New Year's Eve

New year's eve is a hot one, 43 degrees centigrade today and still warm tonight.
I'm spending the night alone, by choice.

At 7pm I started a yoga practice, Iyengar's Week 26-30 sequence. I would have been quite happy to have done only the Headstand and Shoulderstand variations - these two inversions are the the greatest gifts handed down to us by the yogis. They rejuvenate the body and mind in ways we may never fully understand.
Once underway with the practice, I just worked quietly through the entire sequence, finishing just after 8.30pm.
Nice way to spend New Years Eve.
8 minutes in Headstand and variations, delighted to find I can easily get into Padmasana in Headstand on the second side (not the first though).
14 minutes in Shoulderstand and variations, loving the Niralamba (hands free) balances.
Of the three abdominal poses (Jatara Parivartanasana, Paripoorna and Ardha Navasana) Jatara was the favourite one tonight and Ardha Navasana with hands behind the head was a fizzer, not much core strength in my belly tonight.

I woke up somewhere far away with Mark during the series of forward bends.
Was he watching me?
Is he in the bedroom with me?
I am always alert for signs, tuned into the other world waiting for a faint message, a feeling, a loving whisper.
He would always sit at the table in the ballroom working on his computer while I did my morning yoga practice in the bedroom, he was very careful not to disturb me. Only once did he walk in to say goodbye while I was in a Headstand.

I am mad with love, and no one understands my plight.
Only the wounded understand the agonies of the wounded - when a fire rages in the heart.
-Mirabai

I tried to engage with the next pose, Gomukhasana. On the first side I did the wrong version with both feet splayed to the sides of the thighs - still not fully concentrating on what I'm doing. After doing the correct version on the second side sitting on my heel, I got up on an unexpected whim and took a photo of the Wandering Angus poem that I'd decorated and framed yesteday.
Then I sat back on the mat and resumed my yoga practice.
How odd to unconsciously follow an invisible directive to do such a thing.
Lolasana was up next, perhaps I was procrastinating.
Padmasana variations, Virasana variations, Marichy 3, Ardha Matsyendrasana, Baddha Konasana without a forward bend tonight, Down Dog, Chaturanga, then Upward Dog (I swapped the order of these last two poses as it felt more familiar), some backbends, then Utkatasana and Uttanasana, and I even enjoyed Garudasana at the end of the sequence - it tested the mental quietude I'd developed over the practice. Can I do it without judgement or questioning? yes.

A small salad for dinner and the rest of the evening's mine.

The end of 2010...the year I found, and then lost, the love of my life.