Transforming Our Walls

by Stephanie F. Earls

This week I'm getting my bedroom walls painted. For years they have had old wallpaper and finally I have saved enough to hire pros to come in and rework the walls and ceiling. I'm excited about my room matching better with who I am now instead of who I was years ago.  Sometimes a little lift, a little something new to the external that surrounds us helps us feel lifted internally as well. A little like yoga.

Our bodies can be the walls of our soul and spirit. How do your walls feel? Are they tired? Outdated? Or, do they fit what they contain and reflect and express the inner life? How do you feel from the inside out?

Try this:  take a long breath in through the nose and long breath out through the mouth. Stand in mountain pose/tadasana, balanced on both feet.  Pull up from your root (pelvic floor) through your naval, let your collar bones move away from each other, opening your heart in the front. Keep shoulder blades relaxed, letting your heart open in the back too. Inhale and swing your arms around and up to reach for the sky.  Really reach! Breathe in and out. Keep space between your shoulders and ears but activate your arms as if they are reaching from the ground, through your feet, legs, center right up through your fingertips, to the sky. Lift your gaze to follow your hands. Uplifted eyes will uplift your heart and mind. Feel how just this simple way of using the body to stand and reach can affect you from the outside-in as much as from the inside-out.

During the transformation of my walls I have had the chance to pick a new backdrop for my room, a new canvas to reflect the growth and restoration in my life. In picking color I consulted with the pro about how color on a swatch translates to the bigger picture. I do not have enough experience or practice with paint to know what happens with color on a wall, against wood work, in sunlight etc.

In yoga knowing how the swatch translates to the wall is easy for me, but only because I have practiced.  I know exactly how color in tadasana/mountain (an open heart, relaxed shoulders, strong center, rooted feet) will translate to the bigger picture...it will mean open airways and better breathing so you can cultivate your life force....it will mean creating a strong foundation from which you can grow and explore more intricate physical postures: balancing, standing postures, inversions. Most of all it will mean most simply and most profoundly, changing the expression of the spirit through the body regardless of what you do or do not do with the rest of yoga asana. It will translate to repainting your walls to either let more color in or let some out, whichever you need right now. It will translate to practicing the present moment.

The knowledge I have has come from what I do, my experience. I explore yoga so I have information about how the practice translates to the body, mind and spirit as well as how the body, mind and spirit translate to my practice.  The painter paints. She knows because she does. She tries things out, sees color and gets information about how it looks in practice, in the light of day rather than just on a swatch or in mind.  And you know what you know because of your practice,  your day-in, day-out revisiting of whichever loves or hobbies or work or habits you spend your time and your mind cultivating.

Sometimes we all need a little input from a pro, whether it's color on a wall or how to link asana or how to fix a tail light.   But ultimately it comes down to our own practice: getting information, making a choice (even mistakes) and trying it out. Someone can show us and make suggestions and then it is up to us to find our way.

When it came down to choosing color for my walls, it was up to me. I had to figure out what I like, factor in the expertise I received and then choose: practice something that feels right for me. When I looked to the painter for the final word she just said, "I don't live here".  How simple but meaningful that sentence is. When we are sharing our knowledge with others and when we are learning for ourselves it really comes down to ourselves...who lives here? Who is the one that gets to live with the practice, the choices we make, the metaphoric and literal walls we surround ourselves and express ourselves with? When the job is done and the paint is on the wall or the posture is realized, we each on our own will be the only one "here" to enjoy it or not. What anyone else thinks becomes irrelevant because they do not live "here".

So ask yourself, in whichever practice or work or choice or love you practice: Who lives here? How do these walls suit you? How will the color you choose play out in your bigger picture? How do you feel?

Transformation happens through accepting where you are now. To find your answer, to transform: practice.

doorway to the divine

by Stephanie F. Earls

i sit at this doorway to the divine

and am invited in

taking pause with gratitude

i step, or swim, or float, or soar

i can not tell 

because i have melted into 

you and everything

it is in your presence i enter

and float and become one with you

i am light

it is in y/our energy

that i smile

and with your breath

i share in a love so pure

that i am humbled

and overflow with joy

this is god

this is everywhere

and when we sit together

and our breath becomes one

angels sing

because love

has brought what is separate

together

and as we breathe as one

the doorway widens

so all can fit through

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

this love is growing

not shrinking

this is water

carving the canyon

there is no turning back

the doorway to the divine 

has welcomed us

now as we breathe

we ask

for capacity 

to hold

and share

and teach

and grow

i thought of you

by Stephanie F. Earls


it was sweet on the beach
late in the day
i thought of you

the water crispy and noisy
the sun warm and subtle
i think there was a storm coming in
the sky hazy
the wind non-stop and strong and warm
i thought of you

five different temperatures all at once
between water and air
my body the bridge from earth to heaven
i thought of you

and if you stood to the wind, and closed your eyes
which i did
it felt like flying
i spread my arms wide, to hold the wind while i floated against it
life inside me and all around
it was so wonderful


i thought of you