This Body (December 12)

For December 12 the #reverb10 prompt was on Body Integration, as follows: This year when did you feel most integrated with your body?

Luckily this prompt is for 2010! If I had had to think about "Body Integration" any year previous I would have had to do an Internet search to see if that was the name of a cutting edge dance song...then I would have scoffed and made a generic, sweeping comment and then illustrated some mental tangent. But for this year - perfect!

I have been so lucky to have had a superb revelation about this, but not without some excellent guidance. In early spring I noticed my awesome lunch-away-from-the-cubicle-jungle yoga classes were cultivating something deeper. A relatively unfamiliar phenomena of my mind being in my body. May be basic but it took me awhile! In one position (pigeon pose) I felt I had "mastered it" and was going to ask after class how to extend the challenge. Then, a few seconds later, my favourite yoga teacher Eileen Chan said something like "for some of you this will be a challenging posture, but if you feel distracted see if you can challenge yourself to keep your mind in this pose and in your mat." I was surprised! Just what I needed! So I promptly lost my focus in excitement... but had two seasons of practice until late autumn... I got it! One unexpected day it clicked and I felt totally in my body thanks to good ole stretchy pigeon!

The mental flurry settled into the physical space: together, integrated. Just there. Finally there... always there. Well, starting with increments of, like, 35 seconds.