Edge Effects

Hello,

For ten years, I practiced Ashtanga yoga under teachers who took lineage seriously. Same sequence, same time six days a week, same disciplined attention to breath and alignment. Most people saw only repetition. They missed the point. The repetition created the conditions where the practice could happen.

Until it didn't. I stopped completely.

The poet Alison Hawthorne Deming writes about edge effects in ecology— where a marsh turns into a pond, a forest into a field. "These places tend to be rich in life forms and survival strategies." Edges aren't empty space. They're where the most generative work happens, but only if both ecosystems remain intact.

Between what's known and what's forming. At speed, we repeat what we already know. In transitional spaces where attention softens, ideas reorganize beyond conscious control.

This year has been threshold. What I learned from those ten years wasn't how to resolve it. It was how to stay.

What if the structure that once created conditions now prevents them?

— Courtney

P.S. If you're new here, welcome. We share stories from the edges of transformation, illuminating the thresholds between emerging technologies and enduring human values. Each month we explore one of four dimensions - culture, craft, ecology, futures.