When winter won't let go

So. The cold continues to bite. Two of my fingers keep turning numb and white. As if I’m turning to ice. Why? I ask them. But I know the answer – the cold is not just physical; it echoes through my emotional bones.  And it’s not just me.  It seems that, right now, so many of us are enduring the bone-cold, a spiritual ice winter.  

You can say it’s the lack of light, the absence of sun, the harsh economic climate – you can claim a gazillion reasons.  And we hustle around looking for solutions, for sticking plasters, for ways to push away the cold, to make it back off for a little.  We can dose ourselves with alcohol or food, we can cry Prozac, we can distract ourselves in a hundred different ways. Me? I fight the urge to swathe myself in blankets and dogs and huddle the fire – I make myself go out and exercise like a loon.

But then, I wonder. What do we lose when we seek to avoid?  Life is a process; a circle; a spiral. Yes, we can blitz ourselves with positive affirmations; we can go Zen and remind ourselves that it’s not really real, hence it doesn’t really matter but…  Is that missing something?  Is this process just a case of existing, of passing time in as pleasant a manner as possible?  Sometimes I think so.  But then thinking…can be overrated.  So what do I feel?

I go back to Alchemy. Calcination. Dissolution. Separation. Conjunction. Fermentation. Sublimation. Radiation. Seven steps. Circling. You reach the end and start all over again, just on a different coil of the serpent. And it’s not just you, or I – it’s us. “The human heart is the crucible of the cosmos.” I can’t remember who said that but it chimes – our inner lives are not our own; they belong to the cosmos.  If we want to change the world, we start with ourselves. 

Is the world served by squashing down bad feelings; by denying them; by refusing to countenance anything except light and bright as ‘good’?  I don’t feel so. If we push away the ‘bad’ it festers – not just in us but in the world around us.  It’s like foisting our dirty laundry on the world, leaving our smelly socks in the hallway.  Bad housekeeping.

The dark nights of the spirit and soul (yes, I feel they are two different things) are not mistakes, not aberrations, or so I feel – they’re not signs that we’re not good enough, not spiritual enough, or whatever.  They’re a vital part of the process.  Sometimes we have to be cut off from everything that gives us joy, everything that makes life seem worthwhile – every height has a corresponding depth. No?

So what do we do?  Nothing much. Abet the feelings, amplify them even – we so rarely listen to the messages written in the body.  Our bodies, our subconscious (the two in cohoots, or maybe the same?) are trying, I feel, to communicate with our conscious minds all the time. Yet we refuse to pay attention.  Sleep. Breathe. Daydream. Wonder where the body and mind wander. Try a secondary process (if you're primarily visual, turn your images into sounds; if you're a musician, maybe you need to move, to work with the somatic?).  But mainly...wait. 

Well, that’s what I do. Hmm.

Watching the waves...

So, what am I doing, here in Greece?

Well... Y'know...

Mainly I am just sitting here watching the waves...

They come in, they go out; they come in, they go out; they come in, they go out.
In, out; in, out; in, out; in, out; in, out.... (you get the idea?)

The current ran from the left for a few hours.  Then it changed its mind and ran in from the right.
Presumably because of the wind.
Every so often a boat will go by and the water will come a little closer to my toes.
And then withdraw again.

But, really... In, out; in, out; in, out; in, out...

Like breathing.

And, really, that's what I am doing.  :-)

Better things to do with a windpipe than strangling it...

There are some days I just want to strangle. I feel like grabbing them by the windpipe and just squeezing harder and harder until they hold up their pathetic little flailing hands in surrender. I don’t get many like that now but every so often I feel this leviathan scream welling in my throat.  

This morning I have been trying to sort out accounts.  I hate this crap. I really do. I hate the way you have to beg and scrape and scrounge and whine and shout to get the cash you have worked for. I hate that I have to do this crappy work in order to pay the ever-increasing sodding bills.  And sometimes I just want to…well... be elsewhen. 

