i.
in a way you make me remember, the daily chorus of “good morning, friends, and teachers, good morning–” the hidden cassette player, unravelling concerto or humming decks, dust entwined tapes like white noise, now. whoever listened to Mozart outside of morning assembly? struggling with stillness, shuffling during Mr Phil’s daily round of “guess the song.” by lunch time, to either Shaun, or George or Jay or another boy who had gifted us temporary distraction, in the form of squealing, or swearing or just refusing to stand to ceremony, Mr Phil would feign like thunder, “go and stand in the corner! and think long and hard about what you [your body] have done.”

after this emote display, the boys would attempt, ruinously, to use their bodies to think: contrition pacing, or if they were made to sit cross-legged, panic slapping their small, pink hands on the polished floor. it was then a time of o-zone outcry and de-regulation, everywhere: John Major’s square blue face, with blue square glasses talking a blue moon politick on the black box. “no-one on god’s green private land can have things, hundred out of a hundred – and definitely not you,” he seemed to say. a technological race to plunder, millions of us disjointed from our mis-nourished McNugget stuffed bodies to the wheezing chests in winter, plastic edifications on a caving system. across assembly halls on this island, there are somehow decades continually wedged between contrived lectures on incommunicado figures and finally, trusting the body – the soul’s memory – to speak. would you agree?

ii.
the voice forgets our other needs, like the need for spaces to be silent in, to be comforted through sounds other than speech or palatable, nod-nod, tap-tap arrangements. there is a language of the body, the ohm and the primal, who we were not trying to associate with, then. we knew, and know, the accusations that come with it, the accursed inaccuracy of ignorance. the one which placed written word above exuberant drums, the one that tried to call time on our ancient tewahdo liturgies, the old calendar, and then relegated our cultures to paraphernalia – there is no surer harbinger of menticide than seeing your reflection in these dust-bound museums. well, what is left for you to say?

into back bend

to liken ourselves to lions, that requires a new paradigm shining and sparkling with innocence, yes? one where we, your true kin, are not being hunted, not beset by daily attempts to rob the humanity from the base of our spine to the arch of our brow, or deprive enough of us of enough peace to starve even unborn children. to liken ourselves to lions is doing the job of oppressors for them (calling them, without claiming them as ours feels necessary these days). but to resist their taut and rabid voices, the vacuum-packed lies controlling their vessels, you would need a fresh vision. we love life and we need the un-glamour of freedom fighting until we are free. otherwise this won’t make any…
i think it is the guilt of wandering from practice which floods my soles at the top of a lion’s breath that unfurls my tight jaws.

“hhhhhh, haaaahhhhh, hhhhhhh, haahhhhhhhhhhh!”

and guilt, because when do we ever recognise what would remedy our true condition?

 

iii.
peace, teacher. regardless it’s nice to be here with you again.
all of us packed within the four walls: to feel the roomy smiles ripple across.
you enter, listlessness fades. in the slightly awakened state,
the room is more receptive to rhythm.
have we left outside, what belongs to outside?

at one time, a person to my top left will be stretched out,
child’s pose
another one scrolling intently on her phone
next to me, there is a still man and quiet hum and day’s end
closed-mouth “hahhhhh”
and me, fluctuating between states, voices roaming in my mind’s eye,
one distant, revolving question of which one is actually mine…
ujjayi breath, ocean roar

 

iv.
awareness and stillness. can we notice how we and the other feels?
i am aloof and morose for this stage, the stretched minutes where you bless the room with bob marley or gabrielle? grateful for deepening breaths. i am overly conscious of my yoga mat taking up space meant for it. even more, i am wary of my limbs accidentally colliding with someone else’s. what is there to fear? fear here, fear as I leave and turn into the maze of lanes, fear of dirty men and said prying eyes, fear i will not allow any other possibility to come up and in – including freedom. and this idea is underpinning my practice too. frayed edges of my being, revealing themselves, revealing the reticence that spreads, spreads and spreads out in thick plumes
then stops?

yes, it stops for a minute and releases me,
twice: once when we are here, together, and again on the nights when i sleep through

if i could greet you from this place, this disclosed place, i would have to be unconscious.

i have been keeping my breathing steady, and this time I come ready to part with ego. this inclination is drawn out slowly, over many hundreds of hundreds of breaths, seconds, and years at it.

i am not rushing and not competing. still, i find a longingness to greet you, like you greet us. warm-warm, funny-funny, good humour over decorum.

the cloudiness – would it need to leave first? or do you think the heart can shine through it?

 

v.
the heart that shines brightest at all times, is not the loudest, to be sure. i would like to know more, from you, teach. to know more about your nostalgic music choices and intuit your mood by the parameters of your zany voice.

can we learn from the honeybees, burnishing frequency and permeating vibrations through their dance, of loving energy. can we release ourselves from under the temporary, until we all know what’s good for the whole, the all?

this winter, i know I will run out of steam from overzealous commitments, and my bed will be there to hold me,

rising in spring, the truest beginning, i will aim to be like you, who shows us the harvest from good days on bad ones, returns us to breath
and grace, and appears to have tamed judgement, (at least, the weight of it is not there to see)

i strive to be like the one who is nimble and open, for a time and thrown off balance, know it is fine and beautiful to fall – that we all must.

well, the barren month, and this above-mentioned intention, is afoot. here i am, falling in line with the imposed low. the world is knowing, grey haze. there are countless more falls per moment of practices, awaiting us.

in the cordoned bubbles we each occupy before we begin class, we will: bend our necks, clock watch.

unlikely, of our own accord, to notice our many lungs conjoining. but its effects will be noticed, the engine is your playlist. our expectant breathing, fuel to the collective journey:
the class, one we will endure gladly. our hands and lungs rise to meet you in mountain or warrior – how nice, to see you, again;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Mo on Unsplash