All glory
comes from daring to begin.
- Anonymous
Ninety-nine
percent of life is showing up.
- Woody Allen
A Small Stone
A teacher once
said something that has remained with me ever since. What he said comes up in every
life situation that requires ‘action’
(which often is no action). Whenever I need to take on anything new or focus
to make myself better (heal the world, write a great novel, or lose five pounds) I remember his words.
It happened during my first yoga workshop. It rained in torrents the entire week of the
workshop. I mention this because it mirrored the intensity of the hours we
spent soaking up a deluge of knowledge and information from this exceptional
teacher.
Each practice began with three OM’s and a
Sanskrit invocation that they say if practiced twelve thousand times makes it’s
meaning clear. I’ve been practicing it ever since and I have no idea if that is
twelve thousand times. I never counted but it counts to me that I do it.
Physical
work was intertwined with knowledge and information that was braided with
insight into the mental body, the emotional body, the psychological body and
the spiritual body. The teaching was complex and stitched into a formative experience
for me. There were anecdotes that transcend the telling but seeped way in. The
lesson of the ‘worthwhile’: it is earned with sweat. Nothing heartfelt
or worth having is gotten without toil. Ultimately, the greatest pleasures of
life are earned this way.
At the end
of the workshop someone asked our teacher how to practice, how to start and how
long to practice once you get started. The teacher was eating some dried fruit
and nuts and continued chewing for a few moments (a typical Yogi) before he
spoke.
“If you go
out and try to pick up a big rock, or a boulder, you will struggle to lift it
and to throw it any distance.” He paused again and then went on:
“If you go
out and pick up a small stone and toss it, you will throw that small stone a
great distance; a much greater distance than the big boulder.”
This wisdom
over years keeps gathering weight and meaning. This idea of the small stone became
a boulder, a solid reliable rock. I remember when my son who was learning to
walk: he was four years old and defying the prognosis that he might never walk. It was
one small step at a time. He walks.
Let us gather
inward the best parts of ourselves. That means working on giving our self things
beside ourselves; new endeavors; continuing to be the best we can be. It begins
with one small step, one small stone. Instead of a heave ho, try a toss.