Anyhow, this morning I had possibly THE most asinine series of emails I have ever had from ANYONE from an accounts department of a large magazine group which steadily made my blood boil until I could barely trust myself to respond without cursing the stupid unhelpful uncaring bland thick as pigshit shit to seven shades of Hell. And no, I'm not saying ALL people in accounts departments are like that - just this particular arsebiscuit.  And Asbo was barking non-stop and and and and…. 

And then I thought. What would my quasi-guru say? 

Oh yeah... 

Breathe.

So…hang on a bit.  I’ll be back...

obsidiantears83.deviantart.com

Aaaah.  That’s better.  And really, that was what kickstarted this whole journey. Well, it was a big part of it.  Cos Marek is big on breathing.  And I have always been small and crap at it. 

My lungs and I have never had an easygoing relationship.  Off ill from school all the time with bronchitis.  Hospitalised with pneumonia.  Any happy-go-lucky virus around would lick its lips and go ‘Hey guys, weak spot alert!’ and lunge for my lungs.  You could argue it had a good deal to do with living in damp houses with parents who smoked. Or then again you could say it had to do with a deep ambivalence about being here in the first place.  Cos I had had that, all my life.  Never quite felt ‘here’, not earthed, not grounded.  Not in a despair way, not in a suicidal way, just in a ‘don’t really feel I belong’ way.  And really, if you're not breathing fully and deeply, isn't that a bit of a body metaphor for not gulping in life? 

The first piece I ever wrote for a national paper was on rebirthing, for The Guardian. Way back. I can still remember punching the air when I got the commission, in my funny little North London house. I can’t, however, remember how I got interested in rebirthing in the first place but I had a trial session and ended up having a course of ten; followed the whole thing for quite a long while before I became disillusioned. When? Maybe after I took Adrian to a Sondra Ray LRT training and (while he loved the breathing, strangely enough) he stormed out halfway through, saying the whole immortality thing and the loving everyone thing was total crap. I guess it was a bit of a deal-breaker between us and so...

Anyhow. Let's backtrack. It was when I was watching my parents having sex during rebirthing (okay, let me just add that I wasn’t physically in the room; you go into a trance state and return to the time before your conception – Milla, you have full permission to wander off until tea-time; and no, they weren't having sex while rebirthing - I was doing the rebirthing bit) I realised that, no, I really really REALLY didn’t want to get born at all.  No sirree.  And sometimes I still feel that way. Not so often nowadays, not so much since this last year of wonderful weirdness, but still...sometimes.  I just become so...detached.  

 

But breathing helps. J

Okay, so I’ve lost a whole swathe of you now, haven’t I?  *sigh*.  No!  Don’t sigh. Breathe…  You don't have to believe in rebirthing, or immortality, or the business of seeing your conception. No, really, truly you don't have to watch your parents having sex!  Not right now anyhow...  For now...just breathe. 

Because breathing plugs you into the here and now. Breathing is an affirmation of life.  It is, it is, it is.  But really, just spend a bit of time every day becoming conscious of your breathing, how you breathe. Some people freak out when they try it.  It's powerful stuff.  Brings up all sorts.

“Lie down on the grass, Feel the earth breathing…” said my guru.  And, for sure, the earth breathes… Listen. Feel…

“Just sit down and breathe. Slowly, regularly, with every inhale and exhale forming a perfect circle,” he said.  

And I try. I try.  One night he got me breathing consciously for about three hours non-stop and oh my, you should have seen the things I saw in my head that time…and eventually I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed nigh-on fifty years of grief out of me in one fell swoop and felt cleansed, renewed…shattered yet clearer.

studio8design.co.uk

You wanna try it?  Nah, not a three-hour marathon but a taster?  There are conscious breathing techniques in pretty well every mystical tradition and ancient culture under the sun and moon but the one that rebirthing uses is to keep the inhale and the exhale the same length, without a pause between. Conscious, slow, regular.  

You may go a little light-headed.  It may feel strange.  But, hey, why not try?  Or not…Or try a different form of breathing. Just breathe! Consciously. Or don't!  it’s entirely up to you!

