(on recycled paper)
J and I were engaged on the first day of Spring and then married exactly two seasons later in the first weekend of Autumn. Six exciting and exhilarating months of preparation and anticipation during our engagement culminated in three nights of sublime events filled with more love and joy than I knew existed. Following those days of bliss surrounded by friends, family, food, wine, and foliage that would make any man delirious, we were sent back to earth.
Here is how to make a soft landing.
Fall, season of transformation
Old ideas shed like the decaying leaves. New ideas wait in the wings.
-Roam around iTunes, buy and blast an uncharacteristic book-on-tape, and rearrange your cupboards.
-After a deep clean of your home, collect original sources of inspiration at the bookstore. Peruse new isles, peek into unchartered sections, demolish the magazine racks, spend a small fortune. Take your goods to the coffee shop and let the sparks fly.
-Test a new restaurant, take a weekend trip, try a class or explore an unfamiliar hobby.*
Autumn is a time to let go.
-Focus yoga poses on body areas that hold and store excess, such as outer hips, side waist and backs of thighs. Sit low in lunge, squat, warrior, goddess, and utkatasana.
-Free up the chest area with back-bending heart openers.
-Enhance lung health with pranayama. Take deep breaths every time you're in the shower.
-Aid elimination with a detoxifying twist or an abdominal massaging reclined knee-to-chest pose.
Cold brittle air seeps in.
-Stay warm and moist. Ayurveda, sister science to yoga, recommends sesame oil self-massages post shower.
- Enjoy soothing, well-cooked atumnal foods such as apples, squash, rice, oats, soups, stews, turnips, carrots, pears...
-I like to take left over rice or quinoa, boil it again with soy or almond milk and maple syrup for 'anytime rice pudding'.
In summation
-fresh resources/intense invigorating exercise/warm soft foods
Use one quality to balance another
All summer long, Miss P. attended slow, meditative yoga classes that kept my feet on the ground when my head was in the clouds daydreaming of veils, cakes, a new life... When I returned to the same class today, as Mrs. K., I found it irritating and painfully slow. And not in the if-your-resisting-it-you-probably-need-it kind of way, but with a "I-need-to-run-outside, breath-in-cold-air, sweat, and-move!!!" recognition.
More often than not I recommend slower, meditative yoga because it is intrinsically what we fast-paced, A-type westerners lack, but this prescription has its limitations. It is important to assess your current condition. Which attributes are overly dominant and need an opposing property for harmony? This is a question that needs reassessing almost daily, if not more. It is constant play; a dance.
In my case, proceeding an emotional high, outward energetic activities are a better remedy to assuage an inevitable downward spiral rather than partaking in activities that take me further inward as I rebound. That kick in the ass can be found in a brisk walk or jog outside or a burn-your-buns, not-for-the-meek yoga "level 2-3" (ugh) class.
No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace
as I have seen in one autumnal face.
-John Donne
*Projects
-Cover anything and everything in Candy Corn. If you want projects to stick better and last longer shellac the candy corn before you glue.
