Ganesh Has Many Titles.
{Photo via Tumblr
{Winner Essay of The Yoga Diaries / Rebelle Society contest:
Did Yoga Transform Your Life?}
By Terry Schifferns
Ganesh has many titles: The God of Beginnings, The Remover of Obstacles, The Lord of Thresholds, Ekadanta or Bowing to the Truth.
Ganesh is never far from Mooshak, his companion the Mouse. The mouse has been my totem animal for the last 20 years. But that is a different story. This is the story of Ganesh, or when you are ready the teacher appears.
2009 was a difficult year for me. The year began with my blood pressure spiking and debilitating dizzy spells, a headache that lasted a month, and endless doctor appointments for endless tests, which would later (much later) be diagnosed as 6 TIAs, Transient Ischemic Attacks (mini strokes).
March 1st, my longtime best friend Cher died, and my mother died unexpectedly April 4th. I cried a lot. I went to work like a remote control robot. I graded papers. I went to more doctor appointments. At home, I cried in the shower. I cried at night.
I cried when I watched commercials on TV. I cried when I sorted through the medical bills. But I went to work every day.
I had started Yoga just a year earlier. So I went to Yoga. Every week I went to Yoga. Every week I’d set my intention, and every week I’d end up crumpled on my Yoga mat in child’s position weeping. My Yoga teacher and companions were kind and compassionate.
I made it to the last day of my teaching semester, and I cried for a week straight. I went to Yoga twice a week that summer. I read Wally Lamb’s The Hour I First Believed. In the story, the main character visits a therapist who has a statue on her desk of Ganesh, “Remover of Obstacles,” “Destroyer of Sorrows.“
I remember thinking about how much I needed my own Destroyer of Sorrows.
That week I walked into Yoga, unrolled my mat in the same place I’d been unrolling my mat all summer, and there beside me on the wall was the same tapestry I had been weeping beneath all summer, a tapestry of an elephant with a small mouse at his feet — Ganesh.
All summer Ganesh, The Destroyer of Sorrows, The Destroyer of Obstacles, The Lord of Thresholds had been right there beside me, transforming me.
That was when I first believed that Yoga was the path to my new beginning.
*****
Terry Schifferns teaches writing at Central Community College in Nebraska . Look for her smack dab at the bottom of the Platte’s big bend in the middle of Nebraska, dancing with sandhill cranes each spring.
#JourneyOn
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