Pink

My yoga journey began in the late 1970’s – well before yoga was mainstream. I was a new school teacher in the Dover, Ohio schools and was looking to develop meaningful relationships while staying fit – both lifelong quests. I heard of a woman named Lawanna (yes, really) who taught yoga in her retrofitted barn, which was perched on a West facing hillside on the outskirts of town. Classes were at 6:00 two nights a week. But if the sunset was promising a salmon glow, she’d march her charges out onto a trail that skirted the hillside and offered up dusk drama. As colors emerged from the West, she’d instruct us to inhale the pink – as much as humanly possible. The deeper the evening hue, the deeper we inhaled and the more excited she became. “Pink is the most healing color,” she would ardently remind us. Mind you, Dover, Ohio is home to a couple of chemical plants and looking back, I have no doubt they contributed to the intensity of the very-hot-pinks we inhaled… cough, wheeze, sputter.

Regardless, I’m still alive today and inhaling the purer pinks of Blue Ridge Mountain sunsets – albeit not quite as intense as those impacted by Dover Chemical. And in the winter months, my 4:30 yoga class is often lit by pink skies at about the time we cool down and ease into meditation. I don’t march my yogis out the door. Instead, we all sit side-by-side at the West-facing sliding glass doors and inhale the pink, while bathing ourselves in its healing qualities. And I think of my first yoga instructor every time.

Thanks, Lawanna for this lovely inspiration.