Oh, that yoga class. Oh, oh oh.I was grateful, in a calm, pleased way, to see last week's yoga teacher back. Means I can really focus on the yoga (though I hope, by the time we have Bogdan again, I'll be a little bit over myself. Just a little) Foca, his name is, this one. Lovely. Israeli, not Spanish. He looks Israeli, actually. Big eyes and features. Gentle like a cow. A cow with spirit, though.
Not as cow-like as Cow-eyed Boy, who used to work at Hasbro. Tall and lean, an almost-silent artworker, he listened, chewed his cud, responded slowly with his big old eyes with straw-coloured lashes, extra long. Oh, I did blush around that man.
There were only two students in the class today. Me and Valentina, from Sardinia. Pretty and pierced and nearly always there, on her pink mat, ready for a stretch. We had a lovely practice. Very lovely indeed. I did a couple of things I didn't think I could do. We seemed to hold the postures a very long time. Not the littlest whiff of Downward Dog. We haven't done it yet. Perhaps we never shall. I like it, though. It's a classic, that.
We did ping-pong meditation again, still faily as all fuck, me, but I will keep on at it, knowing it may take years to see that ping-pong ball, just as it is, in the mind's eye.
And then the new bit for today, satya (truth) and asteya (no stealing). This is good. Truth. Experiment with always telling the truth. That means what you think to be true, not half a
truth to one person and a different half to another, for your gain. Integrity. I like that word. Being true to your own values. Living by them. Not compromising on the core of them.But blending that with amhisa (non-violence). For me, that's the difference between brutal honesty, which I both met and doled out at Esalen, and a different, gentler truth. Foca has a humour about him that's very pleasing. His choice of scenario to explain this difference was that your partner comes to a party wearing a horrible dress. Do you exclaim how hideous it is. No, he says, staring in disgust at the imaginary bad dress, even though there's no way you could ever say THAT was BEAUTIFUL, you give a gentler truth.
In the wrong mouth, such an example could have been mealy and unpleasant, but he delivered it with such a gleam. I wondered if he saw that dress, that scene, real or imagined, more clearly than he'd ever seen his ping-pong ball.
A truth driven by an intention to injure is not an honest truth. I like that. I also like that he said before we started that all of these are suggestions. Not rules, pointers. They are not commandments, he said, but indicators that show you roughly which direction to travel in. Anyway, I like the idea of the game of really calling yourself on anything that has the slightest taste of lie.
And then asteya - not stealing. This was explained as not nicking shit, of course, but also not stealing things with your mind. Not as Rentaghost as it sounds. Again, a human example. See someone's lovely relationship (Esther Lilley and Daniel sprung to mind) and love what they have, want it for yourself, if it sings, but don't want it at anyone else's cost. Don't try and steal a Lilley or a Daniel from their happiness, or don't feel graspy about what they have - rejoice in it, celebrate it, love it for what it is. That's what they mean, it seems, by asteya. Part of it, anyway. There's more, of course.
My internal jury, which today contains my older sister, a version much more total and damning than the real person would ever be, my father (the 25 years ago version) and lots of other people, says 'what are you, a brainwashable sponge creature with no mind of your own, looking for something to follow, looking for something to believe'...
But no, not really. And yes at the same time. It's like ringing bells in a cave (not that I've ever done that, so maybe it's not). I'm waiting for the sound to come back clear. If it dings and I understand and share it, I'll keep going. If it doesn't, I won't. I will leave to one side the bits I'm not inspired by. I may find use for them later, I may not. These things, I like. These things made a proper pleasing ding. They 'll do. I'll try them out, or add to the bits I already like to
do in those areas, and see what the difference is.I'm grateful too for yoga tips for my angry rash... an allergic reaction to something. Full moon eclipse on Saturday, apparently. It was a beautiful moon. I didn't see it disappear. Something to do with karma expulsions, things coming to the surface. I quite liked that. It's that or citric acid. One or the other, I reckon.
I'm being flippant. I have no idea what it is, or why, but I know that it's terribly itchy and uncomfortable, and I have some diet things (no dairy - not just yoga people say that for skin conditions) and some postures to practise.
I'm very grateful for the doctor this morning too, who saw me even though I wasn't registered. I haven't yet taken her advice on substances to quash this rash (ooh, rash quash, Jessica Loudon, we haven't had that, now, have we?), but I did take her reassurance seriously. It's not measles, mumps or meningitis. It's nothing terrible or catching. It's just a rash. A reaction. Good. I'll get on and itch, then, in that knowledge.
And for the Belgians (there's only one, but that makes it sound grander) who have paid. Thank you. And for the best-named accountant I have ever come across, recommended by the man who goes by the name Abag. I'll post it if he takes me on. Oh yes.
Thank you for Laura Furones and her tasty plum-cheeked baby, Marco. Good to see them both. I sang into his head, just gently. Not his forehead, like a dog, but just nearby, close to his wispy scalp. And I blew hot air onto his kidneys ad his feet. He seemed to find both quite soothing, for a while.
Laura's looking wonderful, despite a teething baby. She loooks radiant, still, and gentle in her face. Being a mother suits her, and she is still so very much herself too.
And for responses to the flat advert. Someone who has 'a sedate little dog'. Nothing like any of those pictured, I suspect. Oh, I'll meet it, and them, and let's see. I do hope it has a beard.
And thank you to sparkling Lyndi Smith, touting my flat for me from the depths of Tenerife. Thank you, lovely. It's very much appreciated. I have a good feeling about my next tenants. I've been asking for them for a good long while. They're on their way now.
Thank you for Steps and Gumtree and E45. And beards on dogs. Always that. Always.
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