Week 4 for Juliet: Appreciate Your Hands

The assignment for this week was several times a day while your hands were busy, to watch them as if they belonged to a stranger.  Also to look at them while they were still.

One thing I noticed when I watched my hands, was how amazingly functional they are and how they work to take care of my needs without much conscious attention to what I am doing.  Seemingly having a mind of their own, my hands move and gesture while I am talking, preparing food, and raking through my messy hair several times a day.

Watching my hands I am also reminded that my hands are the way I express the love that is in my heart.  I use my hands to touch those close to me; my family, my friends, my yoga students as I make an adjustment to their bodies in a pose.  So much feeling is conveyed through a touch.  If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then truly the hands are the extensions of the heart.  As a yoga teacher, I have taught entire classes on how to place your hands intentionally and with good alignment in poses.  What we do with our hands expresses what is going on in our hearts and minds.

Another part of the assignment for the week was to look at my hands and imagine them as they were when I was a baby and then imagine what they will be like when I am older.  When I look at my hands now, what I see is how much they look like my mother’s hands.  The same shape of the fingers and nail beds, hands that are dry and cool to the touch.  For fun I held my son’s hand up to my hand and was amazed at how at 15 his fingers are so much longer than mine.  He has his Dad’s hands; long slender elegant fingers, warm hands that contrast my cool dry ones.

Over the weekend, I was in Atlanta at a yoga workshop with Anusara yoga founder John Friend.  Walking through the retail area I looked at the murthis (statues) representing the Divine in its many forms.  While those unfamiliar with the Hindu mythology may find the images strange, I love how each part of the image has a story. I also love how so many of deities are represented as having multiple hands; each hand purposefully there to hold an item significant to their story or perform a gesture that has a special meaning.  Talking to Manosh, the vendor and expert on these murthis, he told me that he felt my archetype was Lakshmi, the goddess of abundance and beauty.  In the image of Lakshmi, two of her four hands hold lotus flowers, symbolizing that beauty can grow from any circumstance, even from the muddiest of water.  Her other two hands offer blessings and boons back to the world, gold coins flowing from her palm.

I like to imagine that my hands, which are morphing more quickly than I would like into my mother’s hands, can also morph into Lakshmi’s hands.  As I watch my hands, moving through daily tasks, I appreciate their work in creating more ease and beauty in my life.  In gratitude for the abundance that I have, may I use them to make a loving offering back into the world.