The hardest thing for any creative person is to recognize the contribution of past creators, to recognize a lineage. We all desire to be unique.
Yet, everything has roots, and roots, to be strong, have to run deep or wide or both.
Bod Dylan has the modesty to acknowledge the “ precedent “  to his songs: traditional folk songs he says, that he would sing, repeat again and again; rock and roll, big band swing orchestra music.
The word here is repetition. Constant practice. Living, breathing those old songs. Diving deep into the emotions they were born from.
“ It’s been a long road “ he says, “it’s taken a lot of doing. “
We do have this feeling of a “ long road “ of “ a lot of doing “, in a yoga practice and study. We feel frustrated often, especially if we respect the lineage, if we repeat practice after practice sequences from Iyengar, Patabi Joi; sequences from Rodney and Colleen. We are bored sometimes when reading yoga texts. We don’t know anymore sometimes where we go and why. We mumble when asked a simple question. We get discouraged, annoyed, but sometimes, suddenly elated.
Because sometimes, suddenly, we feel we are getting closer to an answer, we have a fleeting insight, or a question arises, like how can I access the crown of my head, this elusive point of my body, when lying in Shavasana?
Because sometimes, we feel that we are nearing the mystery of what we are seeking by practicing yoga, we feel that it reaches even further than Shakespeare, cited by Bob Dylan, beyond the turmoil created by emotions that he so masterly touched and described.
We feel that it reaches somehow to the origin of the universe.
And then, it is gone.
Time to get back to work. To practice.