Here I am on One-Legged Chair Pose, or Squat Pose, with Fire Log leg variation, and Cow Face Pose arms. One of the themes in yoga poses is removing limbs, or supports, to increase the strength and balance challenge. Tree Pose is the classic example of a one-legged stand, which doubles the pressure on the standing leg and creates a balance challenge. Binding the hands in various ways also limits the hand and arm support in poses and can also increase the stretch, strength, and balance challenge. There is an underlying theme here. We start life by building ourselves up. Early life is all about addition, as more things, experiences, and relationships come into our lives. At a certain point, the cycle of acquisition comes to an end, and we start to experience subtraction, where things, experiences, and people are taken away from us. Rather than regretting the inevitable rises and falls of life, the trick here is to jump onto a higher, more subtle wave and make a new ascent. From quantity to quality. When the body fails, turn to the mind, when the mind fails, turn to the heart. When excitement wanes, turn to peace, when the love affaires end, turn to a higher, deeper, broader love. Psychologists have observed that people become measurable happier when looking at fractal patterns in nature, such as a tree with repeating branches, that become smaller and smaller, and rise higher and higher. Our life is a fractal pattern, as we go through repeating cycles, but less gross and more subtle, as they repeat. If we can keep catching subtler waves, we can keep on rising and ascending. This is the trick behind meditation. We focus on one thing, or maybe a sequence of increasingly subtle points of focus, and then, when we get in the flow, we let the supports go. Build your scaffolding, high in the sky, but let it all go, when you begin to fly.
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