As Marek says in Symphonic Bridges.  ‘…There are so many other aspects of life, which are crucial for you and absolutely worth experiencing. Especially those regarding your health and happiness. Therefore, you should not take for granted what others say about positive thinking, conscious breathing, meditation, vegetarianism, fasting, fire walking, and so on. Just go ahead and try them, for sake’s sake! Your own experience of the given thingies can be different from what you’ve heard. Everybody is an individual being, you know.’

Thingies... I love that. *smile* 

Exits stage left, breathing...

Breathing Session

Sounds
And reflections
On the walls
Of crystal palaces
Time
And vast spaces
In my room
Breathe deeply
And close your eyes

I get the answer
Prior to a question
When I open up all my mind
Flying into Light
I keep on breathing
Through pain and heavy air
Past burdens and gravity
I leave behind
Approaching weightlessness

Copyright © Marek Stefanowicz 1990

I changed my mind into...

kathrynarnold.wordpress.com

Okay, so I was going to carry on and talk about yoga and other exercise stuff but I changed my mind.  Yeah, I do that a fair bit nowadays and, really, don’t you think it can be a good thing?  I was chatting to my friend Gill about it this morning. She hauled me out for a coffee (decaf in my case, of course) and we talked about infinity and reality and perception and religion and education and politics and economics and friendship and confidence and self-esteem and lamb and autism and jealousy and environmentalism and intolerance and globalisation and food miles and Christmas and inlaws and food and the hundredth monkey and drink and goblins and leylines and funerals and faith and strawberries and exercise and vicars and sound and biscuits and light and earrings and and…. Yeah, one coffee turned into three and my bum went numb. J

And…where was I?  Oh yes.  Somewhere in the middle of all that we talked about how some people can be so rigid, so dogmatic.  

‘They don’t listen,’ said Gill.  ‘They just talk over one another, pushing forward their point of view without stopping to hear the other side.’

‘Oh hell, yeah,’ I said. ‘It’s why I can’t listen to politicians. It’s just such a waste of time. It’s never real debate; it’s just synchronised shouting.’

‘It’s not just them,’ said Gill. ‘It’s all those people who are just, you know...‘This is how it is’ and ‘This is just how I am’. And that is it, end of story.’

'And those people who want to change people,' I said, feeling a bit shifty. 'Cos that's rubbish, isn't it? You can't change anyone else; you can only change yourself and how you react to other people, right?'

'Yeah. Want another coffee?'

'I shouldn't, I've got to get some work done.'

'Fair enough.'

'Oh, go on then...'

'Changed your mind?'

'Yeah.' 

Part of me thinks how nice it must be to be absolutely certain, quite convinced; to see the world and onself in such black and white sharp contrast. Not about another coffee or not, of course, but about every last little thing. But then again…it doesn’t allow for any shift, any change, any movement, does it?  And unreally everything is changing all the time. You are not the same person you were twenty years ago, or a year ago, or even a second ago.  Every moment offers a new choice. 

And that, surely, is a good thing?  When things are set in stone, they run the risk of ossifying, of stagnating, of congealing (oh my, how many inappropriate participles can I run up there and all because petrifying has lost its original meaning?).  But once you accept that nothing is really set in stone (that the stone itself is moving, changing all the time even), that change is always possible, nay inevitable…that you and life and nature, yes, by the very nature of the thing, won’t stay the same, then that gives a sense of release.

A year ago, I honestly didn’t believe I could change.  Not in my heart of hearts.  I wouldn’t admit it out loud but a small voice inside said, ‘Nah, that’s it.  Brave up, Jane.’  But change I did and I’m still changing, each and every minute of each and every day and so it will continue. Or so I guess.  I nearly wrote 'assume' there but I changed it because, really, I never assume anything nowadays. 

And so today, regarding this blog post…the one that was going to be about yoga..  I changed my mind.  ‘Into what?’ my quasi guru might say.  J  Or, rather...

