Flowing Into Fall

Image by Alex Geert

Fall is here. Can you feel the change in the air?

Autumn is famously a season of transition: school schedules, the colors of the leaves, the light, and our bodily rhythms themselves. October is a great time of year to try on something new; to test out that restorative Yin class, to let go of a habit that no longer serves, or to add more root vegetables and squashes to your time in the kitchen.

Have you noticed the bricklayers in Marktplatz lately? If you take a few moments to peek out the window before or after class, you'll see construction workers carefully, tenderly creating new mandalas down below our studio. The bustling farmers' market booths make space for them, as the workers remake this iconic Basel destination into public art, one mandala at a time.

Oftentimes while I'm preparing to teach I'll notice them down below, balancing on their knees or squatting on their heels, placing each brick with attention, completely embodied in the project of making functional art for us all to enjoy. These mindful movements are asana, too, just as much as any low lunge or deep yogi squat we practice together in class.

As we rest together in the quiet of savasana, the sounds of hammers and saws ringing out, I'll smile and think to myself: Life is happening. This is yoga.

And come back to my breath, again and again.

This is the beauty of our charmed location, four floors up overlooking the Rathaus, tourists and locals alike buzzing down below. Dropping into the practice, we turn B.Yoga into an urban sanctuary of sorts, a literal refuge from the hustle at our doorstep. It seems to me a perfect metaphor for yoga and meditation: that gentle work of finding the stillness in the midst of all the coming and going.

Whether your practice these days looks more like vinyasa or laying bricks or raking leaves, know that anywhere (or any way) your body and mind can get lost in the flow of just being present, you're doing yoga. The emerging mandalas outside are a perfect reminder that we can find harmony, beauty and peace anywhere we're willing to create it — and that those gifts can be a grace to one another.

Welcome the changes; exhale into the cooler air; and let yourself flow.