Winter has finally kicked in and I’m in the bedroom with Raven and Salem, writing in front of an inefficient bar heater in an uninsulated house that’s even colder since I removed all the curtains and blinds. I’ve been known to go into cleaning frenzies, possessed with the blood lust of Kali with a thirst for freedom from clutter. This frenzy has led to birth certificates being lost (potentially thrown away by mistake, BY ME 😬) and all the things I’ve decided we dont need being piled up in the middle of the living room as Rod says to me over and over, ‘If you’re going to throw anything away - Ask me first’.
It was this clearing frenzy that had me outside my house in Marrickville almost a decade ago with a sign saying EVERYTHING MUST GO, weekend after weekend, selling and eventually giving away everything I owned including art work, jewellery and clothes I was very attached to.
There’s an all or nothing side to me. When she gets activated it’s hard to stop.
So, the curtains went, along with everything else. Last night I had a dream that Rod came back early. I was so happy to see him but I was in the middle of cleaning so I didn’t stop to give him a hug. Then he left again and I’d realised what I’d done. You dont have to be a Jungian analyst to figure that one out.
I’ve always felt like I’m being propelled forward, pushed by some unseen force. Even when I was backpacking in my 20’s, seemingly with no ambition or drive, the force was there.
In 2011 in Byron Bay when all my friends were sleeping off hangovers I’d be getting up early to volunteer at the local Community Centre. I remember seeing the sign and walking in one day. I didn’t respond to any sort of ad. I just assumed they’d take me on and they did. ‘Hi I’m Clare. I want to do something useful. I do anything. When can I start?’
They assigned me to the ‘events team’ and I started coordinating a fundraiser for the Cancer Council. I’d only been in Byron a few weeks but soon I was going into ‘the office’ most days and calling suppliers and having meetings with my team. I still remember the fundraiser. Stall holders, t-shirts, balloons. I even got a mention in the local paper. My friend Rachel would jokingly say ‘alright business woman of the year’ as we rode around on our borrowed bikes with no shoes on laughing into the wind.
~
As I look out across the impenetrable wilderness of the eucalypt forest who stretches her statuesque limbs across the East Coast the sky starts to lighten, slowly at first and then in a rush of pink and orange.
‘Every moment is bright and shining, new and full of all potential, just because it is’
Looking out into the trees is something I’ll never take for granted.
Time will eat us all. Our own mortality is the only constant in this world of change.
As we all hurdle towards this dive back into the void, I wonder what are the things you love that give you life?
I read this piece the other day, a list of instructions for ‘how to be a person’. I can’t stop thinking about it. Maybe you’ll love it too.
“Notice what makes you happy. Turn it into a ritual. Give it a name. Assign a myth to it - your own, personal myth. Let it be meaningful only to you. Now practice this sacred ritual every day.”
Yesterday the South Coast lost internet for half a day. At the studio when people wanted to pay and they didn’t have cash I wrote my bank details down on scrappy bits of paper. I couldn’t even text anyone as iMessage insists on internet.
I went into town to buy cat food. The shops were open but the payment systems weren’t working there either. At Woolies a cheery man stopped me at the entrance.
‘We’re only taking cash, just so you know’
I smiled. No problem.
It’s funny because so often it’s the opposite. So many checkouts dont take cash.
My husband has a moral issue with self serve check outs and businesses that won’t accept cash. Missing him I think about all the times he’s ‘made’ me stand in huge lines rather than go through the self serve which he literally refuses to do.
‘Think about it. There might be someone who lives on his own and his only interaction is with the person at the checkout. They have a chat. He doesn’t feel so lonely. Thats important. We cant lose that’.
He’s right, but I’m also much more impatient than him.
‘We’ll stand in line and cuddle’ he would say to convince me. He’d always win.
He’s currently on a boat with his friends in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It’s been weeks since I’ve seen him, and will be many weeks until we’re in each others arms again.
Salem has just jumped on my back. Looking out of the glass doors I can see the sillhoutes of trees starting to appear.
At the studio this week our theme is Virya. The vitality, commitment and strength it takes to stay on the yogic path.
What is the yogic path?
What is yoga?
To me, yoga is freedom. it’s the understanding that only my mind can imprison me or set me free.
So on this path of freedom, the sage Patañjali writes, we need to cultivate five qualities:
śraddhā – faith, trust, conviction
vīrya – energy, strength, vitality
smṛti – memory, remembrance
samādhi – meditative absorption
prajñā – wisdom, insight
For some reason I’m reminded of the frogspawn that would appear each Spring in an old porcelain sink outside my family home. We’d watch with fascination as this mass of jelly eyes would start to seperate, form legs and turn into tiny then increasing larger frogs. Eventually these frogs would break free from the porcelain sink and hop over the edge and into the world.
Patañjali says some people are born into this world already in a state of yoga, already free. Those people dont need to cultivate this traits. They already ARE these traits. Just like the frogs.
They are the faith it takes to push out of their jelly houses.
They are the energy it takes to keep growing when it would probably be easier to stay a spawn.
They are the memory in their cells, the memory of their ancestors, the embodied memory of what it means to be a frog.
They are meditative absorption into being a frog.
They are the wisdom to leave the safety of the makeshift pond and go out to make their own frog spawn and for the cycle to begin again.
~
practice with me on Yuin Country