The Space Between
July 11, 2011
Balance and chaos.
Me and you.
My conscious and subconscious.
Work and play.
Joy and sorrow.
The list could go on. Two things are the inspiration for this post today. The first was attending a community yoga class at Baltimore Yoga Village in Hampden on Friday, the second was completing the video game Outland and a friend's comment on my Facebook post about it.
It seems that whenever I find my way back to yoga the theme of the class always perfectly suits where I am in my life. On Friday at the 4:45pm community yoga class I attended the theme was space. More specifically creating space, both for one's body to experience poses more deeply and in one's life to leave room for one's heart and for one's true self to be expressed. I was sorely in need of remembering how to do both and as we went through the class I could feel both my body and my heart become more flexible and bright. I usually cannot make it to this specific class, normally my work day takes me to 5:00 or later, but it seemed right that last week I should be there.
My second feat of the recent past was finishing Outland, the fourth video game in my life that I played to completion. I found this game incredibly satisfying. It had a good balance of challenge and encouragement. At no point did I feel like there was no way that I could win, there was always more health to be had when it was most necessary and new skills that allowed one to travel back into previous levels to collect money and objects that enhanced one's abilities. I did find the story in the game weak - a basic hero story whose genesis I didn't completely understand until I read the synopsis on wikipedia. One plays through as a male (of course) hero who must battle corrupted protectors of the world in order to reach the Sisters of Chaos who have escaped imprisonment and can only be stopped by the hero. I did like the fact that as the hero one gains dark and light powers and that the game is trying to avoid a stereotypical dichotomy between good and evil, but I found the voice over annoying and did not think that the telling of the story enhanced my gameplay, which I found engaging and fun.
I had to play through the final boss many, many times before I finally beat it and I think this is why I was so excited about finishing the game - excited enough to post it on my Facebook status, with a link. A friend commented, "so that's where you've been, in the middle of balance and chaos". And with this comment I suddenly felt that the game had something to do with my experience at yoga. That both of these things that I had recently done were about finding some kind of space and balance between conflicting forces. That life was often if not always about this. That it is really in the space between that I want to be because that is where there is space if we are conscious of it.
I am tempted to continue my list, to write everything that I am between right now, but that would make this post too long and I feel like I should leave the space open for any readers to post the things that they are between. So please use this space that I am opening between me and you.
Me and you.
My conscious and subconscious.
Work and play.
Joy and sorrow.
The list could go on. Two things are the inspiration for this post today. The first was attending a community yoga class at Baltimore Yoga Village in Hampden on Friday, the second was completing the video game Outland and a friend's comment on my Facebook post about it.
It seems that whenever I find my way back to yoga the theme of the class always perfectly suits where I am in my life. On Friday at the 4:45pm community yoga class I attended the theme was space. More specifically creating space, both for one's body to experience poses more deeply and in one's life to leave room for one's heart and for one's true self to be expressed. I was sorely in need of remembering how to do both and as we went through the class I could feel both my body and my heart become more flexible and bright. I usually cannot make it to this specific class, normally my work day takes me to 5:00 or later, but it seemed right that last week I should be there.
My second feat of the recent past was finishing Outland, the fourth video game in my life that I played to completion. I found this game incredibly satisfying. It had a good balance of challenge and encouragement. At no point did I feel like there was no way that I could win, there was always more health to be had when it was most necessary and new skills that allowed one to travel back into previous levels to collect money and objects that enhanced one's abilities. I did find the story in the game weak - a basic hero story whose genesis I didn't completely understand until I read the synopsis on wikipedia. One plays through as a male (of course) hero who must battle corrupted protectors of the world in order to reach the Sisters of Chaos who have escaped imprisonment and can only be stopped by the hero. I did like the fact that as the hero one gains dark and light powers and that the game is trying to avoid a stereotypical dichotomy between good and evil, but I found the voice over annoying and did not think that the telling of the story enhanced my gameplay, which I found engaging and fun.
I had to play through the final boss many, many times before I finally beat it and I think this is why I was so excited about finishing the game - excited enough to post it on my Facebook status, with a link. A friend commented, "so that's where you've been, in the middle of balance and chaos". And with this comment I suddenly felt that the game had something to do with my experience at yoga. That both of these things that I had recently done were about finding some kind of space and balance between conflicting forces. That life was often if not always about this. That it is really in the space between that I want to be because that is where there is space if we are conscious of it.
I am tempted to continue my list, to write everything that I am between right now, but that would make this post too long and I feel like I should leave the space open for any readers to post the things that they are between. So please use this space that I am opening between me and you.
Posted by Sarah McCann. Posted In : Video Games
