The Reward is the Journey

I have flirted with many.  I have dipped my toe in, and tested them for size.  But this weekend, I met my match. I have, I think, found a style of yoga that really speaks to me.  And, even better, I have found my tribe.  I spent this weekend, surrounded by others who speak my language:  Ours is the language of xi, fascia, meridians and Sanskrit.   Yin prioritises function over aesthetics.  It is about the HOW rather than the WHAT.  And this is why I have fallen in love.   I am never going to be super bendy.  I have plenty of strength, and whilst I will, if I continue to practice regularly, develop greater flexibility I need to acknowledge my mechanical limitations.  These are non-negotiable.  They are, after all, part of my genetic inheritance:  I was not born to bendy folk.   But within those limitations, I can still achieve a perfect practice.  For this is where the subtle but all important...

I am a meditator.  My meditation practice grows with me.  My meditation today will not be the same as my meditation yesterday.  And tomorrow it will be different, again. As long as we live, we should keep learning how to live.  So said Seneca.  I'm inclined to agree.   It is the greatest privilege of being human to truly meet ourselves.  It is also probably the greatest challenge.  It is, I believe, the journey of a lifetime. We all of us face the same questions:  Who am I?  Why am I here?  What's all this about? Some of us ponder these more consciously than others.  But, when we slow down and stop, this is what comes to stare all of us in the face, sooner or later... And this is where it gets tricky.  This is what it is to be human.  To be fragile.  To be vulnerable.  To be unclear.  To be unsure. We do not do well in uncertainty.  And yet we live in the deepest uncertaint...

I had wanted to see it since I learnt that Asif Kapadia's documentary was in production.  The sad story of a life cut tragically short and a voice that the world was to be blessed with for only a fraction of the time it could, and possibly should have been. And what a voice it was.  Amy Winehouse's talent was undeniable.   With just two albums to her name, the girl with a petite frame made a huge mark on British music history. Her story was told beautifully.  Silently.  The footage spoke for itself and needed.  She needed no introduction.  And a narrator was not needed for the tragedy that unfolded before our eyes.   The question that loomed for me as I watched as the few chapters into which her life might be divided was, did she ever really stand a chance?  She died of heart failure.  She died, I came to understand, of the broken heart she'd been writing about her whole career. To watch a film such as this, ...

It was a most peculiar sensation. On getting out of the water, exiting the pool using the gently graduated steps, to re occupy my body and meet gravity. The transition was, just for a few moments, unmistakable and impossible to ignore. One moment, my body had felt weightless. The next, I met myself, and my (healthy) weight once more... Physics was never my strong point. But I've spent enough time in the water, to have gleaned a few nuggets. Whilst the electromagnetic spectrum and I never gotten to be chums, buoyancy is something of a dear friend, and one I try to connect with as much as possible... What neither myself nor my swimming student could quite believe was the degree of weightlessness we had just been enjoying, without even realising it.  I recognise now a little better why it is that sometimes when I swim, I feel as though I'm flying:  Buoyancy, or upthrust, is described as the force on a body when displaced in a volume of fluid and is in t...