Are Your Britches Getting Too Tight, Too Small?

 I love spring. It is one of those times of year where everywhere you look is hopeful. The trees are budding, wildlife is multiplying, people and animals, stretching their arms and legs and waking from their winter set. There is this feeling of everything being light, and the time change helps everything stay light longer during our daily, waking hours. So that helps. But spring, even without considering daylight savings time as part of the equation, is a pleasant passageway to a simple, light truth.

There are a lot of things to learn from each season. In spring, when the air feels cleaner and light, when love feels nearer and hopeful, like all you see around you, that is the time to begin moving. One would think that fall would be the time; however, fall would be the last of the movement and scurry, the tail end, the last drop. Winter is sitting, subtle movement, and summer is surrender and passion, movement in the thick, which can be fast or slow depending on the day and what has been cultivated along and along. If one was to consider the seasons as a yoga class, spring would be the beginning—the setting of intention, the possible chanting, breath connection and warm up.

Spring as a Yoga Practice

Yes, the seasons tell a story, one of flow. The perspective of the story that I will tell is as spring relates to a yoga practice. Spring is time for hope, a time for planting seeds. New possibility is in the air waiting to be amassed. To begin, one most clarify their practice (ground, connect, set intentions), open to their practice (warm up the body), and then watch for the opportunities to float in to being or float out of awareness, watch as sensation arises and disperses (rising action).

Spring off the Mat

Off the mat, we can bring this spring story into being as well. During this time, we can reconnect with what we are in a more authentic way. To do this, we can ask ourselves: “Where do I stand in this beginning?” If you were lost, you now can be found. If you were on the path, you can make certain that what you believed is still what makes sense now. You can be the babe again in the dawn of spring, making sure you still want to play with that sparkly toy, and checking that your britches are not getting too tight, or too small.

The truth is that each season gives us an opportunity to start something new, but spring, spring is a refreshing. Spring, not unlike the New Year, gives us this feeling of blank slate and fresh buds. When we can match this season’s vibration, we go with the flow and feel lighter. We eat lighter even. Here our lives take a new stage if we are willing to go along with nature.

Now What?

Get out into nature. Take lots of walks and notice aloud what you see. Ride your bike or just go sit in a park. Notice the big and the small responses to spring all around you. Notice yourself in nature, yourself as nature, and feel. Feel your response to the enlivening of your senses. Ask yourself, what you know to be true about what you experience. How do you fit in the hopeful picture? List all the hopeful things that exist in your experience. Acknowledge them. Then solidify this knowing by thinking spring, using spring, living spring, being spring.

You are what you think; you are changed by your focus and action. Allow your thoughts, focus, and actions to be filled with the beauty of starting anew in each moment, with each breath. Decide what you want to hold on to and let the rest be swept away by the spring breeze.