Sunday Blog: Rolling On The River
One afternoon, I sat on a Riverside Park bench, watching the boats go up and down the Hudson.
A sailboat leads from the bow. The wind fills the sail and propels the boat forward. The mast links the wide, and full, hull with the sail, giving it stability as it moves. Even when the winds turn, or the waters get choppy, the boat stays pretty stable.
The sleek motorboat is built for speed and leads from the stern. Its motor propels. It cuts through the water with force.
The rudder glides to create direction in a sailing vessel while the motorboat steers with a wheel from the front. The movements of the motorboat overcome the nature of the sea, while the buoyancy of the sailboat works with nature for ease of passage.
Most importantly, the wake of the motorboat is bigger, more powerful and able to create more agitation to other ships or swimmers nearby. It leaves both a literal and figurative carbon footprint, often bouncing everything off of their paths, while the sailboat leaves a smooth, quiet ripple in the water.
Yogah citta vrtti nirodhahI says the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. “Yoga is the stilling of the changing states of mind.”
My yoga practice should be more like a sailboat than a motorboat, leaving fewer samskaras and gracefully moving with the changing patterns of life, versus powering through them.
—Brette Popper
