Earlier this month, we received an email announcing that Spiral Flight Yoga Studio is closing at the end of June. An article last week in the Georgetown Dish explains why Georgetown’s oldest yoga studio is shutting its doors.
I’ve only recently started going to some classes and workshops at Spiral Flight, but this loss still stings me. Even if I had never been there, I would be sad about DC losing one of its yoga studios. Over my decade of yoga, the studio spaces where I’ve shared my practice have come to represent so many things: comfort, strength, peace. I know there are hundreds of students who feel this way about Spiral Flight. And saying goodbye is heart-breaking.
In the Yoga Sutras, we are taught about vairagya, or nonattachment. It is said that by not being attached to expectations, outcomes, or the actions of others, we can achieve enlightenment.
But when it comes to saying goodbye – to anyone or anything that means something to you, it can be very difficult, even impossible, not to be attached…to memories, to the way a person or a place can make you feel, to that sense of home. We want to hold on to the way things were, and stubbornly resist change.
I know I can’t do anything to change the truth. I also know that many other feel this loss much more acutely than I do. So even if I can commit to letting the world work out the way it will, and not being attached (too much) to this loss, it is worth recognizing the impact that Spiral Flight has had on the DC community at large. Impact that is personal.
I would like to express my gratitude.
Besides exposure to wonderful Anusara yoga by amazing teachers, I had an unexpected shift in perception take place at Spiral Flight. In the first class I took there, I ran into a colleague of my husband’s. This is a man who would normally be buttoned up in a business suit referencing something the Vice President said to him while checking his Blackberry during our conversation. A typical Washingtonian staffer. But at Spiral Flight, in a yoga class with me, he worked on his Downward Dog, partnered up with me to lengthen my Bhujangasana, and completely shifted my perceptions of him and who he is. I walked away feeling closer to him, like I had made a new friend in someone I’d known for a while. And I was so grateful for the experience.
How many students out there have memories that stick with them from Spiral Flight? Perhaps you took your first yoga class there, or found your meditation practice, made a friend, or achieved your first arm balance?
Even if you’ve never been to Spiral Flight, have you said goodbye to studios, teachers and spaces that have strengthened your spiritual practice? How did you honor their impact on your life?
Share your thoughts and memories below.
Because even if we have to say goodbye and want to practice nonattachment to the changes in the world, we can be grateful for the memories that propel us all forward and have an impact on who we are.
Thank you Spiral Flight for your impact on the Washington, DC yoga community.
Posted by: Jamie
