DAILY ‘Intimate’ from the Latin, intimare/intimus, meaning ‘inmost,’ to make known, is a word we usually associate to mean closely acquainted with someone. All well and good, but we can also be intimate, or not, to our life, our breath, our time, our death. This requires a good deal of work. Turning inward to sit still and be intimate with any aspect, any person, requires not only conscious attention, but still-listening to exactly ‘what is.’
Intimacy is becoming harder to come by. Instead of having an intimate relationship with time, we feel we are abused by it, cowed and overwhelmed by our lack of it. Would that feeling change if we were to sit in intimate conversation, face to face with time? Try it. Ask what it means to you to become intimate with your time.
Do you have intimate friends? Why not? What are you unwilling to give to make that possible? Do you have an intimate relationship with Self? Do you sit in stillness, honoring your relationships, willing to hold every contrary piece of your nature in close proximity, and allow exposure? Being intimate doesn’t mean having to like all of what is exposed, connected with, or related to. Being intimate simply means we are willing to turn inward with that person, that issue, or idea. We are willing to be known to them so that we can open to one another without barriers, or subterfuge.
I suspect that this new year is going to ask more intimacy of us, ask us to be more present to a life that is flying by, more aware to what is dying, more compassionate to those not willing to be intimate with their lives.
Asana: Ardha Matsydrasana/Fish Pose: Lie on your back, in stillness, willing to open the heart to self, to the Universe. Lift the chest high until you rest only on the crown of the head and sitts bones, extend the legs & feet strongly, bring the hands to Namaste over the heart, or extend them overhead, parallel to the floor. Breathe in all of life, lie in intimate surrender to your breath, the Asana, the floor, your heartbeat.
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