Annie Lindberg
Last week, I attended a week-long yoga and meditation workshop. On day four, each of us donned eye coverings, blinding us to our surroundings and to each other. As I moved through each pose, I felt the freedom of being alone; I knew no one was watching. Simultaneously, I felt the companionship of community — 50 yogis moving in relative unison to the music and to the teacher's cues, all of us blindfolded.
Often, I explore closing my eyes during restorative pieces of my yoga practice, the darkness helping me dive deeper into the sensations of movement. But last week was my first truly blinded yogic experience.
Every stretch of my arm, extension of my back, and step into warrior two mesmerized me. I sensed the texture of my mat as my fingers and toes connected with it. I could feel the density of the air shift when a neighbor's limb swung near. I didn’t know or care which shapes others in the room were making with their bodies; I was fully present in my body.
I have long loved yoga for its ability to bring me into the flow state; blindfolded yoga produced a magnified flow state. Sightless, it took significantly more attention to move into a simple balance pose without toppling, to transition from reverse warrior to half moon. But even gentle, easy movements I do every day — like cat-cow — captivated me in a new way.
At the end of the day's session, still blindfolded and mesmerized, we moved into meditation and chanting. We began with a round of Om. Our teacher, Janet Stone, reminded us to sing like “like no one is watching.” If asked before the experience I would have expected the paucity of vision to make me (and all of us) more self-conscious of our voices. The reality surprised me. I had never heard my voice, or our collective voices reverberate, resonate, so powerfully, so clearly. I felt like we could hear each other’s souls emanating deep from within.
Afterwards, as we shared our experiences as a group, and later in the day more intimately with friends at meals, it became clear that I was not alone. In fact, I didn’t talk to anyone who wasn’t crying into their blindfold at the end of the chanting. This collective blindfolded movement experience touched each of us on a deep level and enabled release of what was tightly held but no longer needed.
Some students mentioned the freedom of letting go of comparison and concern for what others were doing. Another student described the internal trust inspired by listening more honestly to her body’s messages. Another felt joyous. So many mentioned the calm, the stillness, the profound peacefulness they felt during and after.
Intense and often overwhelming visual stimuli saturate the modern world, literally coloring our perspective. Phones, computers, streetlights, moving cars, signs and advertisements abound. How would it feel to take away the visual input and journey inward with enhancement of the other senses? How would it feel to eat a raisin slowly with eyes blindfolded, focusing solely on the taste, the texture, the aroma? How would it feel to sing or play an instrument, or even listen to live music blinded, tuning more deeply into the tone, the pitch, rhythm and percussion? How would it feel to walk blindfolded in the grass or on the beach, attending to the temperature, the moisture, the contours of the ground, the sounds and scents? How would it feel to build a sandcastle, draw or paint blindfolded?
I would encourage you, too, to explore the world without sight. Don a blindfold, take a pause from vision to attune more fully to your other senses and to your internal barometer — a practice we all found last week to be healing.
Annie Lindberg is a licensed acupuncturist, Chinese Medicine practitioner, and Ayurvedic practitioner. She owns and practices at The Point Acupuncture & Ayurveda, located in Madison Park and is a regular Madison Park Times health columnist.