gravity

Today's yoga class was all about gravity. For the first half of class, Dean actually played John Mayer's "Gravity" - great lyrics like "gravity is working against me...and gravity is bringing me down..." And then he went on to say that in yoga we can try to undo gravity. We do postures like inversions that work against the natural forces of nature. And then we also give in to gravity and do poses like corpse pose and sink into the earth.
And today we did both. We used gravity to ground us in frog and corpse pose. And we defied gravity by trying headstand or handstand. I tried a headstand. Okay, I used the wall for support! But I gave it a try and shot my legs up in the air. It was uncomfortable but it also felt powerful and a little refreshing.
I think that my ease and my discomfort with both defying gravity and giving into gravity sort of reflect my life right now! As Dean suggested, sometimes we have to try to fight gravity and push ourselves outside of our comfort zone. Not give in to complacency. But other times, we need to let gravity take over and let things fall away, let things fall as they may, and don't fight the natural forces of nature.
I usually like to exert some control over things even though I'm trying really hard to "unlearn" that habit. So more and more, I'm trying to find the natural order of things and let things come together (or fall apart) as they will. It doesn't mean I don't care. It doesn't mean that I don't still want to think I'm in control. And it doesn't mean that I don't jump in and intervene when my heart tells me to. It just means that I'm trying to be more willing to trust the universe, God, my gut, cosmic forces...whatever you want to call it...and believe that sometimes I need to let my head take a break and let gravity - or whatever grounds me...my heart? my soul? - lead the way. (And that is both freeing and terrifying!)
P.S. I am glad that I fought the natural forces of nature and kept plugging through my day...what a total mess of a morning...got to yoga 30 minutes early - seriously?! - forgot my work clothes at home... If you need a "re-do" by 6:30 a.m. I think it's a bad sign. But I made up for it throughout the day and especially at the hill workout tonight where I defied gravity big time and forced my way up those hills each time!