Reflection

Reflection

More than once recently  I have had a real and deep need to write my blog  I  have been thinking of writing at least once or twice every day for the past couple of weeks . Somehow I did not want to write just  because I felt obliged to post. I wanted to write when I  had something to say. Now this evening it's like I cannot stop my fingers from dancing across the keys, relieved at last that they have been untethered and do what they have been itching to do for the last few months.

Why did I stop writing ? I search  inwardly, to discover that its probably around energy levels.   Having spent much of the last eighteen months throwing myself into developing myself has a human being, my yoga practise, my teaching skills, writing a weekly yoga column for the local newspaper, building  an imaginative renovation of  the yoga studio leaves precious little creative energy to keep my writing up to date. I dislike this, as I have always been a scribbler right from when I was a child . When I was about twelve years old  I used to keep a diary written in code so that my younger sister could not read it. I still have the diary . Now I cannot read it either as I have no idea how to crack the code!

I took this photo about a month ago, on one of my lone perambulations in the mountains where I live. I saw the image on my walk, as I see other images every day . I want to say something about the capture of the moment, but before I do, know that  I resent taking my phone with me on my walk, feeling it almost sacrilegious, disconnecting me from the moment.Yet there are photos that I want to record  either as a useful resource for a for  future Facebook update or as simple photographic record.

The image is a simple one, the man made trainer somewhat worn with a small hole in the top of , as my upturned toe has worked its way through in a futile bid for freedom.  The artificial object in all of this , the rest is ....well....organic. The stones and  gravel, billions of years here before anything, mute witness to itself, no eye to appreciate its strength, its place in the landscape then, human vision  giving witness to its now . The water inoculated by asteroids from eons, mutely reflecting a cosmic past, currently mirroring light captured in the shades  and contours of grey stone upon grey stone. As the shadow of life looks back at the Universe. I ask whats important now?

Use Thunderbolt to Focus Your Mind and Achieve Your Goals

In Sanskrit Vajarasana
 Vajar = thunderbolt asana= pose

The word discipline has all sorts of suggestions and meanings  and when I began to practise yoga I used to shiver every time my yoga teacher spoke about discipline, all sorts of childhood  boarding  school memories would surface.
Discipline was something that happened when what I did, did not align with how someone in authority wanted  the world to be . Learning about discipline in yoga , I realised that I had to rehash the word for myself, so that I could help my students receive the true blessing of discipline in their practice. Discipline, in yoga is remembering to do  what you want every day and in every moment. It is teaching the mind to focus on your goals, your vision, your happiness and most importantly  the present moment.The practice of learning to focus is called Abhyasa or the attitude of "Persistent Effort" to attain stability in your practice.
Practising persistently is the most effective method of controlling the mind, when we get control of our minds , we get control of our bodies , when we get control of our bodies we get control of our lives.Training the mind to keep coming back to the present moment instead of running away from the discomfort is a yogic exercise by itself.

Take the thunderbolt pose for example. This pose is one of the few ways to stretch the toes and the soles of the feet and is for  many folk one of the most inflexible parts of the body.  Learning to sit in it consistently is a challenge for those who are unwilling to invest their mind in it too. Only persistance will bring a certain familiarity and acceptance . My personal  take on persistence is that of  being doggedly determined day after day  with no shred of evidence that I will achieve my goal.

Thunderbolt 

Swimming in the Pond

I went for a swim this evening in my pond on the farm . Its about 5pm and the last light is slowly fading from the sky. There is a slight orange glow towards the south west, the  lights of the town are on and sparkle in the evening twilight. I come from my yoga practise warm and alive, head upstairs and don my red dressing gown, grab my week's swimming towel and convince/nay tell  my body it's going for a swim . Perhaps I should mention that it's the 31st of October, the evening is a relatively balmy 10 degrees centigrade and the water is the same. I walk down by the geese who have settled in for the evening and then past the hens hearing the odd contented cluck as I pass, one last tardy hen, runs towards me in the ever hopeful quest for food. I pass on, Mac my dog a border collie, runs ahead in delight knowing whats coming, tail up and waving like a banner in the wind. I follow the path to enlightenment or at least to the ponds edge, slip off my crocs shed my red dressing gown, dump my towel at a convenient spot on top of a rush bush.

I slip into the waters feeling the mud squashing between my toes . The pond is dark and still, almost mysterious, edged round with the centurion swords of the bull rush. The water is deep and solemn  and I breast stroke forward. I feel the coolness of it sliding down the sides of my body I imagine it meeting in a v shape between by shoulder blades before rushing down my back in the moment of immersion.  My fingers cut the waters creating a perfect minor bow wave that ripples through the oily silkiness of the water, far away in the distance I notice the first firework of the evening explode into the silence of the  night. The pond is hidden amongst the rushes and even though I am quite close to a neighbours house I take immense secret pleasure in knowing that they do not have a clue that I am  swimming in the pond on the last night in October less than 50 feet from their door. It feels remote and timeless. As I swim the weeds of the pond sensuously brush the under parts of my torso and caress my arms bringing me back into my body and the moment. Swimming like this immerses me in death, swimming  elementally, silently, eyes level with the white stems of the majestic bull rushes , ceremonially I dip my face in the water and feel its stinging rebuke, eyes open looking to the endless gloom, whooshing the breath from my chest and the blood from my extremities. Gradually it happens the inital withdrawal of blood from the hands and feet, the numbing of my crotch, very slowly the water ceases to be cold and begins to feel hot against my skin. I smile and relax and journey inwards oblivious to cold, time, I hear nothing I see nothing I am the velvety darkness of nowhere , the edges of my body merged with the water and I am the body I am the water. I am nowhere I am everywhere.

At the edge of the rushes I notice a little moor hen watching this intrusive stranger with its curios warm brown eyes hardly moving,  we  look one at the other, a heart beat apart and an eternity  between us. A pale moon sails momentarily out from behind a cloud and drenches the pond in a deluge of moonlight,  two bats flit close to the surface, these fly collecting creatures of the night soon disappeared. I am in the pond but not of the pond I witness myself gliding serenely around and around . A loud rustle in the rushes and my dog Mac's head appears, quizzically held as he contemplates me , I swim on by.

I start to shiver and come back into my body and know its time to come ashore. Again my feet squelch the mud and I notice the sharp feel of the spiky grass under my knees as I haul myself out . I towel myself hard all over, momentarily I stand upright naked in the moon light and know that I  am  the very essence of my being.

The pond