Hip Openers 4

Hip Opener: Eka Pada Rajakapotanasana

My hip injury has long since healed. I have retired from the work that involved international travel. I have taken classes on Ayurveda, done spring and fall ayurvedic cleansing diets and even tried a sesame oil enema. (No more about that, I promise.) My husband and I will celebrate our 42nd wedding anniversary in a few months, the trauma of our separation largely subsided. For the first time in a long time, I am focused less on changing things and more on living fully what is, including staying open to what might emerge. For now, what I most want to do is stay settled in my practices: in marriage, practicing staying out of the victim mentality and showing up “authentically present;” in meditation, studying the Dharma and making it onto my cushion every day; in yoga, keeping the hip openers going.

More than the lunges these days, I rely on Eka Pada Rajakapotasana (pigeon pose) and the Yin Yoga version, sleeping swan. I also make it a point to step out of Ado Mukha Svanasana (downward dog) with my right leg, because the right hip is still much tighter than the left. The fact that I am also doing lotus regularly, which I could not do a couple of years ago, is a sign this hip opening is having an effect. On the other hand, I can’t sit in any position for more than 15 or 20 minutes without my hips being stiff and sore when I get up. I feel that, if I were to stop practicing, I would go straight to decrepitude.  Chip Walker’s fine poem on practice says it all:

Dig deep

Excavate

The gold vein beneath all gold veins
Way beyond the mother-lode

With only tap hammer     and chisel
                       the going   is slow

Every inch                        a universe

No such thing as faster
Not on this dig

Tapping harder
Only breaks the chisel

Besides
What’s the rush

Chipping patiently
Yields steadily
Ensures longevity

 Chip Walker, "Practice," in Half a Mala: Threading Towards Wholeness (2011).