Yoga Is Everywhere

Whenever I move to a new place, I seem to come back to yoga. Whether it’s New York City, rural Alaska or Southern Maine, yoga is always there for me when everything seems new and shaky. Even if it’s just a mat in my new bedroom wherever that may be

This pattern continued when I got to Hiram. It took a minute but I found a studio (shout out to Gorham Yoga Company!) and have been trying my best to get there at least once a week. Especially when you live across the street from where you work, it’s nice to travel to another location that isn’t like… the grocery store.

But sometimes we work late, and most times we work hard, and honestly once the end of the day comes, dragging myself 30 min away to move more feels like too much.

And that’s when I realized: yoga is everywhere. The link between yoga and traditional farm work might not seem too direct, but let me say this. I realized it one day when we were trying to take down some old power equipment off the front of the farm store. It was on a spot on the roof that a ladder couldn’t really reach, and for some reason that day, and it became one of those tasks that I couldn’t move on from before accomplishing. And when I wedged myself with one leg on a banister, one shoved against the wall for balance and steadied my breath to unscrew a screw without falling over, I realized I was basically practicing yoga while doing farm work.

Climbing trees to prune “ghost” berries, balancing on top of a ladder to reach for another apple, bending up and down to sort and grade apples out of a deep bin, holding up a piece of the ceiling while Jojo drills it in – yoga is everywhere on the farm.

– Caitlin