Two weeks into kindergarten, and my boy got ON the bus this morning!

He’s been taking the bus home since day one. Saying bye to his teacher and greeting Mama at the driveway worked just fine. The kind heart of the sixth grader next door, the one willing to sit with the scared kindergartener, was a huge help.

But we’ve been biking to school. Separating onto the bus just wasn’t gonna happen.  We accepted his self assessment:  I wiww do dat when I’m weady.

And today, he was.

Cool drizzle helped. As did a new found kindergarten friend who also rides that bus.

Why not take the bus today? Then you’ve done it and you don’t have to worry about it anymore. We can bike again tomorrow if you want. 

∞

Ancient yoga texts like the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali offer guidelines for right living called the Yamas and Niyamas. Kind of like the 10 Commandments of yoga, the Yamas and Niyamas provide moral rules for dealing with the world and with the self, respectively. #5,  Aparigraha, is usually translated as non-possessiveness or non-acquiring.

This can be literal: my tank top and sweats are fine for teaching, I don’t need $100 yoga pants. It can also be subtle:  that openness I felt in my right hip yesterday is gone again today. The posture on the magazine cover looks great on the limber young model, but I don’t need its extreme nature to help center me in my own body.

In his translation and commentary on the Sutras, Buddhist yoga teacher Chip Hartranft describes non-acquiring “freedom from wanting unlocks the real purpose of existence.” Alberto Villoldo echoes the language of Gilbran, “ Give more than you take, for nothing in the world really belongs to you.”

Off the mat, it’s a lesson learned at the bus stop.