Yael Wand

yoga and creative process

Last weekend I had the great fortune of participating in a weekend long yoga workshop. It's the first chance that I have spent several days in a row just focused on practice. It was exactly what I needed but didn't know I needed. When i managed to get my brain and body to sit down together, I realised how much I'd had on my mind of late and I realized that stepping back from all that busyness was exactly what I needed to do. By the way, if you are looking for a workshop I cant say enough about our instructor, Brett and Space to Remember.

I've been practicing yoga for the last decade or so. i'm far from disciplined. I practice when it's been convenient, and i've moved from one yoga variation to another depending on what presented itself to me. There was a year when I succeeded in practicing almost every morning by myself. Not sure what got into me that year, though I do long for that sort of discipline again. around here we don't have fancy instructors and lululemon, but thankfully there's have a group of us who have been practicing together for several years. we're not so much a class as we are a collection of women who get together to do what we know we wouldn't have the gumption to do on our own. we have a space, and something of a routine. it wasn't so much intentional as happenstance that lately i've been leading the group: I was willing to get up in the morning, I have a good memory for asanas, and i'm genetically bendy - perhaps that's motivational. But it turns out I love leading our group.

I'm digressing somewhat.

I haven't thought much about any relationship between making music and yoga. I love them both, they feed me and I feed them in turn. Of course, there are the physical benefits of yoga to playing and performing. Several years back when I recorded Antinomy I had a bout of tendonitis and it has scarcely returned. i'm sure in large part it's due to the physical awareness that yoga brings to the student - to my playing - not to mention agility and strengthening.

I woke up this morning to cbc and our BC arts program hosted by Sheryl Mackay. She was interviewing a poet - I didn't catch her name - and at one point the conversation turned to the creative process. my ears perked up from their sleepiness: does this poet know something of the process that i could adopt, can i learn to be on good terms with that wily serpent?

The poet's response was so simple and so familiar: to ignite her own creativity, she gets comfortable on the couch, fluffs the pillows, curls up with a good book and reads. when ideas stir, she jots notes, thoughts that can grow into poems and essays and haikus.

my horizontal and uncaffinated mind set to work:

inhale downward dog
pausing mid air in question
exhale to answer 

(...it's Saturday morning after, it can't all be brilliant.)

and it came to me between the syllables. yoga is the yoking together of body and mind. I learn to grow aware of thoughts and of breath and to let go expectations and chatter, to draw attention to being and yet remain unattached. much like when the creative wave arrives: the mind and body work together to make music. they are focused and in concert but with out expectations and with out a sense of time. There's no point of transition from non-creative to creative, there is only the putting away of distractions and welcoming the moment and it's potential.

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