Tiny Acts
“Tesser well. ”
Hello dear friends,
One of my favorite books in grade school was A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle. It was my first exposure to time travel, a strong female protagonist, and fantasy worlds of the imagination. I still have a copy on my shelf and I still pick it up and browse through my favorite passages.
If you haven’t read it or don’t remember it, time travel in the book is done via tesseract – it’s described as a wrinkle in the fabric of time. Meg Murry (our protagonist) has to save the universe from incredible evil. She’s just an awkward high school student. She’s smart but she doesn’t have any superpowers. And yet she’s the only one that can save the world. Unfortunately, tesseract travel isn’t easy for her.
When I first read this book, Meg’s character really resonated with me. How could she possibly be the one to save the planet from unspeakable evil? She was just one person and the job was just too big. But a few other characters in the story rallied to her support and - spoiler alert – LOVE CONQUERED EVIL.
So, without a lot of fanfare or special powers, Meg saves the universe. The book gave me hope. I wanted to believe that I could do the same.
Time passed, things got busier, the world got harder. How can I possibly fix everything? But deep inside, I still have that nugget of hope. 10-year-old me still believes that I can change the world.
About 10 years after A Wrinkle in Time was published, L’Engle published her writing journals. This quote was inside:
“I do not think that it is naïve to think that it is the tiny, particular acts of love and joy which are going to swing the balance.”
It seems to me that L’Engle wrote Wrinkle knowing that the task at hand is hard, knowing that we are but mere humans, knowing that the evil is out there and that we are the only source of conquering it. But she still thought that we could. Tiny acts will move us forward.
So that’s the yoga that I’ll be teaching this week. Practicing yoga is a tiny act of love and kindness. We are kind to ourselves and then the positive effects of our practice ripple out into the community and the world around us.
We are a small, yet mighty group. We don’t have superpowers, but we can help each other. I do believe that we can swing the balance.
Join me on your mat.
Nina G