The potential for rejuvenation reveals itself when we spend time away from our usual environments. We generally know this but tend to easily forget the kinds of motions that seem too simple to be effective. These reminders to the self can be as beneficial when prompting a break away from the home office out into the garden where there is fresh air, nature’s light and colour, as planning to go away for a weekend to the mountains. Sometimes the scale of scene change requires a greater scope for exploration and discovery; in seeking inspiration and ‘on the ground’ idea generation. Or, a desire for the potential challenge of inserting ourselves amidst unfamiliar social, cultural, and economic dynamics so that we can experience the way we meet ourselves there, since our last excursion to an alternate environment of the like. This is where we get to observe the ways in which we have and have not changed. And on both counts, how we feel about these ways.
I’m currently in Singapore, purposefully visiting a special someone, rather than as a desired holiday destination. I’m enjoying exploring my response to being on a different continent (after a four year hiatus from international travel) and observing the difference in the dynamic of life as it shapes itself around the various environmental and socio-economic conditions.
I am staying on the island of Sentosa, just a short bridge over from the mainland. Part of the island is geared for tourists and part of it for residents. The residential area where I’ve been taking walks and visiting one of the two cafes, is fairly quiet during the day. Quieter than what I am used to anyway. From inside the coffee place, when it is bustling, it seems like the whole island is more alive, until I step just outside of the cafe again.
I know that I value the energy created and gathered by groups of people in communal spaces, which is why I love writing and working in cafe environments. When I go walking in the mornings on the promenade or around my neighbourhood at home, I love smiling at passersby or simply taking a moment to acknowledge another body, even if they don’t feel into smiling back. I enjoy the energy exchange when I receive a smile back but I also love sending energy out. We all want to be seen. When we see each other - by seeing, not just looking at - I believe this feeds Earth’s consciousness.
Earth is living, breathing and conscious. Human beings move around and through her systems in order to survive; we form part of Earth’s microbiome. When sections of communities grow a capacity for depleting each other for external gain or greed, they seem to lose consideration, perspective and deep care for much else around them. It’s the kind of behaviour that is rooted in minimal self respect. People who have not offered themselves compassion, rest, regeneration (personal growth journeys unrelated to the work place but essential to well-being in this space), often express their view of others who have taken themselves to these being states, as selfish or self indulgent. What if each individual who does not take care to respect and nourish their own nature, depletes the microbiome; gnaws away at its ‘good bacteria’? The nature of what we ask Earth’s consciousness to digest, determines the by-products it can provide for us. These are the things I wonder about in the midst of economies like Singapore, where the cost of living for the wealthy is now officially the highest in the world, according to a Reuter’s report published on June 20th (which is to assume the mid to un-wealthy has limited access to most of the city’s interactive social amenities). How is this government considering well being and sustainable living for its countrymen and women?
Dear friends, if we choose not to indulge in every bit of life within our own bodies, where our sense of being has roots, how can we expect to come close to the experience of wholeness within ourselves? If we easily lose sense of self as soon as we change environments, looking for something to cling to in the new space or stay attached to where we have come from, does that mean we can’t feel at home in our own bodies? As I explore this question while placing myself in different environments, I am grateful for the feeling of being grounded in my body, through my yoga practices, which go everywhere with me. When I choose to be where I am, in my own body, in companionship with self, I can access the living in my being and continue to transition. I can sense into a cultivated space for enquiry. I can allow for insights to drop into this space. Accessing this feels like a luxury in a place where luxuries look like fancy cars and big yachts - unattainable for anyone with only a healthy body and mind.
I seek community wherever I go, not to gain a sense of self but to stay connected to the pulse of life on Earth. I have deep respect for other lives because we co-exist in the microbiome. The thought of a degree of isolation does scare me. While I don’t like to subscribe to fear, I must admit that perhaps this is a fear, and maybe it serves me in some way. Although I could get onto a spiritual high horse and blanket it with love, I’m currently opening myself to explore how this potential fear might be holding me back. Or perhaps it is more of an intuitive nudge leading me away from what cannot serve my higher self. I am not terrified, because what is true cannot be taken away but I feel that my view of the truth could become a bit starved and my perspective of what is true and meaningful could begin to blur, if a few more degrees of isolation than necessary incur.
Every gut needs multitudes of bacteria to stay healthy. The more nourishing varieties we have the better our internal flora is able to support us. The same principle relates to Earth. If we can nourish ourselves and each other first and foremost, 90% of the work to save the planet will be well on its way. If we respect and care more for our own nature, it becomes difficult to ignore anything that can improve our state of being and conditions for living. Not an easy angle to present to the scientists and climate change experts. But this living yoga for the Earth - this is one true thing. Whether ‘they’ want to acknowledge it or not.