Some people say that this is the hardest of the poses. My teacher said that doing this pose--completely letting go--is a way to "practice dying." I'd never thought of it like that before.
Who wants to rehearse the final event? Who wants to let go of all the hard work we choose to do to make a living and make a life? The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea that in yoga, we're practicing letting go. Every time I've ever lost someone, even sometimes when I've given up something I'd been holding onto for dear life--it's given me a taste of my own death.
Leaving home for a road "walkabout" is my way of creating space for my mind to wander. To prepare for such a journey means temporarily letting go of all the things that matter on home turf.
A friend of mine is hosting an art show on November 2nd, the "Day of the Dead." In keeping with the Mexican holiday, Dia de Muertos, her art exhibit will feature paintings that honor those who have departed this life as we know it.
Sugar skulls, marigolds, and private altars to the dead are part of this tradition. Friends and family remember their loved ones with sweets and other favorite foods that the dead loved in life. I like to think that those who have died experienced the peace and letting go that I feel when I relax into savasana. I like to imagine that death is something like a long restorative nap filled with pleasant dreams.
In New England, I photographed Halloween yard displays-- elaborately dressed scarecrows and bigger-than-life wooden bears, often arranged in family groups, each one doing the kinds of things we love in life: playing guitars, dancing, sitting side by side in chairs, and making mischief. Under the leaves of brown and gold, my favorite was a circle of ghost girls dancing around a tree.
All the images of the afterlife pale beside this one! Give me dancing around a tree any day over pearly gates and gold-paved roads....
