Leap, and the Net Will Appear
Leap Source: http://gabistevens.blogspot.com/2011/05/last-week.html
Blessed to be living with a kitten, I am compelled to watch little Dusty as she explores her very big, mysterious world. As I wrote in a previous post, the kittens were a litter of three – her two brothers have since found a home together. Dusty is now a permanent fixture in our house.
Watching Dusty sniff, scratch, run and jump is an amazing journey of discovery. The most mundane of objects become wildly interesting to her. I often catch her staring with absolute intensity at something, and then realize with laughter that she is analyzing the ceiling or a sock. Her inquisitiveness is infectious.
On the weekend, I was enjoying some sun in the backyard when I saw her climbing a tall tree: climbing, stumbling, swatting at her tail, ignoring her mother’s cries below and climbing more, into the heart of the tree, far above what her mother thought safe.
Then she squatted low and considered a jump. She bounced a little to test her feet. Then LEAPED and landed with a bounce on the grass below. Unbelievable! My first thought was how reckless and dangerous an act that was. The arrogance of youth right? She could really hurt herself!
But after those first few panicked thoughts, I realized how important it is to leap sometimes. So often in our lives and yoga practices, we refrain from doing things because of a dull, uninformed concern or fear of the unknown – we hesitate to try new poses, we stop before reaching our true limit, or we tell ourselves that we’ve found our “edge,” but really we are well within our comfort zone. We don’t take our yoga practice to new places, because we don’t know what’s out there or how it will treat us.
Sometimes taking risks doesn’t work out how we hope. But sometimes it yields results far more stunning than we can imagine – Dusty’s delight of flying for the first time, the feeling of wind and space, before the pat of soft grass under her paws. Sometimes we need to leap, and trust that the net will appear.
