My Own Hero's Journey

Bhima from
http://openlibrary.org/books
/OL23365037M/Mahabharata

       I had the good fortune to attend 4 workshops with Sianna Sherman over the past weekend. I always look so forward to attending, but it's usually mixed with a bit of fear. People travel from all around just to attend, so usually I am among the least capable yogis in the room.  Add to this a fairly major fall when running two weeks ago (bringing with it a lot of stiffness and loss of strength), and let's just say showing up was a bit of a challenge.
      Our Friday night class was called Mythic Flow.  Sianna tells the class a story from one of the Indian mythic cycles then creates a flow around the lesson learned.  Last Friday it was part of the story of Bhima, son of Vayu, god of the wind.  The picture at left is very fierce, but our story was of a much gentler nature.  When Bhima was courting, he asked his love if there was anything in the world she wanted because he wanted to give her a gift.  She pointed across the field and asked him to bring her the white butterfly floating on the breeze.
        Bhima set off across the field as the butterfly slowly wafted into the forest.  He continued to pursue it ever deeper into the forest, never noticing in his single mindedness that he had completely left his world behind.  Unaware, Bhima began his hero's journey.
      As we began the flow of asana (poses), Sianna continued to remind us that we were on our own hero's journey.  Each move and each breath of the extremely difficult and very fun practice was playing our own edge, following our own white butterfly.  It was very freeing.  That voice of self-judgement is completely silent when life is journey not a destination.  It's time to lay the known aside and run off after the white butterfly.