DesigKnit

A new job, a new city, a new apartment. New knitting groups, new friends, new projects. All good things. All exciting. Things have been the same for a long time, put on hold in pursuit of an education. But now they are stretching and growing, moving out of stasis and into motion. Slipping, sliding, rumbling, tectonic motion. A million things are calling for attention, tired of waiting their turn.

It’s so easy to grasp, to clutch, to hold on to the familiar.

My yoga teacher used to call this riding your edge, and it’s exactly the place you want to be, this place where things happen. It’s the place between comfort and panic – you’re still in control, but only just.

It’s easy to stand in a safe position, rooted to the floor, grounded and stable. Mountain pose is a place of rest, and it is where you begin. Being at your center is comfortable, but in order to grow you must move out of that place of comfort. You ride your edge out into the unfamiliar, into the unbalanced. You have to move out of your center before you can learn to come back to it.

When you move to your edge, you falter. You know you have found it when you begin to lose your balance, when feel that you are just about to tip over. Arms flail, legs refuse to stand firm. Things are wobbly and uncertain. Muscles tighten, grasping and reaching, trying desperately to hold on.

As your body tips and trembles, your eyes settle on something small, something insignificant. An island of quiet in the midst of the storm. A moment of curiosity or laughter grants you a second’s pause. A deep breath. Your eyes settle, and they stay. Things become still. You have found your drishdi.

In that moment, you let go of finding balance – and allow it to find you.