These times are tough...on so many levels. We have just completed our first month in social distancing due to Covid-19 and looking ahead is a difficult place to imagine. Who knows when this will end and when it does, what will life look like?
As we ride the waves of uncertainty, one thing that is happening is inspiration and creativity sparking in all kinds of ways. The theme this week was found as I was surfing Facebook and saw a friend's poem that she had written in May 2018. As I read it, I was blown away by how relevant her words sounded for our current self-isolating, lack-of-control situation. It seems as though many wise words, some written ages ago, are holding a powerful truth for the current moment. The writer of the poem, Noelle Rollins, wrote it on the final day of a pilgrimage she did in Ireland and can be found here.
It got me thinking about exploring our individual path, the wayfarer's journey through our lives and how, in a sense, the yoga path is a type of pilgrimage. Currently, we are metaphorically traveling to unknown and foreign territory...that of social distancing on a global scale. And the sacredness of our personal yoga practice is not dissimilar to traveling to a shrine or holy place as a devotee. We may stumble but are drawn forward to remember an inner sanctuary, a place of deep peace and profound connection. We come to the mat either because we have done it before with past experience setting a foundation of familiarity--one of comfort and ease, or because we are seeking to establish this as a way of coping better in times of high stress.
And at times, particularly at this time, it can seem dark and ominous. So our theme this week is to bring our attention to what we are learning during this time and to look for the silver linings, those stories that will stick with us in future tellings of this chapter of our journey. We inherently know that opposites exist simultaneously: masculine/feminine, sun/moon, Shiva/Shakti, Yin/Yang, darkness and light. At the moment, it's imperative that we look for the light of our current experience.
Have you ever had an unexpected experience that on the outside looked bad or dangerous? And during that experience what actually happened produced fond memories or thoughts of joy?
One such experience for me was during a 6-month hitchhiking trip through Africa. I was with my boyfriend at the time and we had just made it across the Western Kalahari Desert, traveling from Botswana to Namibia. We were camping at the back of a hotel, in the small town of Gobabis, Namibia, when I became violently ill. I spent a sleepless night close to a bathroom, shaking, with chills/fever and intense body pain. Our traveler's medical book indicated that I needed to "seek medical attention". Having made it through the night, we found a local, South African trained doctor the next day, who treated me and admitted me to the local hospital. The hospital was reluctant to admit me as only one bed was available and I was to be sharing with a young woman from the Bushman tribe. For whatever reason, women of two different races was of concern to them...and thankfully, they let it slide and I spent three days re-hydrating on an IV drip.
My roommate was a young woman who looked so terribly sad. No one came to visit her and we didn't speak the same language. Yet, after a day or so, I went over to her bed and showed her a small flipbook that when you flicked the pages, a cartoon of Mickey Mouse doing a magic trip appeared. When I shared this with her, her eyes just about flew out of her head. It was complete astonishment at such a thing as I'm sure she'd never seen anything like it. I gave her the book and she spent the entire day, flipping the pages and being entertained by Mickey. It seemed to be the one spark of joy that was ignited in her day. And, in those dark and painful hospital days, it brought an indelible light to my own heart.
I hope you are finding the joyfully unexpected moments in your life during this self-isolating time. I hope they are sparking memories that will reflect not only the struggle but the beauty that often seems hidden at such times.
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