Hello everyone!
So it’s been a long time since I last made an entry. Last year March or so, to be precise. A lot has happened on my Pilgrimage year, including the following, in summary:
- Hiking up Mt Meru in Tanzania and nearly pushing my guide Will off a cliff, or jumping off, myself. Meru is not a Sunday walk!
- Getting altitude sickness whilst on Meru
- The altitude sickness was the perfect excuse to ditch Kili, so I instead took a well needed break in a fab guest lodge in Arusha (I’m happy to hook you up if you would like to travel that side. The owner of Tanzinia Lodge, Raphael, also runs a very well managed safari touring business, and will look after you well).
- I came home for a few weeks, and went off to India for two months to learn to teach yoga. Sure, I got my 200hr International Teacher Training Certificate, but please don’t line up yet for any classes from me. I have sadly fallen off the yoga wagon, even as I dream of perfect Handstand and Scorpion asanas by age 60. I know none of it will happen on their own, so one day one day I will go back to regular practice.
- After missing my regular glass of Shiraz and meat in India, I came home to buy a house- a sanctuary right on the marsh.
- Soon after moving in I fell ill and had to have life saving emergency surgery. I’m dead serious!
- After this (note to everyone who’s living on their own, make sure you always have a strong support system around you. This too saved my life), I had to return to hospital for another five days with the area of my second and third chakras reeling and contracting in breath-taking pain. It took a week and countless tests and scopes for my doctor to figure out what was going on. Friends would arrive with groceries, or with the food item I craved.
- Thus I had to let go of my planned Serious pilgrimage, the Camino de Compostella, in order to heal. The only Pilgrimage I’m taking these days is within.
- When I realized that I wouldn’t make it to the Camino, I registered for a 200 hour Ashtanga yoga Immersion, at a studio just down the road from my house. This too I had to pull out of when I fell ill.
Thus concluded my year, with a 50% completion of what I had intended on doing on my Pilgrimage Year. But what I received in spiritual nourishment has been invaluable.
But this isn’t what I had set out to write right now. I wanted to reflect on this day, the day of the Eclipse, Spring Day, and the New Moon. Potent times this.
This morning I woke up from sleep feeling like I had been attacked throughout the night, as evidenced in the disarray of my bed when I got up. Plus my very sore body.
This however wasn’t enough to distract my mind from the usual ennui that plagues me upon waking up. A feeling of generalised anxiety that’s actually not evoked by anything in particular.
You see I usually wake up with this something is wrong feeling, travel with my emotional body in search of whatever is off in my life, and attach the ennui to it.
This morning I declared my peace. I’m tired of this. So I decided to try another way. Instead of seeking for things to attach my unhappy feelings on, I’m going to just notice them, and surrender them to a Higher Power. God. Divinity. I don’t actually care what the name is, just that I’m surrendering what I’m powerless to, to that which has more power, and can therefore help me.
So as I completed my meditation this morning, I came across these words posted on my Insight Timer’s Contemplative Prayer group’s site:
God you’re my refuge
I trust in you
And I’m safe.
I have committed to repeating this mantra throughout the month of September, as my way of learning to trust, even when I cannot see any light. It is my experiment, to see what will happen to me when I choose to navigate past doubt and anxiety, and replace them with trust.
This is my New Moon, Spring Day and Eclipse commitment. I will keep you informed.
Namaste.