When I woke, my left piriformis muscle was feeling really tight. (If you don’t know anatomy, it is a pain in the ass.) I think of this piriformis tightness as the last bit of healing from scoliosis and that 1996 car wreck that sent me on this path.

Looked it up in my yoga anatomy book and decided to do a long, supported supta baddha konasana (reclining cobbler’s pose) before sitting today. Then went about my nonlinear swooping-through-time-on-an-unstructured-day-off-work. Made breakfast, washed some dishes, started a list of things to do, which feels so virtuous even when I don’t do them. Made tea. Checked email. Checked Facebook. Made lunch.

To do baddha konasana, I sit with spine erect and soles of feet together, letting knees drop to the side. Supta means lying down. Supported means I place pillows under my knees and a bolster under my spine, keeping my seat on the ground. I prop one end of the bolster up so I’ll be reclining about 20 degrees.

I set the timer for 15 minutes, put a David Whyte CD on, recline, and cover my eyes with an eye mask, letting my arms and hands drop.

Ahhhhhhhhh. Melting. Turn David Whyte off. This calls for silence.

When that timer goes off, I decide to do my 30 minutes of sitting in just this position.

Body scan: whoa, gravity is different like this! I feel so open along my midline, like a dog exposing its belly.

Like I did the other day, I feel tipsy, loopy, happy. I vaguely notice, “Hey, when I think, I feel like this, and when I don’t think, I feel like this.” I feel excited to notice this distinction, but I don’t really want to elaborate. Too much work.

When the timer goes off, I move the pillows and bolster and take a nap.

Now my sober self says this distinction is very, very important.

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Maybe I won’t do my daily meditation in supta baddha konasana. It’s yoga. It’s not sitting.

Now I’m going to do one thing on my to-do list.

A lot of stuff gets laid on us in life about how to be and who we are. And we adopt those ways of thinking and believing and viewing the world and ourselves and other people. It just happens. It’s not good or bad. Conditioned experience, interpreted experience. It’s the way it is.

Sometimes it serves us well. I don’t have to remember how to stand, walk, use the toilet, brush my teeth, dress myself, and so on every single day when I wake up. That sure frees up a lot of time!

Sometimes it doesn’t, when we stay stuck in suffering. Last night I heard the phrase “unfaithful to my sorrows” for the first time. I like it.

Do you really believe what people and life and yourself have told you about who you are? Could you be bigger than you think you are? Like maybe even a LOT bigger? Or maybe you’re smaller than you ever thought, so small that maybe you don’t even exist, and yet something of you is still there.

So who are you without all that? What is your original experience?

To find out, you can sit in silent stillness and pay attention to your experience between thoughts.

It’s not as easy as it sounds if you haven’t done it before, but let curiosity keep motivating you to sit. Just notice what you notice. And then notice what you didn’t notice before.

My experience inside that silent stillness this morning sometimes reminded me of being drunk.

Sometimes it reminded me of being in love.

Sometimes it reminded me of swimming, of being completely submerged and yet breathing with ease.

My heart chakra felt so open, early in my session.

I felt immersed in something big and loving. Big doesn’t do it justice. Humongous! Gargantuan! “All I could perceive” was holding me with love.

I did yin yoga in bed before I sat. Seal, quarter dog, child pose, 10 breaths in each, passive stretches that open meridians. Just feeling my way through this new-to-me branch of the yoga family, being my own human guinea pig.