“Time passes

Bringing His daughter

Change

Letting Law of Cause and Effect

Apply

God in action

Love”

Marek Stefanowicz, Symphonic Bridges

With that in mind, I figured I was falling into the same old trap of trying to keep everything neat and tidy; to set it all out in sensible, sane, rational steps. I wasn't embracing change. I wasn't being true to the whole magic of what happened because the honest truth is that it was all totally mad and irrational.  I didn’t just think, ‘Oh, okay, I’ll get my diet sorted out and then I’ll get my exercise thingy going and then, once that's sorted, I'll go be spiritual for a bit.’ There wasn't a plan, not even the vaguest suggestion of one. It all just sort of happened in one big jumble, weirdly and wildly and very unsensibly.  Which is why I would say again, please don’t do as I did and for feck’s sake don’t do as I say… This isn’t a manual for how to change your life. It’s just me putting down what happened to mine. 

So…in all honesty, what did I do first?  I said it in the first post actually and I realise now that I’ve been holding it in for way too long…

Yeah…I breathed. 

BREEEATTHE.....

So, I'm gonna go and do a bit of that now.  You could too, if you like. And, depending on how the changes go, we may continue doing it tomorrow.  Or not. It all depends...

Breathe damnit!

There’s this blog post I keep wanting to write but, every time, each and every time I start, something stops me. Ah well….never mind.

I went to the gym yesterday after walking the SP. Got on the exercise bike to warm up and it was like peddling through treacle. I didn’t have one bit of energy, not one bit. But I figured I could work through it, just keep going. Anyhow, I wanted to try out the new TRX. So I peddled on and got talking to the woman on the bike next to me. ‘Gonna try out the TRX?’ I said.
‘Nope,’ she replied. ‘It’s my first time back; I’ve been ill, so I’ve gotta take it easy.’
‘Oh, sorry to hear that,’ I said. ‘What was wrong?’
‘Pleurisy. Viral pleurisy.’ Ouch.

Then someone else came in, but in mufti, not gym gear. I hadn’t seen her for absolutely ages.
‘Hey, you! Long time, no see… What’s been going on?’
‘Pleurisy,’ she said.

If you wondered - this is the TRX

No shit.
And we chatted for a bit – about doctors and shrinks and floatation and diet and so on. And then she said. ‘Bottom line, I didn’t listen to my body.’

And I thought about that, as I half-heartedly went round the weight machines, every muscle crying quietly. But thought is all mind, right? And then I strapped myself into the TRX and did some planks – and then started doing crunches and then – right there – in mid-air, my body just shouted: ‘For pity’s sake, woman, enough already!!’

So I untangled myself, came home and went on Twitter and asked: ‘Do we listen to our bodies?’
And Twitter said: ‘No. Because my body alternates screaming at me "stop eating!" with "eat more!" :-/’
And Twitter also said: ‘My body tells me to sit on the couch and drink coffee.’
And Twitter said: ‘My body is shouting “Give me cake, chocolate and Ben&Jerrys!”
But does it? Is it? Is it really?

Cos that’s it, isn’t it? Mind tells us one thing; but body can talk a totally different language, if we learn to listen.

I’ve recently put an old book of mine, The Energy Secret, up on Amazon in Kindle format and in that I went through a series of stuff that might help us get in touch with our bodies. Note to self: sometimes you should follow your own advice, Jane. Not often – but sometimes.

And then I opened emails and read through one from a dear friend who has pulmonary edema right now and sighed. All these people with lung problems. Breathing. So fundamental we don’t even think about it very often; we just take it for granted.

I wrote about that too in The Energy Secret. About how there is a yoga proverb that says: “Life is in the breath. Therefore he who only half breathes, half lives.” The Buddhist tradition regards every breath and giving new life and every exhalation as a little death. In fact, look at pretty well every ancient system of healing, every branch of spirituality and will find lessons in the lungs. Breath for thought, eh? There are a whole batch of exercises you can use to shift energy, to change your physiology, your state of mind.

But really I like Bija Bennett’s approach best. Bija is a yoga teacher and writer and her little book Breathing Into Life is very lovely…it doesn’t ‘instruct’ per se, it’s more like breathing medication/meditation, with each page like a poem.  Like this...

