Mastodawn

After a long practice, I make tortilla española. Potatoes and eggs. That's the whole ritual.

The practice is smaller now, more honest. That feels right.

What does practice look like when it stops performing?

The pose was correct. The breath landed. Something was still absent from the practice.

Even a silent, internal audience changes everything.

What does practice feel like when no one is watching?

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One Tuesday morning I practiced with no mirror, no phone, no one expected. The body just moved.

I didn't know I was still carrying it until it was gone.

When did your practice stop being something you performed?

I was vegan for ten years because I believed it. Then one day I noticed I was using it as armor.

The ethics were real. The performance around them wasn't.

When does a value become a performance of that value?

Yoga culture has rules nobody ever wrote down. I followed them for years before realizing I hadn't chosen them.

They feel like values. They accumulate like obligations.

Which unwritten rules have you quietly agreed to follow?

Do you know how often you want to quit your practice? I do, because I wrote it down.

Naming it across twelve months of entries stripped away its power.

What pattern in your practice have you never named?

My abuela never used the word aparigraha. She didn't need to.

She watered her jasmine with unhurried hands, no urgency, no checking of bloom. I was ten, watching.

Who in your life has shown you wisdom they didn't have a word for?