“One doesn’t arrive — in words or in art — by necessarily knowing where one is going. In every work of art something appears that does not previously exist, and so, by default, you work from what you know to what you don’t know. You may set out for New York but you may find yourself as I did in Ohio. You may set out to make a sculpture and find that time is your material. You may pick up a paint brush and find that your making is not on canvas or wood but in relations between people. You may set out to walk across the room but getting to what is on the other side might take ten years. You have to be open to all possibilities and to all routes — circuitous or otherwise.
But not knowing, waiting and finding — though they may happen accidentally, aren’t accidents. They involve work and research. Not knowing isn’t ignorance. (Fear springs from ignorance.) Not knowing is a permissive and rigorous willingness to trust, leaving knowing in suspension, trusting in possibility without result, regarding as possible all manner of response. The responsibility of the artist … is the practice of recognizing”. —Ann Hamilton
The study of Iyengar Yoga teaches how to solve imbalances in practice. Starting practice is the act of looking at what needs care and attention. After driving an hour to bring children to school, the two legs do not behave equally in standing poses. Pushing a pedal for a period of time changes the way the two hips behave in the pelvis. Muscular skeletal imbalances can be addressed in standing poses. Yesterday the difference between the behavior of the two legs was very clear at the start of a practice in Virabhadrasana II. Aligning the hips in the pelvis meant perfecting the āsana on both sides, until they were brought into rhythm and harmony with the posture. Eventually the imbalances resolve to be nearly negligible. The practice of standing poses prepares the yoga practitioner for anything—balances and prepares the muscular-skeletal body; the consciousness is attuned, attentive, sensitive, watchful to every nuance of the now. From a state of balance the potential for exploration into new space expands.