I had this beautiful experience the other night. We were practicing together, and it had been a really long day for me. My brain was not working that well, although I was happy to be there, feeling full and present.

At one point, I did an asana backwards, and we had to start again. They all laughed, and the laughter was very warm. I realized that most of the class has been practicing together for a while now, and there is a lot of ease and openness in the group energy field.

Then I forgot the name of one part of the body and they laughed even more, not ‘at’ me but really ‘with’ me. It felt so good, as if we were really playing together in that field that Rumi describes:

“Out beyond wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field,
I’ll meet you there.”

I realized that practicing in that field is so much more important than anything we think we are doing. I’ve always known that, but that night we were all right there, resting and playing in that space of innocence and no-striving.

I just wanted to keep playing and laughing with them. I started thinking, “Maybe I could become a yoga clown. That could be the next evolution of Soma Yoga.”