I Feel the Earth Move

Yesterday was a new moon, so blissfully, I got to sleep a bit longer and not do my Ashtanga practice. Man, has it ever been rough lately. I've been dealing with a very tender hamstring that gets very unhappy in almost all of the postures in the second half of primary, the postures that I previously loved practicing. I used to feel, when I got to that point, that I'd arrived at that place where everything would be ok.

Today, not so much. Where there was once a feeling of comfort, there are now tears. Lots of them this morning. I know, since they aren't really accompanied by a story of any kind, that these tears represent a release of something I've been holding for a very long time, and I know on some level that is a good thing. But it doesn't make it any easier.

This morning what came to me as I attempted to keep practicing through this release was that maybe this is groundlessness. Maybe part of my release is feeling like I have experienced groundlessness and I'm still here, I'm still ok.

In fact, I'm better than ok. Because I understand, as I didn't before, that no man, no food, no drink, no amount of money, no yoga posture, no nothing is ever going to put ground underneath me in the way that I have craved in my life after not having it as a child (when under the best of circumstances, one does). Which means I can stop searching for it, and waiting for it, and just live my life.

I know that Carole wasn't talking about groundlessness when she wrote this song, but it's the song that came to mind:

I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down, tumbling down
I feel my heart start to trembling
Whenever you're around

Ooh, baby, when I see your face
Mellow as the month of May
Oh, darling, I can't stand it
When you look at me that way

I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down, tumbling down
I feel my heart start to trembling
Whenever you're around

Oh, darling, when you're near me
And you tenderly call my name
I know that my emotions
Are something I just can't tame
I've just got to have you, baby

I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down, tumbling down
I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down
I just lose control
Down to my very soul
I get a hot and cold all over
I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down,
Tumbling down, tumbling down...

And it makes me think that maybe the next time my heart starts trembling, I can remind myself that the point of a romantic partnership is not finding stable ground. It's having someone with whom to navigate the groundlessness that is our reality as humans...