The giant yellow bus swallowed my children one morning.

“They are the most precious little people I could ever hope to know,” I thought.

I chugged off up the street after them on my walk, swinging my arms, sputtering and puffing through clouds of exhaust and fading grade-school war cries.

I had been suffering a self-imposed, stress-induced madness and really wanted to find a way to clear it. I thought walking and breathing would help.

It didn’t.

Instead, it went a little something like this:

“Oh Shit! . . .

“I forgot to put the water bottle in her backpack! Dammit! Why do I always forget! Goddammit, I’m a terrible mother. Oh, will you shut up, Sam! There’s nothing you can do about it now.  Just walk faster. Breathe harder. Try harder!

UGH!  I hope all this marketing isn’t for nothing. If I don’t start making some money. . . Oh YEAH.  I’m not supposed to be ‘attached to the results of my actions’. Friggin yogis. For god’s sakes, breathe, Sam!  Let it go! Breathe in. . .two. . . three. . . four. . . breathe out. . . two. . .three. . . four.  GOD! What a crock of bullshit. How do you just detach? Poof! I’m detached. Right. Poof! Poof!

Dammit. I hope they call with my results soon. I can’t stand not to know. This is a lesson. I’m so goddamn  impatient. UGH! They jabbed me in the goddamn neck repeatedly and expected me to take it like a man . . . like a dead man.

I wish I had been a better wife.

Oh god I why did I eat all that cheese? Ugh. I’m so bloated. If I could just loose these last few pounds. Gotta keep breathing . . . pick up the pace . . . have to schedule that fundraiser with what’s her name. Why can’t I ever remember her name? ARGH! Try harder for chrissakes.

Maybe all this walking and breathing will get rid of my dark circles. God my face has turned gray.

I wonder if it would  be inappropriate to leave a Facebook status: Sam Noto has cancer. One year to live. That would show ‘em all. . .  and then maybe that teacher would cut me some slack for forgetting the water bottle . . .that bitch”

The toxic gushing went on and on like this – - and much worse. No one would be able to walk my minds’ twisted, overgrown landscape without being gouged, sliced, spackled or shot at. Especially me.

I finally rounded the corner that would lead me home. I felt not one bit better than when I started. I was worse. I was even more tortured because my plan had not worked. I thought maybe f I had just walked faster or breathed harder or if I used a different mantra my mind would be crystal clear by now. But not today.

I resigned to go home and stuff myself with a large, carbohydrate-laden breakfast. I could enjoy a quiet moment of peaceful stupor.  Was it too early to drink? Ugh.

I chugged off again, purposefully, when I noticed a woman walking her dogs, 50 yards in front of me. I launched an only-slightly-insincere yet cheery “good morning” grenade at her. She had a worried look on her face and deep folds etched into her skin, so she seemed to be in need of a smile. She would feel better because I was going to reach out and make her feel better. But she did not accept or return my enthusiasm. Instead she slowly looked up toward me from petting her pooch and offered a mysterious smile and a detached hello. My h-bomb landed with a thud and a fizzle. And then, unexpectedly, I was hit.

Slow down.  You are missing it.

And so I did.

Automatically, I dropped my frenzied pace. I moved silently and slowly–like an Indian. The maddening wheels in my head ground to an welcome halt.

I saw a butterfly and then the trees – and through their cracks, the sky. I began to notice things around me that perhaps I have seen a thousand times on these walks, and examined too, but not like this. Not like today. I wandered empty for some time until I found myself staring down at a small, precious, saffron colored flower, half-hidden in a cool green cradle of leaves. I had seen these flowers before blooming in large shady patches along the path. But here was this fellow all alone and thriving.

It was a Touch-Me-Not. Belonging to the family bearing the latin name, impatiens. Impatient! So named for it’s habit of explosively launching it’s seed pods at you as you brush by. Also known as Jewel Weed. An effective neutralizer of the poison ivy toxin.

I squatted there for some time watching, smelling and listening. I had forgotten the water bottle, the biopsy, my job, my husband, children, friends and Facebook.  Everything. The only thing that mattered was the flower, the green, the mist and the sky.

I had set out this morning to wrap myself in breath and mantra – but the effort it took to do so wrapped me further in the tangles of my madness. What I really needed was this.

To completely drop out. To slow down to the life’s pace of of a sweet gum tree . . . in a forest. . .on a continent surrounded by oceans. . . on a planet. . . in this pulse of the universe.

I was there long enough for the sun to move slightly, causing the pillars of light to shift around the forest like spotlights on a stage.   When stood, I found a pillar was shining down right on top of me. This made me smile because it reminded me of a time, many years ago when I played by the creek in my backyard: I was alone. I could hear the humming of the gnat-clouds and the trickle of the creek water. I walked the banks and smelled the fragrance released by my feet as they caught on corners of moss and drew them back away from the black soil like blankets.

I looked up and watched the sun glowing overhead through prism-tipped lashes.

This was an unbroken, untouched me – before childhood scoldings, family schisms, cross-country moves, sippy cups, family death, marital strife and biopsies. At that moment I felt the truth of it. I felt it as surely as I felt the truth that the sun was burning: That I still was and am that unbroken me. Not one of life’s harshest lessons could smudge it or scratch it or change it in any way. It will remain if I gain 30 pounds, or if I go through cruel programs of chemotherapy. It will remain if I should suffer divorce, poverty, stroke or the loss of the most precious little people I could ever hope to know.

I think this was the most significant experience I have had with what Yogis and Buddhists call, ‘Witness Consciousness’. The Witness Consciousness is that which witnesses the rising and falling of the events of your life without ever changing or getting caught up in the story. It exists in a place where there is no time. There is nothing to do and no one to be.

This was as valuable a moment as I’ve ever had in my life. I had set out very aggressively to literally beat the me out of me so that I could have a moment of quiet. I walked and huffed and swung my arms for an hour, trying with all my might. Trying does sometimes help. But for today, what worked was the lucky moment when I brushed up against a stranger who seemed to dangle in eternity. With a single detached but loving smile, the seed of “Slow down. You are missing it.” was planted in me.

I started back toward my house on the same road, but not on quite the same path. There was no more time to loose, to quote Pema Chodron. Lord only knows what seeds I’ve been throwing off that are taking root within those around me . . .

A note for anyone concerned: Biopsy was negative for cancer.  All is well and the whole family is thriving. We send our best wishes to all of you for good health, long life and many moments of peace next to a tree, on a continent surrounded by oceans, on a planet in this pulse of the universe.

Samantha L. Noto, RYT understands yoga to be a science of  physical, emotional and energetic transformation.  It began with her earliest experiences on the mat, feeling for the first time that she fully occupied her own body and the world around her. She has studied Subtle Yoga, Para Yoga, Vini Yoga, Vinyasa and Anusara.   She is currently working toward her 500 hour certification in Subtle Yoga with an emphasis on the therapeutic application of yogic science to deal with many physical and emotional human conditions safely, and effectively. Her classes are laced with physiological facts, archetypal imagery and cosmic/geological data, in the hope that students will leave with a more intimate knowledge of how they feel, a deeper understanding of why yoga works on their bodies and an inkling of how vast this universe is in comparison to what we all deem to be our very important problems. Visit Samatha elsewhere on the web at www.samanthanoto.com and www.communityoga.com.

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