Fourth Form of Madness

I am at a yoga retreat at the moment.  Years ago when I first started yoga and was going through a particularly dark time in my life, I came across a book that the teacher taking the retreat had written.  Some would say it wasn’t a book about yoga, it didn’t have any pictures of asanas or breathing instructions etc.  It was more a book of her experiences and her journey and to me this instinctively felt like yoga.  Her words helped me  find a path through a time that I fear I did not yet have a compass for.

So there I was on day 3, sitting right in front of her as she talked us through the next inquiry we would be taking.  I was sitting there thinking how different this retreat was from what I imagined it was going to be, sitting there thinking that every cell ached in my body due to massage I had the night before and that actually sitting there on the cold floor was probably the last thing I wanted to be doing – even if it was in front of and listening to someone that I had the deepest respect for.  I was marvelling at the softness and organic movement approach that this woman was teaching and how it was challenging all of my past yoga experiences.  And then I realised I had that over whelming desire to leave, to get away from this woman and her knowledge and even though this desire was strong and it felt unpleasant to stay, I did allow myself a little quiet laugh.  I always get this feeling when I am being taught something, it’s like you almost have to drag me there, I resist so much and want to stay where I am.  I’ve had this all my life.  Only in the last few years have I have truly recognised it and what it means when it surfaces.  Usually it is when I am going to do my best “unlearning” and like everything I am still clinging to my old “learning” like it actually part of my identity.

So we begin the next inquiry which starts curled in foetus position on the floor on a blanket.  You are to focus on your core, midway between the belly button and pelvis, to feel the breath beginning here and radiating out through all the four limbs and to only move other parts of the body when the breath moves through them.  Very soft, very gentle, and at this point to me very strange.  I’m still considering edging my way to the door and escaping but a tiny bit of fear of the teacher sees me curl into a reluctant foetus on my blanket.  This teacher is one for the softest spoken people I have been around and her movements are like poetry but one look into her eyes and I sense someone not to be crossed.  So I remain there in foetus for ages just breathing and recognising how reluctantly my body wants feels this shape today.  Then I venture into a little movement. a slight shoulder opening, the merest of a hip opening and then I roll shut again.  Somewhere in that simple movement i kind of get it, so I continue breathing and moving very simply, very organically.  Really feeling the developmental stages of these core movements.

By the time the teachers voice indicates that it time to end this inquiry I am laying there on my blanket, all limbs open and heart and face open up to the sky with big wet silent tears rolling down my face.  Early on in the movement I encountered the strongest of emotions and though I didn’t fancy having this release there in the retreat, I am not one to stand in the way of nature (she is another I try never to cross).  So I stay with the ebb and tides of the emotions and  roll on the blanket quietly and patiently with them like a friend would do when you unburden yourself of your woes to them.  As I lay there at the finish, I heard lots of blowing of noses around me and realised, that in my experience I wasn’t alone and this is always important to remember on our journeys.  I scanned my mind through my body and realised all the pain in my cells and muscles from the massage the night before had gone and that I felt amazingly relaxed and mellow and that really the ideal thing for me to do was to take a nap.  Instead we break for lunch where I had my second bout of unlearning to do (this was turning out to be quite the day of learning – no wondering I felt like running) – but that is a whole other blog for a whole different time.