Message from Karen Rigsby
My dearest friends and students at Inner Fire,
Many teachers have sent out video greetings. I have tried. I have tried to set up my iPad to record a greeting to you. But each time I try, I get about 30 seconds in, and my emotions well up and pour out my eyeballs. I miss you all.
I miss each of you and the Cumulative You.
I miss the connection we have and the energy exchange we weave when we're in that sacred space together.
During this unprecedented time, I believe each of us has unique struggles that we are learning to navigate. But this is no different than when we got to practice with each other. It is the same - in that each of our struggles is our own. Mine is not yours, and yours are not mine. But part of the magic of community asana practice is that it didn't matter. At Inner Fire, we could bring our *stuff, lay it down, work it out, sweat it out, and whatever was worthy enough to pick up at the end, we could scoop up and carry with us out of Inner Fire's portal. And it felt so good to do that together.
Here's the thing I know: we can still do that even though it’s not together. Sure, it feels a lot different without you, but the asanas are the same, and we can still hold space for each other in our intentions. So while we can't feel the palpable energy of the warrior next to us, we can still know that it’s there. And we can still pay attention to our breath, our alignment, and the quality of our energy. We can notice all that the asana practice gives us on our back porches, in our living rooms, in the patch of grass that gets the first-morning sun...wherever we choose to practice.
I believe we order our lives not by what we see, but by what we believe. I believe we are still larger than the sum of our parts; we just don't get to witness it as we did in our classes.
As for me, my practice looks really different. It's seldom, short and sporadic, but i keep paying attention. And holding intention. And I so often think of what it'll feel like to see you all again. Until then, breathe. Live in the pause between each breath.
Karen