Breathing into Life

Most likely
if you
happen
to fall into a lake
you may
remember to breathe
and
for a moment
fully appreciate
your life
and your breath.

Her breathings are both poetic and (quite literally) inspirational – with lovely titles like The Wave, About the Sun and the Moon, A Daily Bath, The River Flows, In a Cage, Reach in the Dark, Absolute Uncertainty, Ride the Waves, Return to the Well, Secret Spirit, The Disappearing Act.

Ah, I’m doing it again, aren’t I? Flogging someone else’s book, rather than my own. Ah well. What goes around comes around eh?
I emailed Bija to ask her if she'd mind my reproducing one more…and she came right back and said "Of course! Use whatever you want!!" Which didn't surprise me in the slightest.  And I was so pleased as, see, all those people with lung problems, I reckon fear often has something to do with it…fear of feeling, fear of life...and this is all about just that… 

Dive Deep

Don’t be afraid to feel afraid.

Leave the safety of your sanctuary
and wander into something rare.
Instead of pulling away
turn around and face it. Because whatever happens
you won’t die. (You might cry or laugh, but you won’t die.)

Pay attention to what is going on inside you and
dive deep
into the depths of your fear.
Even when it feels like you are drowning
keep the agreement with yourself
to go deeper. Keep breathing.
The other side of fear is love.

Redirect your attention and change the pressure within yourself.
Don’t doubt, get discouraged, and stop the loving.
Feel into the feeling in your heart.
Really breathe fully
and continue to let it circulate and swell.
Allow a simple love of life to emerge.

Take time with it. Go further.
Expand the currents of your breath inside you and around you.
Discover more flow.
It may well be that you need to work through a lot of tensions.
And that’s all right. But the purpose is not just to work through them
but to move beyond them.

Your breath is the vehicle that moves you through.

Diving deep
inside
you’ll find
that your love is what’s really alive.






Note: Bija tells me that she's creating a new site which sounds really exciting... make a note of this URL and see how it develops...

Floating

And today I am so tired. I thought I would get up at 6am and get down the gym for an hour before breakfast but my body just started whimpering a bit. And my lungs hurt. I’ve been feeling the onset of a chest infection since I’ve been here.

So I took myself to the hydrotherapy area instead. Sat solo (halleluyah) in the steam room and breathed. Shallow, gasping breaths. Not good. Couldn’t figure out the whirlpool so got into the swimming pool. All alone. And it was beautiful.
The sun glanced through the windows and I swam a couple of lengths slowly, mindfully, thoughtfully. And then I dunno, I just flipped onto my back and floated.
And breathed. And breathed. And just was. Listening to the water in my ears and fighting the thought that the seals were broken and I was filling up slowly and steadily with water until my whole body would be suffused and I’d sink and become one with the water. Then realising, that (doh) I’m nearly all water already anyway. And letting go.

Bliss. Nothing. Everything.

Every so often I’d feel a gentle tug as the water moved my body; adjusted me. Shifting me in slow circles.

Please God – I sent a silent prayer – don’t let the lifeguard (who must surely be watching on CCTV or something) think I’m drowned and race in and haul me out in some heroic gesture. And my prayer was answered.

How long was I there? I have absolutely no idea.

And when I finally emerged, I stumbled upon the salt steam room – again empty, just for me. And sat and meditated there too, breathing in the salt from the wall of Himalayan salt. And, as I came out, I thought about how tough we are on ourselves; how much we struggle. Okay, I’m including you guys here, but I have no right as maybe you don’t. But I do.

Anyhow, I thought about The Mistress of Spices, which I’ve just re-read. The first time I read it, I thought it was about magic mainly. The second time I read it I thought it was about love mainly. This time, I think it’s mainly about kindness. About being human. About trying to get through life the best you can, about being a bit of everything all rolled into one. And about not believing in surface appearances, about looking beyond the obvious. About looking for the deep truths that lie beneath.

And then I coughed. Again.