Savasana & Fetal Pose

I've been thinking lately about spring. Why is it sometimes harder than fall, when fall is about letting go? Autumn is literally about things dying and fading away, little by little, until winter washes everything out.

But spring is often harder for me--the push and the pull, the teaser day in March when its 70 degrees and you see, physically feel, what you've been missing yet have to wait so long for.

In yoga, they call this savasana and fetal pose.

Savasana (corpse pose) is taken at the end of practice. You let your body splay across your mat, taking up as much room as possible, and letting all your muscles and thoughts go. It's said to be the hardest pose, because after an hour of exertion--of twists and turns and stretches--you collapse into total relaxation. It's hard to let go completely, to dissolve. It's hard to let go at all.

Source

But the hardest part for me sometimes, especially after a really "heavy" savasana, is what comes next: Bringing small movements to the body, and turning onto your side into fetal pose. It symbolizes a rebirth, a reawakening that marks the start of something new:

"...a new cycle of movement, awareness and being. [Fetal pose] is a momentary reminder that between the end of one cycle and the beginning of another, we must transition."

Sometimes I just don't feel ready to leave my mat, my place of contemplation and evolution, and, as one instructor says, "bring the practice, quite literally, to life." I suppose it makes sense, as I don't really like mornings, either.

It's the perfect metaphor for this spring in particular, which has been an exercise in transitions, a period of pause and uncertainty: Will the house sell by the end of the tenants' lease or won't it? What will my new boss be like? I've had to really dissolve into the unknown, and let any expectations or worries fade away.

I've learned that spring is hard because it takes resolve. After a strenuous class or a shitshow winter--whatever the twists, turns and stretches are in your life--it takes tenacity to find the courage to face the new with an open heart and clear mind, even if it has potential to be much warmer and brighter.