Seven

I've started and stopped this blog and its various incarnations so many times that I'm unsure if I have ever mentioned that I practice yoga. I live in the Bible Belt. Please, no throwing rocks.  I don't so much reside on the buckle of the belt,--but just the part of the leather that always misses a belt loop somewhere near your butt and then hangs there all useless and stupid looking while--in the process- making you look like someone who probably gets help tying his/her shoes. I mention this only because there are people out there in my neck of the woods who like to think that yoga is a negative thing because it discusses aspects of spirituality not directly related to subjects you might hear about on The 700 Club.

Which is crazy because I have a very religious aunt who speaks in tongues and she used to practice reflexology, the use of bodily pressure points connected in mysterious ways to other body parts, to cure a headache. You don't have to understand why something works to appreciate that it does work and that's sort of how I feel about yoga.  It's like spiritual aspirin. I'm not for trying to ascribe qualities of evil (or good) to something like chataranga, which is basically a slow push-up, simply because I'm not listening to Joyce Meyer reading aloud from John Birch's personal diary while I'm doing it. In case you were wondering. What I'm really after is the ability to wave to passing friends without revealing a tragic case of eraser arm. Because I am that shallow. And I want to wear short sleeves again without shame.

So I probably don't practice yoga in the deeply spiritual way that one should approach anything that attempts to bring mind and body together and I freely admit this. I'm more of the mind that stroke inducing heat combined with killer poses held for inhumane periods of time will help me shoehorn my ass into a smaller jean size. Eventually.

Depending upon whose class I take, there may or may not be talk of the Seven Chakras. I won't bore you with the details here because, assuming you got to this site on your own power, you know how the internet works. I figure you'd look up that junk on your own. Anyway, last night--at the urging of a friend--I took a test to see if my chakras were firing on all four cylinders. Or maybe all seven. Who knows?

Sadly, friends, they are not. Apparently my root chakra--the one which allows me to walk alone into a crowded school cafeteria and calmly set my tray down without a major panic attack--  is grossly anemic. Who are we kidding? It's on life support. Conversely, my throat chakra--the one which controls my facility with oral and written expression--is exactly as strong as my root is weak. I am the Morgan Freeman of throat chakras while my root is that tiny man on Fantasy Island no one listens to.

 In short, I am comfortable saying exactly what I want to say, but I don't feel at home enough anywhere to say what I need to say. This is why I blog.