Heather Moor Is a Therapist

YOGA

Heather Moor closes the door to Rollo's room. The door on closing obscures how he sits on his bed; she glimpses the Oculus Sight, his hand moving away, shut. She closes the door and is left standing in the blue, darkened wing, the tungsten strip beneath Rollo's door. 

Heather walks to the dormant kitchen to look inside its air, its counters gleaming in moonlight (which makes her a silhouette.) Upstairs above her weighs her parents life, they dream .. down here the kitchen weighs with reality. It is as though in actuality the kitchen has nothing to do with humans at all, in the dark. 

She walks through such a scene and feeling of the multimillion dollar Summerhill family home, of following a dim line to the outside patio.

Her steps press against the 'Espresso French Oak' hardwood flooring. She sees beyond the sliding glass door a deck painted black and strewn with leaves. And grimly, the feeling to ask herself what effect, how deeply affecting, is virtual reality taking shape in Rollo?

"Ask yourself what has changed in your body? You are an extraordinary shape. You are with many different aspects and angles, knuckles and tendons, intricacies of gut, the long muscles in your legs, the strength or weakness in your wrists .. the liveliness, the interest in your fingers, your obliques, the very quality of breath entering to then leave, from the bottom of your lungs to the tip of your nose, in symphonies of movement, orchestras of process, of time. Some say there is nothing new under the sun. You can focus on that as you breathe. There is nothing new under the sun. And if you do you may find there exists a stability in time, a comparative solidity across time. In each breath is every breath you ever took or every breath anyone took if you look for it, if you can. Today may be the day that you see every breath conceivable in this inhale .. and this exhale. As it leaves without my saying so you may understand your body charged with memory. Your body is charged with desire! A desire to unrest, a desire to compel, to work, to avoid working? What is the future? Well what is it already this class signals? You may see that instead it is not nothing which changes under the sun but that everything is changing under the sun! Always, and all the time. You can sense, for instance, the very complex difference in your body as measured, as measured between this class and the last class you took, and are you anticipating something like torture? Well then? Are you feeling lazy? Are you feeling beautiful? Ugly? Stiff? Are you feeling fluid? Before we begin, ask yourself, what has changed in your body? What has changed? What has .. changed? Out of all those moments, those microevents, those ticks and tocks and habits and decisions happening in the meantime? Can you give love to that difference? Can you give attention? Can you give your breath to it? Can you fill the difference between now and then with your very will to life and its expression? Whatever you are, whatever you are feeling, let us honor that reality in today's practice. Let us honor our inner subtlety. And we begin .."

Heather had sat on the back yard deck that night, alive. 

"We will leave our child's pose to start into a tabletop position. You are on your hands and knees in line beneath your shoulders and hips. Your spine is straight. Your weight is evenly distributed, and you're looking down, spine long, hips neutral."

Heather Moor breathes deeply, presses her stomach towards her spine.

She had been looking at the full moon drifting behind the clouds. 

"Lift your left hand and your right leg up and to the horizon which is ringing around you to the front and back. Maintain a neutrality in the spine, weight even on the right hand and left leg, breathing in. You are making a straight line from your hand to your leg, to your foot -- and you are holding. We hold to feel our body. Feel your right shoulder and upper back working, bringing your right hip down, breathing out."

She had sat there until early morning, drifting in and out of sleep on the deck chair. 

"And lower. Let's do the other side."

Heather's left arm and right leg moves smoothly together as one down to tabletop. It is like a slow-motion of total control. She raises her right arm and left leg, breathing in. 

"You should feel your body warming in this initial work. Are you engaging your glutes? In this question. Are you leveling your shoulders? Ask yourself, what does it feel like today to have hands? What is the difference between your left hand on the floor and your right hand pointing in the air? Without losing your balance, ask yourself the difference between your left foot, thigh rotating in, inner thigh spinning in, hips aligned -- and your right foot? Whose top should be pressing into the floor? And breathe out."

She had drifted between the Auto and the Lyft. 

"From tabletop, straighten your knees into downward facing dog. Let your heels take back a lot of that weight. Take it back. Shake out your head. Breathe in, and when you exhale, I want you to lower back onto your forearms into dolphin. A little closer to your feet. Keep your legs straight or bend them if that feels good. We're going to continue working through our shoulders."

Heather's heels are planted firmly, her stomach tucked and hips hinged delicately in teal and blue spandex. She is lowering onto her forearms, and the blood trickles into her neck and face. 

"Rise on your toes to prepare for a forearm stand for later in this class. And down. Rise. And back to downward facing dog, to breathe. Shake it out. Breathe out, look forward and hop to the front of the matt. Breathe in and reach up to standing, tadasana."

She had imagined it not happening. She had imagined the shot missing. She had imagined the Tesla Ab(c) not being there. 

"Down to chair pose .. scraping the floor with the tips of your fingers, to lift in line with your chest and your back, as you sit further down, bringing your weight into the back of your heels, as much weight as you can .."

She imagined Jojo asking God not to take Zaq. She imagined Rollo looking to the sky. She imagined the moon as God.

"Down to upwards facing dog .. down to plank .. down to standing splits .."

Heather feels every fiber in her hamstring sing as though strummed to stretch in her rotating hip. 

"Up to warrior one, to warrior two .. up to side plank .. up to standing .."

The moon cut a triangle in the backyard, hedged in by the milky shadow of leaves left standing, dancing in the tree. She had felt sweet and wretched sinking into her chair, alive.

"Reverse to curl your torso back, keeping low, your feet in line with one another, hips open, breathing. You are always with your breath!"

.. her body still, not dead, or trapped. She had been sedated with love for this world, draped in moonlight ..

"And hop back to plank as slow as you can, with as much control, as a demonstration of the control you have in your breath."

Sweating.

"Taking your foot into your hand to kick, and to kick!"

.. that she did love Jojo. 

"Kick back! Wobbling is good! Trembling is good! Shaking is good! Kick!"

Everything coheres. Heather uses everything in her to kick, and to kick with a surplus of control, and her leg is the highest, her body in complete confidence, to reach the final pose of time in perfect fullness. It is for her to move out of as a thing of utter beauty, for all for her lithe, glowing body, slicked and pulsing with work, slowly leveling down as a flower blooms readily in rapture. Her practice draws the attention of the entire class. 

Jojo would understand everything.

She had left early in the morning. It was before her family woke.