Upside Down in Ubud

Whenever I hang upside down from the ropes during Iyengar class, the world takes on a different hue and perspective – even if my nose is typically within inches of a cream-colored wall and my eyes, unsurprisingly, are mostly closed.

It was like that yesterday, when I turned my head slightly while hanging to see what asana the rest of the class had  shifted into, because I had spaced out for awhile, missing Christine’s instructions. People look like colorful bulbous forms, and if you’re in yoga class, they can be observed moving into and out of the strangest-looking, awfully uncomfortable positions.

But it’s an experience that also shifts our ability to quietly observe the minutiae of the world and to notice, in a new and re-framed light, the otherwise mundane, banal, unremarkable qualities of all that surrounds us.

You merely need to step aside, outside or below the everyday, flip your head over and take a look; if vertigo alone doesn’t shift your consciousness and renew your ability to view, then hang around there for a few minutes and notice what you have not seen before. I can almost guarantee that, whether you live down under, up over, west coast or far east, you will see a little slice of the world in a wholly new way.