Soul and Shadow on the moon

Phew that was an intense full moon, I did chuckle when I realised that this happened to coincide with me receiving and starting a new book called ‘Soul and Shadow’ for this was indeed the moon of soul and shadow! The world itself was having to face its shadow around discrimination and inequality. Will then world change now the shadow has been brought to the light? I hope so, but I have become a little weary of late, there seems to be greater division that ever!

My soul friend, Christine, mentioned to me yesterday that there is a theme around “I can’t breathe” and it did dawn on me that this is so true on so many levels. Not least George Floyd, but Covid and Gaia herself. This week too I have become aware of women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer, the heart chakra, of air and nourishment. This really is a time of the heart versus the head and interesting that the throat sits in-between and people are voicing their options.

Here on Guernsey I have been told that social media is filled with toxicity around those who are arriving into Guernsey and not self-isolating, and people vocal about sharing their opinions. Is this from the heart though? To be truly effective, a voice from the heart, rather than the solar plexus of fear, ego and bullying is much more effective. The world needs the purer heart voice to be truly heard.

It’s been a funny old time. Busy, bringing with it remnants of the old, and yet different too, the busyness has a softer energy, busy doing things that we enjoy, rather than busy doing things for the sake of doing things or because others have been demanding from us. I don’t feel therefore that it is busyness for the sake of busyness, not avoidance, or distraction, more so a renewed sense of purpose and keenness to share.

I soul searched too, around classes and what to do about these and have decided to change things a little, take yoga inside, because I have always preferred teaching inside, there is less distraction, nature does distract by its’s very nature, because it is so beautiful! Plus the sun and the wind was aggravating my pitta and vata and the uncertainty over the weather was slightly tricky to manage! So I have elected for smaller class sizes where I can work more intimately with students, it does mean some will miss out, and I’ll be honest, it is my main source of income, so I won’t be earning so much, but I feel that this is the way, for now at least!

If there is one thing we can learn from covid, is that everything changes, life is in a constant state of flux. All we can do is keep flowing with the heart, keep checking in and seeing where we might adjust. Yoga helps us with this, the scaravelli-inspired approach, that is now influencing my teaching, is all about sitting with the not knowing and with uncertainty, and honouring our own nature, our flesh and bones. This is our nature! And it has become increasingly important to me that we don’t deny that in the pushing and pulling and the forcing that comes with so many of the other approaches to yoga that I have been trained in and have studied and shared with others.

I can’t now return to vinyasa or to dynamic yoga, it feels so soulless, and yet I am grateful because it got me from where I was to where I am now, and I feel like I have come home, to a deeper place in myself, that is less focused on achievement and being someone, but on just being with what was there all along, yet I was so busy in my practice, always moving from one pose to the next, always considering the alignment being right or wrong (there is no such thing incidentally, we’re just conditioned to believe in that, to make our life certain, life by its very nature is uncertain!), that I did not allow for the fluidity of the practice, of life, with the flow and with the sacred that talks through the breath, that comes, not because the breath is imposed on the body, but because the breath enters in, like a gift, a re-membering.

Mainly now I yawn through my practice. Louise says that this is because the breath is finding itself again after years of forced breathing. Who would have known! It is so interesting, that there is always so much still to learn. So breath has been prevalent in my life too of late, because it was strange to find the breath coming initially, and this not looking like the old paradigm, of Ujaii breath come what may, which I realise now might actually have been hardening things. Certainly my solar plexus has softened and now I am drawn more into the heart.

I am used to the yawning now, it comes, it comes, and I cannot control it, it is years of stuff that was held deep in the diaphragm that was now allowed expression. I’m pretty sure this may have been the reason for a hernia at my navel. Well that and all the many planks and chatturangas, that I avoid now, because they were absolutely not benefitting my body or my mind, let alone my soul.

So there has been shadows coming to the light and the soul has been finding greater expression. There has been the breath and there has been the heart and I am curious to see where this eclipse season takes us these next few weeks.

With love