A Clear Frame

When our stories and perceptions have dissipated, when personal meaning from the image fades away, all that remains is a clear frame. People and things come and go. Smells, temperature, sensations waft in and out. Seasons change, night becomes day, and day, night. Days, months, years, decades pass; centuries and millenia go by. We are in a body, we are without a body; yet the frame remains, until it, too crumbles away. Then, there is only space.

I find myself end of the summer on a ferry returning to the UK from France, blessed by the sun on my face and the wind in my hair, after what has been an eventful summer. 

If one word could define my reflections and experiences of late, it is temporality. I am increasingly sensitive the beauty and suffering reflected in the great arc of life, in both its astounding possibility and inevitable demise. 

When I first encountered the ideology of yoga, it was this word, temporality, and yoga’s promise of limitless bliss that attracted me. I wanted an end to suffering as I knew it, and I wanted it bad. I was more than willing to follow the ‘rules’ of the practice as they were laid out to me by my teachers, and endeavoured to be the perfect student and yogi. To that end, I altered my diet dramatically, practiced asana and breathing exercises for sometimes hours a day. I learned Sanskrit, and could recite many long sutras by heart. I followed my teachers to remote places of the planet, and spent countless time and resources participating in workshops and retreats. I tried to bend my body into positions it was unwilling to go, and push away emotions I believed I wasn't supposed to feel. I did not become enlightened. I did not find limitless bliss. My self-imposed suffering did not end. And yet, it was not all for nothing. 

What did happen, is that over the years, through repetition and reiteration, my understanding of those ancient teachings shifted in small, but incremental ways. More importantly, I got to know myself. I saw the truth of my pain, and over time, I found self empathy, and trust. I learned to get curious without needing to prove anything, and to ask (even more) questions; I acknowledged life through my own lens. Re-connecting with my intuition without rationale was a pivot point that enabled me to be lighter, and kinder to myself. It is only with this last shift, that did not come through ‘yogic’ channels, but via a retired Jewish Physician, that I found my way into an authentic relationship, with me. In turn, my yoga practice (and lots of other aspects of life) has become far more joyful, too.

We are all dynamic beings with the capacity to learn, evolve and change. And of course, we Age. To bear witness to the passing of time is to accept and embrace the wisdom that comes with life experience.

As I age, so do all those around me. Friends with aging parents have lost loved ones over this summer, and elderly members of my own tribe have moved on to other spheres. I read despairingly about wars and famine, droughts, fires and floods, and see the fall-out of these global issues on a local level. At the same time, there are births. There are the seeds of burned trees that only release themselves after the extreme heat of a fire. There are hundreds of infant starfish belly-up on a beach, helpless excepting the tide that will inevitably wash over them, and right them onto their backs to feed again, to live. And all the while, there is a continual finger on my own pulse, with the hope and intention of voyaging on and through, with the fear life will again be inevitably interrupted or extinguished through my own personal circumstance of complex health issues over the passage of time. The imprint of pain and fear runs deep.

Meanwhile, during August, my family and I returned to our favourite place on the Aven River. Like everywhere, there are signs of the passing of time. It is the fourth year at the same little fishing cottage that we rent from a man who was seventy-three when we met. He is now seventy-seven, and his donkey and goat are older, too. There are signs of wear in the cottage where leaks have stained the walls. We find artifacts of past summers that we tucked into, and behind books. The tea I bought last year is still in the cupboard. The man doesn’t come around to visit us as often anymore, and the donkey and goat no longer hound us at every opportunity for food. It as if there is a universal acceptance of the limitations on these aging bodies. I see myself through the same lens, and notice how my yoga practice has changed over these four years, how I tread more carefully upon those rocky, coastal paths, and how I shift in the kayak so as not to upset my wrists or back.

And yet, even in limitation, there is abundance. In the rivers and seas, on the coasts and in the air, there is life. Over the past month I have seen dozens of Curlews, Egrets, Heron and Sandpipers feeding at low tide. Tiny, and not so tiny crabs scurry sideways towards the water. A bathing seal relishes the crystal cool water seen from the coastal path. A lone Osprey stalks the river at sunset. A small mammal hunts fish at dusk. I have never seen so many starfish in one summer, and I even bumped into a colony of Great Atlantic Hares (enormous sea slugs). This was a particular delight for me, as I have a special memory of finding one (the giant slug, that is) at four years old in Kawaii (on a nudist beach, at that). I had never seen or heard of such a thing since, so finding one, let alone dozens, peppered by the belly-up, baby starfish, was a real boon. For a moment, I was four again, until I looked up, and only saw endless sea.

The tide pulls in, the tide pushes out. Time continues to cycle and flow,and we are all a part of it, this life.