It is a Wednesday morning and I am taking a yoga class. Over the course of an hour and a half, the teacher repeats over and over; Give your body to the earth. Give your heart to the sky. Give your mind to the wind. I am swept up and carried away on this mantra. It feels as though all the instructions I need to live a grounded, fulfilling, and extraordinary life are contained in these three simple phrases.

Give your body to the earth. Can I remember to release into the support of the Mother when my head would tell me to keep pushing forward on my own? Can I remember that like the earth, this body moves in phases, is renewed in cyclic and circular ways, and is the very essence of Life itself?

Give your heart to the sky. Can I remember to look up and open up when life presses in with its diminishing pressures? Can I remember that despite the constraints of being human, there is a vast spirit contained within that is as brilliant and expansive as the sky itself?

Give your mind to the wind. Can I turn over the endless stream of thoughts to the recognition that they come and go like the wind itself; sometimes forceful, sometimes gentle, and sometimes not there at all? Can I let my mind rest in my very own breath, even when, and especially if, it is demanding that I react to all the wrong things?

Steady on the earth. Open to the sky. Free on the wind. Prescriptions for living.