Yoga tales from rural Maine: A heart so full of love

After class recently, one of my students came to me and knelt in front of my mat. I had never noticed before how big or how brown her eyes were. It was like being face-to-face with a grandmotherly doe. 

"I want to tell you," she said, her voice soft and steady. "You know I had a mastectomy...here?" And she placed a hand on the right side of her chest. I nodded.

"Yes..." I said, gently. 

"Well, I also had a valve replacement…” and she placed her hand on the left side of her chest, over her heart. I nodded, to show I understood. I took a breath. She held my gaze with those bottomless brown eyes and she said slowly and clearly, "I have felt, all these years, that my chest has really let me down…” 

There was weight to her words; that feeling of being let down, it was a heavy one. “But today, in yoga,” she said, “I felt love for my chest." 

Her eyes sparkled. “I love my chest,” she said. And I felt that dark weight, the dark shadow upon her chest, disappear before the radiant light of her loving. I reached out and I placed my hand on her arm. I had goosebumps. We smiled. “I love my chest,” she said.

My inspiration for class that day was a story that comes to us from Native American traditions. It was the story of a young deer who was called to be with Great Spirit atop Sacred Mountain. The fawn answered the call immediately, but found that her path was blocked by a demon, a great and terrible bully who sought to keep all of the animals from joining Great Spirit by frightening them as much as possible—perhaps even to death. 

The young deer would have had every reason to tremble in fear at the sight of this demon. She was, for all intents and purposes, defenseless. But in her heart, the fawn had only love. And because her heart-space was so completely full with love, there was no room for fear. Fear did not exist for her, so she could not offer it; she was only able to look upon the demon with love. And in the face of that great love, the bully disappeared. Without fear, the bully was nothing. The path to Great Spirit was cleared, and the gentle deer went along her way.

I told this story in class that day. And then we practiced this simple mantra: “I love.” All together, for one hour, my students and I practiced filling our heart-space with love. Each student worked the mantra “I love” silently as we moved through our asanas.

At the end of that class there I was, sitting on my mat, this student with eyes like a doe kneeling before me. "I can see now how much it went through," my student said to me. "I really love my chest...Thank you…”

And my own heart affirmed for me a clear and simple truth: even when your heart feels full of love, there is always room for more.

Naomi with her beloved students in Maine.