During Savasana, the final resting pose of my yoga practice last night, I found myself in a difficult meditation.
Typically, I spend the start of this pose expressing my gratitude for my body and for the earth for holding and supporting. I inhale love from the universe, and exhale love for the universe. Hippie stuff for some, sure, but this time in Savasana has allowed me to be grateful to my body and this planet for all that they have give me. It’s when I feel most connected to Earth and everything on it.
Last night, however, I inhaled gratitude for the earth, and exhaled an apology. Again and again, with every breath: inhale, Thank you for what you have given me, exhale, I am so sorry that we’re killing you.
I spent yesterday afternoon watching a documentary about coral bleaching. It was devastating. I learned that the temperature of the ocean is rising—much like how we get a fever—except the ocean’s fever won’t go down. An entire ecosystem is being destroyed, and it’s solely because of the CO2 we’re pumping into the atmosphere. The corals (and the tiny plants inside them) don’t know how to handle this temperature change, so the plants stop photosynthesizing and the corals starve. Then the fish that feed on these corals starve.
So, here I am on my yoga mat, feeling such a profound connection to the world I am in, and I feel indescribably sad for being part of the population that’s killing the planet I call home. All I can do is apologize and radiate all the love I can from this small mat in a small neighborhood in a city in Tennessee.
And you know what? That’s all I could do in that moment. When I’m on my mat, I can’t try to solve the crisis of climate change lying in Savasana. I can commit to getting off my mat later and doing all I can to educate and advocate for the amazing world I’ve become more in touch with thanks to my yoga practice. But lying there in that final resting pose, I can simply breathe in love (because, amazingly, there is still love shining on despite the devastation) and breathe out love.
One of my main meditations I use during yoga is this: “The Universe is in me, just as I am in the Universe.” This meditation has kept me from falling out of Tree pose, or giving up when my muscles quiver during Warrior I. I am grateful to my practice for enlightening me, and for grounding me in the universe and this beautiful connector called Earth.
putting down the rope 