Attachment (awww, really? again?!?)

I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesterdays are buried deep – leave it any way except a slow way, leave it as fast as you can.  Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead.  Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance.  The cloud clears as you enter it.  I have learned this but, like everyone, I learned it late.

                                                               Beryl Markham, West With The Night

Have you heard?  I’m moving Uttara.

 Wow.  NOT an easy decision.

Our current space is absolutely beautiful; I am so attached to the windows; the view; the light.  Then again, I am NOT attached to the fact that the windows leak air and it’s cold in the Winter and hot in the Summer; that the City view also means City issues like lack of parking and noise and students getting towed.  Our big reception and seating area also mean a smaller space for the actual yoga class.

Don’t even get me started on the leaking roof. 

Time for me to make hard decisions about what really mattered to me, to the Studio, to the students; and what did not.

 Lisa Wade, who is an instructor at Uttara (and also an amazing massage therapist) decided to move her massage practice to The Sanctuary; a former church in the Old Southwest area of town.  Now, I had looked at this space before; GREAT space; but I was looking for a second location and decided it was too close to the first one -- I had no INTENTION of letting go of the Kirk Avenue space.

Why?

Good question.  But it all goes back to attachment.  I had spent so many hours trying to make that space work; issues with the City, issues with my landlords, issues with my students getting towed  – just so many things that ate up time and energy.

And then – there was the absolute beauty of it; Uttara’s birthplace; a space in which we have taught and learned and grown and bonded and laughed and cried and loved and been blessed.

It is a space in which miracles have occurred; all that history backing up in my mind and creating this connection that I thought unbreakable.

Reminds me a bit of my current separation and pending divorce; you have this massive history that truly deserves respect and recognition; but at what point do you realize that the relationship used to work – but now it does not – and it will not work with where your path is taking you.

*sigh*

It is exciting to have a new space; a bigger room, really beautiful floors, easier to get to, more direct sunlight, loads of two-hour street parking, and landlords who have been so kind and accomodating.  To re-invigorate, to re-establish; to re-invent, really. 

A big piece of my soul was so resistant; I am personally going through so much change.   “Why?” I pleaded to my inner voice, “Why NOW?”  But my inner voice was resolute; it was time to move, and this was the place.

So -- here we go – on April 30, Uttara Yoga Studio will be located at 1217 Maple Avenue in Old Southwest; right near the Walnut Street Bridge, off of S. Jefferson Street and right on the trolley line. 

We’re having an open house on Saturday, May 5 from 4:00 to 6:00 pm; I hope you’ll stop by to say hi and to help infuse our new space with the blessing of your presence.

I’ll keep you posted as we move and groove into this new cycle of being.

And if you see me around the next few weeks, could you please remind me –

“Hey, Jill, remember  – B-R-E-A-T-H-E . . . “

Shanti,

Jill