27/05/2020
Stepping out mindfully with gratitude and sensitivity!
Now that the world is opening up again after lock down we find ourselves in a time of transition. Our entry into quarantine having been sudden, unexpected and, for many, traumatic it is to be expected that some people have galloped out of the starting gate as if racing against the rest of us to be first to “get their lives back”. But since the lives they are returning to are gone - left behind in a world whose trajectory has irrevocably shifted - expectations that may have been relatively reasonable a mere three months ago have now been rendered unrealistic.
The pragmatic approach to our not-particularly-brave new world is rather to make an unhurried shift back from sequestration, to progressively unfold ourselves from the indoor into the outdoor mode of being. We can term this process a sandhi, a Sanskrit word that indicates any two things joined together. The English words join, junction (and for that matter conjugal, juxtapose, syzygy and zygote, among many others) all emerge from the Proto-Indo-European root *yeug- from which also emerged the Sanskrit word yoga.
The body’s joints are sandhis, as are a country’s treaties and boundaries, euphonic word combinations, the horizon, and any opportune instant. In the Vedic era the most significant sandhis for worship were the Three Sandhyas, the three moments in the day that involved shifts in the nature of light: dawn (the transition from dark to light), midday (when light is at its highest and swings from increasing from dawn to decreasing toward dusk) and dusk (the transition from dark to light). (Tantrikas and others often worship instead at the fourth sandhi: midnight, the midpoint between dusk and dawn.)
Ayurveda teaches that vata has the potential to become aggravated at any juncture, hence the well-known dictum rtusandhishu vyadhayoh jayante (“diseases are born at the junctions of seasons). Of the various “joints” that each of us negotiates daily the changeover from sleep to wakefulness and vice versa is particularly critical for our health. Far too many people make it a habit jump out of bed and into action without permitting their bodies the opportunity to warm up and gradually shift from the static inertia of slumber to the dynamic inertia of diurnal activity. This impatience disrupts the natural rhythms of prana, the life force, which translates into the physical body as physiological disharmony that is often worsened by blood sugar imbalance due to stimulants and simple carbohydrates. Add in grief from the past and fear of the future, both vata-deranging emotions, and a pattern of unevenness has been set in motion that often lasts all day.
What applies to the day applies even more to the seasons of the year, the year itself, the “joints” of life (birth, adolescence, menopause/andropause, and death) and the switch from outer to inner focus in such activities as meditation retreats and intensive medical treatments. The key to a satisfying life is smooth transitions, departing gracefully from the previous and accelerating slowly into the following, proceeding calmly and methodically forward in pursuit of our goals. This is true for every transition, and particularly so as we emerge from enforced isolation back into public life. Each of us has the chance to make a new beginning, one that might have been impossible without this couple of months of obligatory seclusion.
William Henry Channing, Unitarian clergyman, crusader for women’s voting rights, and Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives during the Civil War, described his ideal of a healthy life thus:
“To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common -- this is my symphony.”
As society shifts gears yet again may we each of us take this excellent advice to heart and, leaving behind the precipitousness of the past move gradually into the future!
