Yoga Is A Prayer

by Kellyn McGee

"YOU WERE CREATED FROM LOVE, FOR LOVE."

In my yoga practice, there are many poses I can do without even thinking about them. What I sometimes lose focus of, though, is my breathing. It’s easy to let my thoughts take over, easy to let the why I came to the mat distract me from what the mat is for. It is the place to leave the world behind me and to just take notice of my inhales and exhales, whether I’m in a vinyasa (one breath per movement) practice, or if I’m slowing down the world around me in restorative poses.

It’s like my love…life? I can easily get distracted by the not-great dates, seeing successful unions, and the (current) absence of a partner. But when I slow down, I see those for what they are: hope. In a future united with my love.

I am forever hopeful to have love like my parents, whose divorce made way for their everlasting love stories. My mother and stepfather – high school sweethearts who found their way back to each other - have been married just over 51 years. My father and stepmother had been married 34 years at the time of his death.

My parents’ stories, and the ones in this issue, exemplify the types of unions many of us have or seek. These couples are committed to the agreement they made to yoke with each other decades ago. And they remain so, despite – or because of – the external disruptions they have faced.

Their unions remind me that the word we know as “yoga” comes from the Sanskrit root word “yuj,” which means to unite, to yoke, to join. That each individual practice of yoga is designed to unite the breath with a pose — and the idea of yoga off the mat is to yoke ourselves with the world around us, person to person.

In the words of one of my favorite mantras: “You were created from love, for love.”