Cosmic Spandex

2018-08-31

Listen to the tale carefully...(but) do not be distracted by the plot. Within the maze of stories flows the river of wisdom. That is your true inheritance

Devdutt Pattanaik, Jaya

Welcome to the Summer’s End. I’ve been feeling it for the last week or so, haven’t you? That sense that it’s time to get things done, NOW, because time is running out? I get that feeling once the days start to get short again coming in to September. nd with new opportunities opening up, there is real urgency on top of the usual seasonal changes.

But opening always follows on from a period of contraction, and that contraction is what I really want to talk about. You see, the year so far has turned out to be a lesson about fear. And not the relatively good and useful “fear of thing” kind, but the kind where you wake up and are afraid to get out of bed because every thought feels like it will lead to some uncontrollable disaster. Actually it was even a bit worse: a raw, emotional certainty that Bad Things (tm) were going to happen and the only way to survive was to freeze and not move.

I’ve never really felt that way before. I told myself various stories about the fear while trying to get out of it. They didn’t work. I worked to clear down my to-do list for preventing future trouble. That didn’t help, either, although it did make it clear that my feeling of fear wasn’t seated in any rational circumstances. I talked about it with some people whose wisdom I trusted, and they reflected back to me what I already knew (but apparently didn’t know well enough): I needed to make friends with my fear; sit down with it; get comfortable with being uncomfortable and listen to what it had to say.

To be honest, it didn’t have much to say. Oh I have a few journal entries that came out of that practice, but mostly the fear was silent. It just needed to be felt. Slowly I began to find peace and, maybe, a little understanding. And I feel like I might have learned a bit about the shadows I have cast on other’s lives, and maybe another bit about how to tune in to the heart and more subtle layers of its thought. The fear has been receding, and I am seeing opportunities to contribute to life again.

I’m not sure that I am done with those lessons, but the tantric spanda principle has been helping me through this time. Just as much as the exhale follows each inhale, so does expansion follow contraction. Life is more of a circular dance than a linear march through time. And knowing this helped me to let “is” be more important than “because.” I’m actually really grateful for that.

Which brings me full circle to stuff I wanted to let you know about. First, I’ve been writing a fair bit and have put up TWO new blog posts, both of which came from questions people have asked. The first one, Choices and Stories, actually came out in the spring, but I delayed announcing it to give my friend a chance to read it for herself. The second, Does Alignment Matter, was a question that Jane from Hot Yoga Dublin & Yoga Next Door asked me to answer on Facebook. If y’all have a bit of spare time, you might find them to be worth your while. And thank you all so much for your questions!

And finally, I’m hosting an Urban Retreat during the October Bank holiday. I think that, given how long this newsletter has become, that I won’t say much about it just now, but I will probably follow up with another newsletter in a week or so to help put it in context for our every day practice.

Shanti OM

This document was translated from L^AT_EX by H^EV^EA.