The Quiet of Now

Night was falling slowly outside. I didn’t have my eyes open, but I could feel the darkness gently descending like a summer blanket, a soft counterpoint to the increasingly strong wind rustling through the trees just outside the attic windows.
I lay still and quiet, feeling how alive my body was but how peaceful at the same time.
The sensation was one of total relaxation. Stress at work? Gone. A broken toilet and a frustrated non-handyman husband? Gone. My pre-teen’s dramatic mood swings? Not my problem for this one moment in time.
I’d just finished a good yoga workout at the home of a friend, a woman whose attic is a retreat from the world once a week. The walls are peppered with tangible memories of her journeys around the world -- photos of lions and leaves, tapestries from Machu Picchu, a 600-year-old Peruvian site that some call the “Lost City of the Incas,” scarves and other fabric wall hangings from exotic places, lighted stars that hang beneath the skylights.
It’s an incredibly peaceful place. And our time together is so calming that I look forward to it each week, biding my time until we gather again.
Every Thursday night, four of us tromp up the stairs, full of stories from our hectic weeks, our crazy jobs, financial woes and other stressors. We start with a warmup meditation as she instructs us to let go of the world, let go of our thoughts. “Watch them pass by, but don’t engage in them,” she says softly. She guides us to a stream, tells us to “lie” in the warm flowing water and let it wash over us, cleansing the outside world away. We figuratively open the tops of our heads and let the water wash through us, swirl through our brains, behind our eyes, clean out our hearts and bellies and fingers -- anyplace there’s stress or tension, she says, let the water wash it clean.
And it works, mostly because we’re all desperate for a little peace after the chaos of our day.
Then we begin the workout. We work on our backs, stretching out over our feet as we sit on the floor. Triangle pose leads us not-so-gently into Table pose, a stretch that pulls our shoulders sharply into focus; Downward Dog makes us feel strong, and Cobra reminds us that we sit far too much on our jobs. We bend and stretch, slowly working the muscles that grow tight with the cares of our lives. No muscle is exempt. We work our necks and even our eyes, our hips and toes, our lower backs and upper backs and lower arms.
Warrior is my favorite; I feel strong, like I can do anything, as I turn my head to look down the length of my arm into the distance. We flow from the incredible strength of Warrior II, our legs burning already with the memory of the pose, into Downward Dog again, into Plank, sliding into Upward Dog and then back to Warrior again, our thighs humming with the long stretch.
Tree is always last. We find our center, balance on one leg, hands high in the air like the topmost branches. We hold it for as long as we can, and it becomes an amazing thing: We realize our bodies are quiet and peaceful, energized but calm, tired but full of life and full of silence as well.
The lights are lowered, and then -- Corpse pose, a time to melt into the mat, letting her voice guide us to a special place, a place of quiet wonder. This lengthier meditation is nearly spiritual. It is the reason I come back each week.
On a good night, when my mind is quiet and the yoga has worked its magic, I can transport myself to a grassy valley, full of sunlight and purple flowers, buzzing with bees. There’s a huge oak tree, wider than my arms can reach around; from a middle limb hangs a rope swing, a board worn smooth for a seat. On a good night, I sit down and begin to swing, pumping my legs, pulling myself toward the clouds, into the uppermost branches, and then falling back with a force stronger than gravity.
Sometimes I have to strain to hear her voice, gently calling us back to the world. And when I open my eyes, I am rested, content, strong -- ready to face another week.