On Drishti

Overheard, today in yoga class, amidst downward dogs and cedarwood incense:

Focused gaze. Drishti. Look up.

One of my instructors is a horse trainer by trade. The way it works, she says, is that you move a horse with your gaze alone. If you want the horse to move, you motion to that area with your eyes. Soft. Steady.

You look to the place you want the horse to go.

Focused gaze, she says.

Drishti.

There is power in our gaze. There is might in our focus.

Look up.

Do you see?

We can move a 1200 pound animal with our eyes.

I am not always well-versed in the looking up. I can glance left and right with the best of ’em, can peek along the rolling sidelines of this world sprawled out before me and think, Gah, we have got to iron this out.

It’s rocky out there.

On a good day, on a day with drishti, I can grab onto enough perspective to see that it’s not my job to flatten anything at all. It is not my job to fix my toddler, to fix my husband, to fix my neighbor, to fix my least favorite political candidate, to convince anyone and everyone that this mountainous world is in need of some smoothing (of course, my version of smoothing), and stat.

It is my job to move my horse.

To look up.

Focused gaze.

Onward.

Drishti.

Westward.

Look up.

Toward the sun.

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