clearing

I don't know about you, but february has absolutely arrived in a flurry for me. deadlines I thought I had ages for, cheese I thought would be good for weeks to come, a house move looming in the distance - lots of stuff has suddenly demanded my attention with the arrival of the new month.

and so it's with some general flustery energy that I write that this week, my theme of this week is:

clearing

at the end of a yoga class I usually guide three thank yous: to yourself, for showing up and making time for the practice; to each other for sharing the space together; and to the practice of yoga and all who have passed it down over the generations. this week's energy feels like the first thank you to me - the process of choosing, deliberately, how we spend our energy. being mindful of what we let take up our space, our time, our resources, and choosing to clear away what we don't want or need any more in order to have more space, time, energy for the things we do want or need.

when I was in my first year of university, a friend of mine took me along to a free community meditation at the bristol buddhist center. it was the beginning of a long relationship with the space, the people in it, and the practices of buddhism for me - something that served me really well over a stressful time studying, being away from home for the first time and trying to figure out who the heck I was.

one of the most beautiful things I remember from all the learning I did there emerged from an "urban retreat" (like a retreat, but instead of going away to the mountains you implement it in your everyday life - very interesting!). the theme was simplicity, and we were encouraged to think about what we could remove from our life that we didn't need. how we could simplify.

and, wise as they were, the teachers and leaders of the community knew we were likely to have some resistance to taking things away from our everyday life experiences. so they encouraged us to reframe this process as clearing space for things we actually wanted to be tending to in our lives. so I spent a week wearing absolutely no make up (unheard of for me at the time) and was delighted to find that it meant I could get more sleep in the mornings. I didn't use any technology unless I had to for university, and found myself learning to crochet. I left my phone away from my bed at night and bought an analog alarm clock that still to this day ticks comfortingly by my bedside.

we can become really attached to the way things are in our lives, and that makes sense - things are so busy that I'm not sure how often we get the chance to even consider changing things, let alone find the energy to actually do it.

so this week I'm feeling this energy of clearing. clearing space, stripping back unnecessary complexity, quality over quantity. choosing what I want in my space, and gently but actively removing what I don't.

what does yoga say about clearing?

I'm barely going to scratch the surface here - yoga has tonnes to say about this theme.

Let's start with aparigraha (non-clinging) - one of the yamas or ethical restraints of the eight-limbed path of yoga. I'm a big fan of this quote from Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

“Non-accumulating simply means confidence in one's existence and in one's abilities. It is knowledge of one's self. You know how to make bread and know you can earn it. So you will not make bread for a whole year and store it. It will become stale.”

this reminds me of an abundance mindset - the idea that you have everything you need, that there's enough to go around, and when you need something you'll be able to find or create it. if this is the case, clinging and attachment to things is completely nonsensical - when you need something, it will be there for you.

now let's be very clear - this is not a love and light blog post that's going to ignore the very real experiences that people have of going without; of resources not being there for them at times of need and of things being unavailable. more importantly, I think it's safe to say that those experiences are caused by others who are not in need clinging to things, rather than sharing them appropriately. whether that's money, food, natural resources, power... you name it, there's unequal distribution of it.

if you are experiencing a very real lack of an important resource, an abundance mindset is not going to fix it. but those of us that have enough, or even too much should absolutely apply an abundance mindset: let go, redistribute, offer out. being honest with ourselves about what we truly need will reduce the inequality in resource availability across our communities.

then we have saucha (purity, cleanliness) - one of the niyamas or ethical rules of the eight-limbed path. put simply, this principle says a clear space supports a clear mind. that extends to keeping our surroundings and our bodies clean and clear of clutter, which can act as a distraction from our authentic self, somewhere buried under all those layers of stuff.

followed closely by santosha (contentment) - the second of the niyamas. it asks us to be satisfied with what we have, where we are, who we are right now. not craving or reaching for more, better or different. a deep appreciation of the present moment, exactly as it is. I teach a weekly yoga club and one of the students' favourite bits is savasana at the end. you can visibly see them relax when I tell them that one of the teachings of yoga is that they are "perfect, exactly as you are right now". how often as a teenager at school do we manage to hear that?

and lastly I want to talk about the concept of clearing in asana (poses) - there's something about the layers and layers of complexity that can get added to various poses in pursuit of more - more strength, more flexibility, more balance, more instagram likes... could it possible that the deepest benefits of practice can be achieved not through fancy arm balances and contortions, but through the simplest of poses?

through a sukhasana, a comfortable seat? through bitilasana marjaryasana (cat cow), basic spinal flexion and extension? through tadasana (mountain), a steady and engaged stand?

or maybe even one layer simpler, without named poses at all - through embodied awareness, moving as it feels good?

tuning in with the breath and the body to clear the mind,

seeing the authentic self below the surface, like the bottom of a puddle where the ripples have stilled for a moment,

and the waters have cleared ♥

astrology this week...

as I've mentioned before, I don't know loads about astrology and I'm unclear what I believe about it. but I absolutely know I really enjoy learning about it. I think narratives and symbols and archetypes are powerful reflective tools and I use astrology sort of like a journalling prompt - a ready-made set of themes up there in the sky for me to use as a guide for different explorations.

I'm a visual thinker and I've been trying out a new way of exploring the transits each week... here it is!