Self Portrait As Crane

This is a yoga pose that seemed impossible to me when I started practicing. It seems like a small miracle to me every time I get into it in my practice these days. There's a yoga sutra that teaches the correct way to practice yoga: for a long period of time, without interruption, with full dedication, and without concern for the results of the practice. I can't say that this sutra is very encouraging. For me it's counterintuitive not to think about the results of my practice, in yoga or anything else. But I do see the value of being present in the moment of doing something, so present that the past and the future, what you've accomplished and what you haven't yet accomplished, become irrelevant. I'm working towards this: to think of the effort as an end in itself, independent of what the fruit of that effort is. It's enough work to last a few lifetimes.