I sometimes like to read a chapter in the book Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes before I go to bed. It inevitably leads to fascinating dreams. So, this past week I read the myth of the girl and the red shoes.
The young woman in the story is poor and living alone in the forest without shoes (and obviously no yoga mat). She figures out a way to piece together enough material to create a pair of red cloth shoes. She is very content with these shoes, in fact, she was happy with them. One day she was out walking in a forest (forests are always involved) and an elderly lady came up in a beautiful carriage (carriages are also always involved) and offered to support and care for her. The woman with the red shoes accepted the invitation.
Shortly after her arrival, the elderly lady got rid of the red shoes. The young woman was devastated., feeling as though she had lost a piece of herself. A variety of events followed, including the young woman getting and wearing a pair of shiny red shoes (all against the wishes of the elderly lady and of the other community members). The young woman was so fascinated with these shiny new shoes she thought about them all the time. She was forbidden to wear the red shoes and they were hidden away.
Eventually, she found a way to get the red shoes and put them on her feet. To her dismay, the red shoes began to dance her around. She lost control to the shoes and she couldn't stop dancing. This dancing went on for so long she couldn't stand it anymore. Her only option was to get her feet cut off. No kidding. Off they went.
I'll spare you the details of my dream the night I read the story and we don't have time to go into the symbolism around standing on your own two feet, of independence, women's issues, etc. However, those stinkin red shoes have been on my mind every since reading the myth.
You may or may not know in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, contentment is one of the five principles leading to a happier existence. In Sanskrit the word for contentment is Santosha. Just in case your curious, the other four principles are purity, self-discipline, self-study and devotion to some presence bigger than yourself. I'm not sure when shiny red shoes were first invented, but I'm guessing it was after the compilation of the 196 aphorisms that make up the Sutras.
How often are we lured in by the proverbial shiny red shoes? What are the shiny red shoes in your life? Are your "shoes" a new house, a new job, a new partner, a more challenging yoga pose, a new body, a new feeling? Do we decide to be content? Aren't we suppose to always strive for bigger, better and get more, more, more? I think the girl without her feet would have been happier if she had stuck with the red cloth shoes.
Historically, yogis were schooled in philosophy before asana (postures). However, that mode of operation wouldn't likely work here in the west. In the west, we approach yoga from the physical first which inevitably leads to the philosophy or spiritual side of the practice. If we want to weave yoga philosophy into our lives on and off our mats, we could start to observe the principle of contentment. We could become more content with the pain that comes from "yoga butt' (an ouchy pain in the booty that is not that uncommon), or the extra ten pounds that might be inhibiting us from binding in a posture or the realization that no matter how many years we practice~ it is possible for some people to continue to feel like a 2x4 when they wake up in the morning.
In other words, we can be content with where we are right now & how we are right now. It's even possible to be content with change. May we all take a moment to reflect on our "red shoes."