The Magic of New Beginnings

Surveying the fields around my house, the newly fallen snow strikes me as poignant metaphor for the gift - and relief – of new beginnings.

Just a few months ago, they were lush and vibrant, hosting stalks of corn, bales of hay, and grazing cows. Today, they're blanketed in white, pristine and seemingly as full of possibility as blank sheets of paper.

That’s the thing about life – it’s always new. With each sunrise, every breath, and shift of the seasons, we witness the cyclical nature of existence and the ever-unfolding intelligence that gives rise to it.

It’s easy to lose touch with these natural rhythms, which are, in fact, also our own. How reassuring, then, to remember that life generously presents us with myriad opportunities to begin again.

As yogis, we can learn to lean into the freedom and possibility inherent in new beginnings. We can start by welcoming each practice as an opportunity to reset and start fresh.

The Yoga Sutras, like many philosophical works, begins with a simple, yet profound declaration that points our attention toward the subject at hand:

Atha Yoganushanam
Now, begins yoga.

Yoga Sutra 1.1

It’s a call to step back from the narrative of our lives and open to presence as the starting point for our practice. More than that, it’s a directive to embrace the opportunity to begin anew, every single time.

Truly, each time we come to our mats or cushions is new because our starting point is always different. We aren’t the same, and neither are the situations and circumstances in our lives.

Like a blanket of freshly fallen snow, there’s tremendous freedom and possibility in availing ourselves of yoga’s open-ended invitation to begin again, exactly from where we are.