Yoga and my Grandfather. As unlikely a pairing as a carpenter carrying a gill net. If heaven permitted visits and I were magically able to share with Pop how yoga “put me in mind” of him, his reaction would be entertaining, I am sure. How his blue eyes would dance with mischief! Yet I recently had a yoga experience that linked me steadfastly to my grandfather.
Over the past year, my yoga practice has been a significant and most sincere teacher. It has taught me the importance of being true to myself, to honor who I am and where I stand. It has taught me to recognize and follow my path, despite fear and despite vulnerability. Most importantly, it has brought me back to my roots, my solid foundation - that part of me that is unwavering in my knowledge of who I am. Overwhelmingly, now in my forties, I more and more come to realize that much of that foundation was laid by my grandfather, brick by careful brick. That indeed, if my bearings had a face, somewhere within the rock-solid centre of who I am, you would see a silhouette of my grandfather.
My brother recognized Pop as our cornerstone at the graveside during their funeral service. Yes, their funeral, like their wedding day, saw both Nan and Pop together at the altar. Three days separated their passings: our Nan on a Wednesday, followed by Pop on Friday morning. While the bulk of our family had somehow wandered to Nan’s gravesite, Brian stood, straight and unwavering and momentarily alone, next to our Pop. He recognized our tendency to protect and nurture Nan, as modelled by our grandfather, but on this day, he was the bright North Star for Pop, refusing to leave him for even an instant. Such was this man. Quietly, like warm rain on a Sunday morning, he provided the rock sure foundation of our lives, and in a final show of his indomitable will, he defied cancer’s pain and refused to abandon his wife of nearly 70 years. Only with her passing did he agree to take his leave. This was the love story that was Cecil and Nellie.
My memories of my grandparents are cherished, they sit at my very core, each remembrance a stitch piecing together the quilt that is my moral center. Their influence upon my life is profound - their strong hands cupped around the oars, steadying my passage in rough waters. So, what is this to Yoga? How can a series of postures connect where I began, the people I have loved and who have loved me in return, to today? How is this possible?
By its very definition, yoga means Unity. It is through the practice of yoga that one “yokes together” or binds, the different aspects of the self to the wider consciousness that is the universe. Quite simply, through mindful practice, yoga connects where we are with where we have been. It also serves to ground us, to call us back to our center, and place us here and now. It pairs breath with movement to create stability within a pose but also to root us firmly within now, like trees with thick roots anchored solidly into the forest floor.
For me, this is essential. With careful attention to breath, my wayward brain quiets. The thoughts that fling heedlessly about like a toddler exploring the backyard, are stilled. It is in this space, this stillness, that sometimes a deeper clarity can be found. Equally, sometimes something tumbles out, a memory percolates up from the subconscious like a shell spit out from the ocean. This is how my grandfather became a part of my yoga practice.
My teacher asked that we envision a line that stretched from the top of the head, down the spine, and extended straight into the earth below. Through this grounding exercise I felt rooted and stable. Moored securely to the shore. Safe. Perhaps because of this sense of safety, or perhaps due to the image of the anchoring line, a memory sparked and I was back in my grandfather’s workshop.
Pop’s workshop was located beneath the two-story home that he built in the fifties. From inside, you could enter the workshop through a hatch in the floor; from outside, through a wide, short door that opened into the front yard. The workshop itself was a basement of sorts, there were portions where one could stand to full height, others where a crawl would be required, by a child like me or my brother, to reach the outer limits. The floor was dirt in places. However, the predominant feature was rock. Pop had built the home on a solid footing of curved rock, rock that formed the foundation and then curled up upon itself, soaring at near ninety-degree angle, stretching to the heavens and forming a back wall behind the house that no dynamite stick could dislodge. So formidable was this rock that it encapsulated the entire view from the dining room window. That’s right: If you looked through the large dining room window you saw nothing but a steady incline of solid bedrock. It didn’t make for much of a view but did permit a certain amount of natural daylight to enter. Regardless, the workshop floor was a continuation of this rock wall. It consisted of curving ledges and weeping granite.
My brother and I spent much time in this workshop, tormenting our lovely Poppy. Mostly he withstood it with a stoic sort of optimism. A gruff man, he loved us and pampered us in his way. One such way being our presence in his workshop. I watched Pop build a multitude of projects in this shop, fix my toys, divest rabbits of their skins…
Pop did not have a fleet of expensive tools but what he owned was stowed here. And cared for. It is a testament to the man’s patience that I can recall many of his tools, a clear snapshot of what they looked like and where he kept them. An obvious indication of just how much I messed with them. Again, he loved us and withstood a lot.
And so it was that during my grounding yoga sequence, I saw Pop’s chalk line. A strong, steady anchor, it was this line that rooted me into the earth. I saw it as clearly as if I held it in my hand. Housed in a charcoal colored, diamond shaped container, with a little flip roller that folded out from the center to ‘reel the line in’.
As a girl, I was fascinated by it: that string that extended forever, dusted with blue chalk that left perfect lines on my palms. I remember the day that Pop showed me how to “work it.” His words: “It’s to make a true line, my pretty. You just snap it and it shows you the straight line of where to go. It connects the two points, see? With a straight line.” I pictured that same expanse of dusty blue string pulling me to this earth, and rooting me solidly within its depths. Just like my Pop: A true line that stabilized, a safe connection between two points. My Pop was that stability, that safety, for the entirety of my childhood.
When I consider the image of my grandfather’s chalk line, I am humbly reminded of the unification, the harmony, that yoga offers. My breath, the chalk line, my memory of the rock upon which a home was built, all are connected. All are grounded within the profoundly personal journey that is yoga. Everything that we are, have been, and have the potential to become, are revealed when we sit quietly within the safety of our practice. We untangle old knots, we set new paths. And every now and then, if we are very blessed, we reside once again in the surety of our grandfather’s presence.