Still not true colors but good enough until I can have this series professionally scanned.
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1. Full set up.
2. Before adding quilt and comforter.
3. Basic set up.
I'm grateful to have been moved to take a single series of yoga classes in 1970 while R was in Vietnam. When I was 27, I began taking weekly classes at the first yoga school in Bellingham and continued classes along with a home practice until I was in my late 30s and physical limitations became a deterrent to taking classes but did not keep me from continuing my own home practice and refraining from poses that weren't appropriate for my body. When I was in my 40s, I took classes from different yoga schools that had opened in Bellingham, including classes in restorative yoga, continuing my early morning home practice.
During the early years of my blog, I continued a vigorous home yoga practice, finding myself able to do poses that I had not been able to do as a younger woman. The years of yoga practice had strengthened my upper body and given me a sense of confidence in my body that had been missing from my years prior to discovering yoga. In my 60s, I began letting go of poses that had the potential for causing injuries and those which clearly put stress on my strong but aging body.
Now that I am in my early 70s, I have had to let go of more and more poses due to a low back that has been susceptible to injury since I was in my 30s. I've lost some of my height and can no longer do backbends without causing a flare of low back pain. And yet, I am able to do a fairly vigorous yoga practice that combines a basic series of sitting, standing, balancing, stretching, bending, inverted and reclining poses that I have done since I was in my 20s along with restorative yoga poses.
Here's a pose I can no longer do because it hurts my knees. I was unable to do this pose at all until I was in my 50s.
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There's something to be said for letting go to make space for something new.
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Mandala #37: Woman Moved By Gratitude
