In 1976, my father purchased one hundred acres of mixed hardwoods in East Texas, located along Sand Hill Road. He hired bulldozers to construct a long driveway leading to the back of the property, where he built a spring-fed lake and began work on a barn overlooking it. Several months later, a storm dropped over twelve inches of rain, which followed the unpaved road down to the lake, picking up sand along the way and creating a white sandy beach. However, the next day, we discovered that the road had been washed away, leaving a four-foot-deep canyon in its place.
In response, my father poured concrete on the steepest part of the driveway. However, the next rain undermined the concrete, carving out a new path. He then brought in a bulldozer and backhoe, but once again, the road washed out. A few years later, I noticed that despite several substantial rains, the road no longer washed out. At the time, I didn’t think much of it.One afternoon, I was talking to my older brother, Buckley, when a heavy rain began. He excused himself, saying he was going to take a walk in the rain. It was a warm summer rain, so I followed him to continue our conversation.
As we walked up the steep road through the woods, a fast-moving stream of water was already flowing from the open field at the top of the hill down to the lake. As we walked and talked, my brother occasionally picked up a handful of leaves and dropped them in the path of the water. After the third time he did this, I asked him what he was doing. The leaves slow the water, and as it slows, some of the sand drops out and creates a sandbar. The sandbar shifts the direction of the water,” he explained. As we continued to walk up the driveway, he pointed out the numerous sandbars that I had stepped over for years without noticing, and how each one diverted some of the water off the road and into the woods. “The trick is to see where the water wants to go, and then help it find the best path.”
It turned out that he had been doing this for years. What my father couldn’t achieve with bulldozers and concrete, my brother accomplished with a handful of leaves.
At the heart of Buckley’s philosophy was the idea of substituting awareness, understanding, and wisdom for brute force.
Whether you are watching the horse whisperer taming a mustang, Tiger Woods swinging a club, or Caitlin Clark dropping a 3 pointer, they make it look easy.
To the degree that we are able to replace effort with awareness and understanding, we create the space for more grace to enter our lives. This is especially true when practicing yoga.
