Lenten lengthening
Image credit Rita Astrovich from Unsplash
This past week we started the sacred season of Lent. Last year during the Lenten retreat I participated in with Her Way of Love, Lent was described as a season of liminal space and lengthening. The imagery of lengthening and expanding seems appropriate this year still as we continue to move through the global pandemic collectively. Even as vaccines are being rolled out, we have a long way to go with new virus variants and diverse public health restrictions across the country. However, lengthening and expanding our hearts, thoughts and bodies can be a source of gratitude, renewal and hope.
What might lengthening and expanding our hearts, thoughts and bodies look like? In my own life, expanding my heart has come most authentically when I quiet myself and truly listen through my journaling and yoga practice. For those folks who’ve been following this blog space, you’ve read a bit about my current personal liminal season of transition, grief and discernment. You have also read about how important listening to my body is for me as a woman with cerebral palsy, and how I trust that through listening to our bodies we may come to receive and hold our hearts more dearly.
In the midst of a particularly lonely, disappointing and aggravating week, last Ash Wednesday morning as I wrote in the gratitude journal my sister gifted me it dawned on me how naming gratitude for a few moments from my day each morning and evening has become a nourishing ritual for me. It’s opened me up to honoring the basics we often take for granted. It’s allowed me to embrace and expand into the relationships with my loved ones-near and far-with a new and wholehearted love. My heart sees with wonder the gift of beauty with me and within me on this journey.
My yoga practice started back in undergrad at Ohio Wesleyan University when my first yoga teacher, a kind woman, took the time to help me learn to adapt several of the poses so that I may practice with more ease and fluidity. Since then I’ve practiced on and off, but during my chaplain residency I began to practice regularly as a self care and compassion practice. During this season of my practice, a more spiritually intimate dialogue between my body and heart was born. As I (literally!) lengthened my body, I became more comfortable in my skin and with my heart. I came to a deeper appreciation for leaning into compassion and trusting the path of my heart. A similar season of practicing yoga daily and deeply listening to my body and heart has found me again, now.
So, I’ve decided to practice lengthening through listening to my body and heart with gentle gratitude and compassion this Lent. With each day, with each new minute of sunlight we receive as winter wanes and spring blooms, I will strive to remember and live into the abundance of grace and love that is always with me, and is always with each of us.
How are you feeling drawn to practice lengthening this Lent?
