Pondering on new beginnings
I cannot tell you how wonderful it has been to be back teaching in the same space as students and be able to touch them! I missed this so much during lockdown, it is one thing being on my mat leading a session, but it’s quite another to properly teach, where you can actually touch and guide and try and help them. I am grateful to Zoom though, because at least it served a purpose and allowed me to continue teaching, but it just wasn’t the same.
I a delighted that we are soon moving to Phase 5 here in Guernsey. I realise that I was ranting quite a lot, in my inability to go with the flow of things, simply because I couldn’t understand the reason it was taking the States of Guernsey so long to make a decision about moving forward when there been no reported Covid cases for a significant amount of time. The Isle of Man moved to their Island bubble after only 22 days, and we will be waiting until about 48 days I think, to follow them into an island bubble.
Partly this has been my impatience, and because I don’t like limiting who can attend class, or not being able to run my Reiki courses properly, but also, it’s because I’m perhaps not as risk adverse or quite so fearful of covid as others. It just made no sense to me, much like so many other decisions that are made in this world, which are so patriarchal in their approach, ordered and rule-based, no room for the intuitive or for the common sense!
The more I have started to notice this, the more I realise how our lives are still so controlled by patriarchy, and the energy that this brings with it. I suppose this might be my resistance, especially as I find myself increasingly drawn towards the goddess and an alternative way of living, that allows more of the intuitive and the heart, that is less ‘certain’, less ‘black and white’, because if there is one lesson covid has brought with it (and there are many), there can be no certainty, and there is no black and white, as much as we might try and ensure it. Black Lives Matter further demonstrates this.
Yet the world continues to separate and divide, caught up in increasing rules and regulations, which are almost laughable, because no one knows. There was a time when scientists were saying there was little evidence that face masks worked, and now face masks will likely become the norm for public travel. This preventing us breathing properly, makes no sense to me, but that’s because I spend a significant part of my life attempting to breathe properly, to maximise the health benefits.
Anyhow I resolved last weekend, to let go of the ranting, because it does no good, just causes me harm, and does nothing to change the situation. Thankfully the situation has changed, or will soon change, and there will be no need for booking for class, and I won’t have to spray my hands with lavender, between touching each person, but maybe the crystals will stay, I quite like the fact there are more crystals in the room, and potentially revealing for students too, to see what they might be drawn towards on any particular day!
I’m contemplating greed at the moment too. Aparigraha, one of the five yamas, or ethical principles of yoga, also interpreted as ‘non-grasping. I feel it’s in the ‘field’ at the moment, caught up in the changes we might like to see in the world, in a different way of living that is not dictated by wealth alone, as is often the motivation for many of the choices that people make. As if wealth alone will save us.
Wealth fascinates me, I used to work within the wealth industry and it is interesting to witness how it impacts behaviour, how it orders and categorises people, how it allows power to play out in so many different ways, how it allows people to feel superior to others and treat them in a certain way. It is such an illusion yet so many buy into it, a marketer’s dream, as if life alone is all about the creation of wealth, the grasping onto this, and the drama that accompanies this. You don’t take it with you!
I’ve been fascinated by the multi-billionaires, what they do with their money, how they might use it to help others, and yet the power sometimes goes to their heads, and they buy into government to give them greater power to do what they please, as if they are above the rules handed out to the rest of the population, because somehow their lives and their opinions, and their intentions matter more than the lives and opinions and intentions of others who might not have as much money. Look at Bill Gs and all the conspiracy theories about him. Let alone Mark Z. It’s interesting reading about Elon M too.
This is an opportunity to bring in a new world order, to shuffle around what is deemed to be most important. I imagine wealth will continue to motivate most, and this when so many people in the world are not under the poverty line because covid and the world’s reaction to it, means that so many can no longer earn an income and so many are not able to now access support from charities, in the cases where their governments are not in a position to support them either - there is no social support in Nepal for example, you’re on your own!
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It’s an old story. Maybe we need to re-define what it means to be rich and poor. I’m curious to see how this unfolds. For now though, I’m grateful for the riches bestowed upon me in life here in Guernsey, the richness of this land and of the people who form part of my community, and my family, and all the beauty and abundance of life here on this beautiful Island, let alone the bounty of the harvest, their is much richness in that too. Thank you.
