Hi Everyone,
So, I have been traveling with the kids for more than two weeks now – what an adventure!
We’ve been at the ocean, and we went to the San Diego zoo too. (They have good ice cream there!)
This week we’re in Vermont visiting my parents.
I miss the studio and all my dear friends in SLC. I’m looking forward to coming back for my September retreat.
I hope you all are continuing your practice. It’s much easier to ground when you actually have some ground to call home. That’s one of the things I have always loved about Avenues Yoga: the feeling of sanctuary we enjoy there.
Now that I am “home” in Vermont I can really recognize the stark contrast between all the traveling we’ve been doing, and the feeling of really being somewhere you can call home.
I grew up here, and everything is familiar.
Every inch of the land, every curve of the old dirt road, the trees, the contours of the rolling hills. I can tell Ava the names of the flowers and trees as she reaches out to touch them with her little hands. This is mountain sumac. This is Queen Ann’s Lace.
My family has lived here for generations. When I am here, I feel I can breathe more deeply. It’s like the land itself has “got my back.” I know the faint zingy sound of the grasshoppers, the background noise that accompanies us all day long this time of year. I know the sound of the raindrops on the roof, the breeze ruffling the American flag hanging from my parent’s big front porch.
I felt this way at the studio too. Each brick has a place in my mind. They make patterns I know by heart from years of teaching there. I know every stone and leaf of the garden.
Sanctuary.
The word comes to us through Medieval French sanctuaire, from Latin sanctus, meaning holy. Holy places provided refuge for fugitives – no one was allowed to persecute them on holy ground.
When we feel at home, we can unwind and relax in a way that’s simply impossible under other circumstances. I’m realizing more than ever now how important it is to cultivate that feeling.
We can arrive at a feeling of sanctuary by really opening our senses to take in a full feeling of the place we are.
So often, we go through our days rushing and hurrying from one place to another, never feeling at home. Sometimes, we rush around precisely because we do not feel safe or at home, not realizing that the act of slowing down, in itself, can be one of homecoming.
Namaste,
Erin Menut
p.s. If you’d like to cultivate the feeling of sanctuary, consider signing up for my next retreat “Straight from the Heart,” September 19-21 in Woodland Utah.
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