March 18, 2021

This pose is normally called wild thing, which is a name I’ve always loved!

First, it makes me think of the song (you make my heart sing...). Second, it makes me smile at the idea of being a wild thang and third it’s a heart-opening backbend that my body didn’t used to know how to open up into (and now it does). Out of curiosity (and to further my knowledge cause yoga is, in fact, more than putting your body in pretty shapes) I looked it up and found the Sanskrit name: #camatkarasana.

Not gonna lie, I won’t be cueing that anytime soon in my yoga lessons. No disrespect to the traditions of yoga, but “wild thing” is just so fun to say. And it gets even better, it’s traditionally translated as: “the ecstatic unfolding of the enraptured heart"

The ecstatic unfolding of the enraptured heart. Ooh. Yes. That is something I can get behind. Right now all of us probably have a little bit of heaviness in our hearts. A little bit more ‘work’ to do, a little bit more unfolding and unpacking and searching in little caverns inside ourselves. This pandemic has been going on for (over) a year. We are not the same as we were in March 2020, individually nor as a collective. Here in Italy (or at least in Lazio) we’re in another full lockdown.

And so? I’m using it as another (forced haha ) opportunity to go deeper inside. To use my yoga practice to bring me back to this present moment. To open my heart a little more. And repeat. And again. And again. Without much choice I’m dusting off cobwebs and doing spring cleaning, internally and externally too.

And through it all my heart is unfolding. My heart is opening, I can still see and feel and experience so much joy in these tiny little moments. Maybe I’m even doing it ecstatically. For now we’re (more or less) stuck inside but I can taste Spring and it’s literally right around the corner, and there is not a doubt in my mind: all of our hearts this summer can unfold ecstatically- we can all be wild things ❤️