On the east wall of the Spirit Room upstairs in the Ketchum YMCA is a large (about 8’ by 12’), lovely painting of a lotus flower. I spend a few hours each week under that painting in one of Richard Odom’s yoga classes, and the lotus, Richard and the practice itself are inspiring and nutritious. They are daily reminders that the exquisite, organic growth of anything, a lotus flower for example, is literally rooted in the mud from which it grows. That is, beauty is the culmination of a natural process that is not always pretty. Everything in life—the perfection of a flower or the catastrophe of war—is part of a process, and the lotus is an ancient symbol in several religions and cultures of the process leading to beauty, fertility, prosperity, spirituality and eternity. I like this Hindu description of one aspect of the lotus: “As a lotus is able to emerge from Muddy Waters un-spoilt and pure it is considered to represent a wise and spiritually enlightened quality in a person; it is representative of somebody who carries out their tasks with little concern for any reward and with a full liberation from attachment.”
The lotus represents the purity and beauty of life that rises out of muddy waters. Think of that.
Six months ago the east wall of the Spirit Room was dark blue blank and, when lights were low during yoga classes, uninspiring. The south end of the Spirit Room has windows overlooking the YMCA swimming pool and sometimes the reflections from the pool create a rippling of light on the east wall. One of Richard’s students, Deborra Bohrer, a local artist, was observing the undulations of light on the wall during class and had the inspired thought that the lotus grows from water and one needed painting upon the wall. Deborra approached Jason Frye, CEO of the YMCA with the idea and spent the next several weeks working on the painting. Frye said, “We needed to add some personality to the Spirit Studio. The lotus is known to help connect us to nature and our true selves. Deb’s beautiful work has added a wonderful new energy to the studio and the practice for our instructors and members.”
And so it has.
The lotus flower inspired Confucius to say, “I have a love for the lotus, while growing in the mud it still remains unstained.”
In Buddhism the lotus is similar to the path of a person’s life—from seed to emerging from dirty water to fully blossoming into a fully awakened person.
The ancient Egyptians associated the lotus with the sun which disappeared each night and re-appeared each morning, that is, the cycles of life itself. Every person has days that seem closer to the bottom of the pond than to the fully blossomed lotus flower floating upon it, and, of course, vice-versa. For me, every day in the Spirit Room practicing with Richard and Deborra’s lotus flower is an encouragement and inspiration to persevere, keep growing, let go, learn liberation.
Thanks Richard.
Thanks Deborra.