we find ecstasy.

So, if what we do physically effects us mentally, than obviously what we do mentally affects our physicality – just like my dream.

Although it might not always seems so, we have control over our thoughts. I will be the first to admit that my thoughts mess with me constantly. They create stories in my head, fabrication, exaggeration, or distrust. My mind often feels sad when maybe the more appropriate emotion is anger. It allows distraction, when full attention would serve me more. But, I digress. Our thoughts, our reactions to what happens, they are in our control. And that mindfulness, or lack thereof, affects the physical self (and like a domino affect, everyone we touch). Let's just quote Buddha, "...as the shadow follows the body, as we think, so we become."

On my mat, when I am in my true power. The form, action, and alignment of my body is somewhere near to my-own-perfect. When my foundation is strong and my balance untouchable; my skin, muscle, and bone: lit up – fully alive. It is then when I realize my true integrity; a graceful, feminine, water-like control, in tandem with a powerful, strong, and grounded attitude. With command over my physicality and emotions and openness as happenstance unfolds, whatever that adventure may be. It is then, at my most pure, with my arms open to the universe, when I sit in full trust.