The picture of the stars on the sea copyright and courtesy Ester Sabik. Check out the sublime creations of the young Slovak artist on her instagram estersabik. The relationship with water is one of the lifetime.
Can camel pass through the eye of a needle? The biblical (not only) question tests the physical limits or other?
There is a yoga asana called an eye of a needle, it is a hip opener, it brings a close contact with the lower back and the pelvis. Physically and symbolically, it is the water realm. Emotions are in their perpetual flux: waves, surges, low tides, ice, falls, pools, as changeable as water itself. All elements have change as an inherent quality. So, is there any stability in anything? Can the camel get through the eye of a needle? I remember doing the little job of passing the thread through the eye of a needle for my grandma. She was still of a generation to whom darning was close at heart. She always asked me with the same wording: My girl, I can´t do it with my eyes anymore, can you pass…? It was peanuts. Easy. Whatever light conditions, I got it sharply and quickly through. Childhood when senses are so keen and at our perfect service usually. Childhood lived directly, without much questioning.
All emotions are processed through water and unprocessed emotions persist as an information in water in us. In the individuation process, they can serve as a perfect companion, a lantern, milestones. Bringing us home.
Through experience, yoga and meditation practice and a few books I have arrived to this:
Before we can do anything like lovers do, we need to do everything like mothers do. Yes, mothers. Present, absent, distant, smoldering, predictable, unpredictable…you name it. No, let´s not run to mothers (if they are still around) to glorify or crucify them. No, it is the call to mother the only being that needs it: own inner child. And to do it a hundred percent. Completely. Whatever the child requires, is heard. Attention is granted. All states are equally welcome and all feelings taken as real.
Easy job? I do not know. Let´s not take it too serious, just be present, and attentive, so, yes it can become light when awareness is there. There is one great outcome: all judgement to whoever, others or myself, is dropped. All then stand in a shining light of compassion.
Catch it in the body, send it to the flow.
Where are the fathers in all this? Their role and energy are vital, contrast, complementary, but let´s leave that one aside for the moment. The father is the fire. And here we are diving into waters.
Does this paying full attention to own emotions sound obsessive, exhausting and self-centred? In the service of the ego, yes. As everything, we can be trapped in duality. It is a choice, right? But water is immensely powerful in its cleansing and unifying ways. It may be scary in the times of floods and Belgium has seen it this summer.
Resistance does not serve, I learn diving, observing little cracks and holes through which water finds its ways. Endless ways of water. Camels carry their tanks on their backs. They do not care if they pass the eye of the needle. Theirs is a different world, different experiences of elements.
The greater the illusion, the greater the disillusionment. And it is good. Illusions are better undone, washed through, observed, let go. Childhood is a great time of illusions, well depicted in stories and films. Later, there is a lot of investment into shrinks and/or numbing strategies to cope with the disillusionment.
Can camel…? Of course, if the needle is super big. Or the camel super small. Or the camel outsmarts the elements and becomes very, very porous, vaporous, spacious. Life is a mystery. All is possible.
I still occasionally pass the thread through the needle, though not so easily. Evoking my grandmother´s sigh: My girl, the eyes. Yes, I know, I understand. I parent myself. Through myself, all who are in my world, living or dead. Diving deep, eyes open. The yoga these days evokes and celebrates water we are. And brings the eye-of-needle-asana.
Current readings and inspiration for the blog: Stephan Zweig, The World of Yesterday. Admiration to the writer speaking through the time with a sharp clear style unraveling what dorms under the surface.
Grateful to my close-to-heart teacher for the sentence he has brought recently: Do everything hundred percent.
Dr. Anoop Kumar deep-swim-talks. This guy is the best when it comes to inviting to the journey to the unknown while being firmly rooted in the ground:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akX9bU5-kFU
(Annie Lennox song with the line like lovers do slipped in).
