Grow Towards the Light

Once, I left a piece of ginger forgotten in the pantry. And… because life happens, a long, long time went by before I opened the pantry door again. To my astonishment, from its gnarled body, a tender green shoot had pushed its way upward. No sunlight guided it, no gardener encouraged it—yet it dared to grow.

That small act of resilience caught me. The ginger, in obscurity, still reached for the light it could not see.

Yoga, too, is this reaching. It is the quiet courage to rise, even when the night is long or the way forward is unclear. In the dim sanctuary of an early morning class, or in the darker nights of the soul, yoga practice asks us to lean into trust: that if we extend ourselves, the light will meet us.

But the mystery deepens: the light is not only something we reach for. It is what we are. Within every posture, every breath, every faltering moment, there is also radiance woven into our very being.

There is a Jewish teaching that says: Over every blade of grass, an angel whispers, “Grow, grow.” I believe the same whisper curls around each of us: Evolve. Evolve.

When we falter in balance, yoga invites us to forgive. When we feel stagnant, it reminds us that unseen growth may be stirring below the surface. When we forget who we are, it gently places us back in the rhythm of our breath, the rhythm of our innate light.

Like the ginger root in the dark pantry, we, too, are compelled by something greater—the pulse of life urging us toward our true home. And so we grow, sometimes unseen, sometimes in silence, but always toward the light that is, and always has been, our own.