What We Bring Along

I hope you all are doing well.  As I was thinking last weekend about what I wanted to share with my classes I read this passage from Mark Nepo.

What We Bring Along — Mark Nepo
A river doesn’t hold all the water that passes through it.

In our journey through time, we all struggle constantly with what to bring along and what to leave behind. It feels so hard to throw anything away, but if we don’t, we will drown underneath a weight of our own making. 
The river is a good model. It doesn’t own the water that rushes by, yet it couldn’t be in more intimate relationship to it, as the force of what moves through shapes it. It is the same with everything we love. In truth, there is no point to holding on to the deepest things that matter, for they have already shaped us. 
The purpose of sentiment, then, is to release the powerful feelings that sleep in us. Sometimes books and cards and shells and dried flowers do this. But often we carry more than we need, seldom trusting that what these small treasures represent is already living within us. Often the most useful gift we can give ourselves is to lay our lives open like a river. 

It struck me because you can interpret it in a couple of ways. I have a student who is moving abroad in just a few short days. She has been sharing with me her process of shedding and letting go of items since they will be traveling for several months before they settle in Europe.  The painstaking process of minimizing and surrendering and giving away possessions that held importance for so long has been a journey and through that also a chance for her to re home meaningful items so they can continue offering joy to others. 

Another way to read this passage is my current perspective; being just months away from both my children embarking on new journeys away from me. Next summer, my daughter will relocate to NYC and start a job after she graduates from college and my son will begin his college journey. This reading couldn’t be more true for both of us so it became my message this past week. 

As I shared it with my classes it was with the reminder that we also hold unnecessary things in the body that break up a healthy “flow” inside ourselves. With attention we can begin to soften some of those and let them flow through.

Off the mat it is very much the same. This part of the reading truly reminds us of this;  “It is the same with everything we love. In truth, there is no point to holding on to the deepest things that matter, for they have already shaped us.” There is freedom in this understanding; whether it’s momentos, memories or even children– part of being a river is letting the best parts flow though you and trusting that they leave their mark in the most important ways.

I am very excited about the response for my next retreat to MOROCCO. The details are below. In addition, I am only teaching one class this week which is today.