Jasmine Dawn Smith is a yogi, crystal healing practitioner, and Reiki lover. She is super mom to three wonderful boys by day and moonlights a local crystal shop by night. Currently, Jasmine is working on her Reiki Master Certification and hopes to share her insight and healing with others.
I was cruising through one of the Yoga Centric Facebook groups that I’m a part of when Jasmine’s poem hooked me. I am able to visualize myself through her words. I identify with My Yoga and am so grateful it came across my feed. I loved it so much that I reached out to Jasmine and asked if it would be okay to share it with our yogi’s at Big Raven Yoga.
Thank you so much, Jasmine, for putting a little bit of yourself “out there” for the rest of us to learn from and enjoy. We are grateful!
You can follow Jasmine Dawn Smith on Facebook and Instagram!
My Yoga
by Jasmine Dawn Smith
My yoga is 11 years old.
You won’t find it on Instagram, Facebook or YouTube
You can’t capture it in a single cell phone snapshot or print it in a Shutterfly album
My yoga looks like last night’s pajama pants with an ugly sweater and wool socks that are shed across the room one piece at a time as my body temperature slowly rises to meet that of my passion.
My yoga has warm blankets that envelope me and my mat throughout the bitter Colorado winters, and my yoga wears a “clothing optional” sign on the door when the energy of summer’s sun fills the room.
It has tattered old foam blocks falling apart from years of love, and a yoga mat covered in dog hair that I still have to remind myself will be there to clean up when my practice is through.
It is a forward fold where I can finally touch my toes- but the touch of the forward fold feels exactly the same as day one.
It is a crow that weightlessly flies off the mat…
Sometimes.
It is a dancer effortlessly balanced on top of the world…
On the right side.
It is a girl who still mixes up her right from her left…
Daily.
And it is a thread of deep breathing that is slowly woven into a tapestry of patience, just waiting for me to wrap myself inside of it whenever I need.
On Monday, my yoga is a monkey mind with a caffeine drip, bouncing on a trampoline who refuses to settle down no matter how many mantra repetitions I politely ask her to juggle.
On Tuesday my yoga is a crescent moon, bursting with the potential of an unopened novel- proudly bearing a gold label that announces “bestseller.” It is on the mat at 7 am sharp ready to salute the sun with some sweet, sweaty vinyasa’s.
On Wednesday my yoga is a down dog whose heels yet again do not make it to greet the floor- and yet who greets my soul with utter delight. Tail wagging in gratitude. Little wild thing.
On Thursday she is a half-moon that despite all her effort ungracefully falls from the sky to meet the earth with a “good morning” pat on the back. TWICE. On both sides.
On Friday- my yoga spends half the class as a child curled into a ball of surrender on the floor crying out “I will try again…tomorrow”
On Saturday I never see her on the mat, but she still shows up as a subtle tree pose rooting me into the depths of a conversation I would rather not explore- but know that I must.
On Sunday evening my yoga evolves into a helium-filled-balloon of yin & bliss that carries me straight up through Shavasana and into another world where I find restoration and peace- so that I can wake up and do it all over again…
On Monday.