On Monday, I lost infinity.

I sat on a hill in Calgary. Immense sky, blue with the feeling of tightly woven cotton decorated by a river of clouds. Grass that swam below me. A shower of seed pods that looked like snow feathers dancing through the air and softening downward. I sat in awe of the marvels of the earth’s nature. And then I sat in awe of my own nature. As I sat, I allowed myself to feel my worry – wave upon wave, over and over – some of the weights each of my beloved family members carries in grief. Over and over I looked at the sky to trust my dear and knitted family on their individual walks. Over and over I looked at the ground as I unleashed and voiced my fears, my frustrations, and my molded reality.

Ebb and flow. Sky and ground. Fear and trust. Clench to what was, release into what is.

Later that day back in the studio, our teacher was talking about heel inversion and eversion relative to forefoot pronation and supination when my eyes were tugged downward. I pulled up my sleeve already feeling what was true. Or perhaps it was the lack of feeling that drew my eyes to my wrist. Regardless, I confirmed what I knew. My magnetic clasp infinity bracelet was gone. Missing. My heart dropped and I sucked in a short, sharp breath.

That breath ran into a sticky of immediate understanding.

“You know it won’t be a forever bracelet,” my sister’s matter of fact voice echoed across time and space. “It’s magnetic, so at some point it will disappear.” She bought this bracelet for me at our family’s annual Lakefest gathering two years ago. A street festival of mid-July sweaty Southern Virginians, greasy food, and some perhaps incongruous lovely hand crafted treasures.

That Lakefest day was in 2016 mere weeks before my very first Yoga Therapy Certification trip to Calgary. The bracelet has traveled with me each time I have come here. Linking across time and space to the trust fall of my family whenever I dive into this place of a bottomless well of uncomfortable corners of me, overwhelming joy in me, and expansive opportunity for me. And that bracelet has left me days before the end of my fifth and final bumpily glorious Certification week trip.

Yet, I know more now. That bracelet was merely a symbol of infinity. A reminder in physical form of my connection to all and always. A tangible link to my family far away in time and distance as I unpacked me through this multi-terrained, ever morphing adventure of the past two years. This path of life which has exposed a new well of inner and outer support to walk through the level and the rugged.

Infinity didn’t disappear on Monday. My symbol of infinity disappeared. It let go of me. A symbol is but a representation of a thought. Of an idea. Of a concept. Of a feeling. Of an essence.

Infinity in the grass. In the sky. In my hands and feet. In each and every heart of my family. In each and every soul of my Certification Crew. Infinity. Here we rest. Clasp let go. Symbol no longer seen. Pure faith in the feeling. We step onward with infinite love.

Be well,
Rachel