Avoid Future Suffering in Everyday Ramblings

I took this last Monday morning and it is all about the light on this somewhat past its prime hydrangea. I had taken the morning off from work to go across town to sub a yoga class and I had a little time to wander around and see what was happening in the neighborhood gardens before arriving at the studio.

The brown squirrels and crows are busy, bulking up and hiding food.

I did the same thing yesterday morning. Each class only one student but they were both women I know and have taken class with many times so it was very relaxed and fun. Transitioning from a practice companion to the teacher is an interesting dynamic but I think I handled it as well as I could with humor and I hope grace.

One of the women is 75 and the other 65 and then both have remarkable range of motion and this is a joy to work with. One of them had been up on a ladder recently cleaning out her gutters and we were taking about the time when we will know we need someone else to take on those tasks. Hopefully not after a fall.

Most Honorable and I decided to try hiking a new trail that had been tempting us for a number of years up in the Columbia River Gorge on the Oregon side on Wednesday. It is a little less than 2.5 miles up a fire road to even get to the trailhead. Once on the trail proper it is narrow and steep and there are a bunch of unnamed little waterfalls and you cross the creek a few times. Just gorgeous up there.

At one point Most Honorable, who was behind me, slipped on a root, it was dry, just angled in a particular way and he went down. It was scary. Most of his legs were pretty much hanging off a cliff face down into the ravine. His comment when he was able to get upright and stable was, “I still have the car keys.” Note to self. Car keys in zippered pocket.

We kept going. Up. And more up...

Until it started not to make sense to me. I mean, really, there is only a limited amount of up, right?

We hadn’t seen anyone else since the parking lot when a young couple headed off in the other direction. We were getting hungry and seriously contemplating turning back. We were very very close to turning back when the couple magically manifested in front of us coming down.

We were forty yards from the campsite trail intersection we were heading for. Forty yards! Ha. We made it and had lunch and except for a behind the knee bug bite out of nowhere again for Most Honorable an enjoyable and uneventful trip down. I had fun. And it was nice to get away.

Yoga Sutra 2.16 “Future suffering can and should be avoided.”
heyaṁ duḥkham-anāgatam

I think of how the students I worked with this week actually take this idea to heart and how much I admire them for that.

Last updated August 24, 2014