Dive In
An update on the summer of surrender
In the last month’s post, I shared with you that I didn’t learn to float until I was 24 years old. I learned in a volcanic pool in Columbia. The water, thick and heavy like a wool blanket. Nearly impossible to sink to the bottom.
Now floating is my favorite surrender practice. The deep breath before kicking feet up, the body becoming light, arms outstretched, a parting of the back teeth, the base of the neck submerged in water, the exhale. Floating is a savasana in the ocean, a three part breath guarantee. An inhale into the low belly that balloons through the torso and into the heart.
The sounds become muffled. The world becomes blue.
Surrender. Let go. Release.
We throw around those words in yoga class like confetti at a child’s birthday party. But what do they mean?
A quick google search will tell you.
According to the Oxford Dictionary,
Surrender:
verb: cease resistance to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority.
Certainly, that is not what your yoga teacher is talking about.
Mirriam Webster is a bit more detailed,
Surrender:
Transitive verb:
To yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand
To give up completely or agree to forgo especially in favor of another
To give (oneself) up into the power of another especially as a prisoner.
To give (oneself) over to something (such as an influence)
Surrender, if you say it outloud, the word dances on your tongue. The little pause between the two R’s. We’re not talking about opponents, little white flags, yield of control to an authority. We’re talking about open relaxed hands, ready to move, ready to receive. We’re talking about grasping less, and the acceptance of what is from moment to moment.
I began the summer at the beach floating in the ocean, in my deep practice of surrender. I traveled to Portugal where the sun was burning hot, and the water ice cold. I would watch as people walked into the water, shoulders moving up to their ears as the shock of the water temperature moved through their bodies. They would move slowly, between smiling at friends, and scrunching faces and pauses that kept them from going deeper.
I gave up the hesitancy of slowly wading into the water. I began to favor walking in, taking a deep breath and diving under. In moments, a rush of coolness flooded my body from head to toe. In moments, the whole body adapted. In occasional slow walks in, I feared the wave before the wave hit me. I anticipated the cold, before I felt in. In doing so, I clouded my experience of it.
My ocean practice transformed from surrender to diving in. Now I wonder, what else can I dive into? What might be shockingly wonderful if I don’t anticipate it?