Archive for February, 2011

Finding your solid ground

February 23, 2011

by Marianne Elliott

Many of you will have heard that a major earthquake hit New Zealand yesterday. My fellow New Zealander, Leonie Wise, will write more about the quake and what you can do to help later this week. For today I want to share a little about what I’ve learned about finding my solid ground, even when the earth beneath us proves to be unpredictable.

This week, indeed this past year, in New Zealand we’ve found ourselves wondering whether we can really trust the ground beneath our feet. You may not have lived on a fault line, or felt the foundations of your home and your city move underneath you, but as travellers we’ve almost certainly all found ourselves feeling ‘ungrounded’.

If you just read the word ‘ungrounded’ and thought to yourself “Oh jeez, why all this vague yoga language? What exactly does it mean to be ‘ungrounded’, presuming you haven’t actually defied the laws of gravity and floated up off the earth?” then:

a) I’m with you, babe. Honestly. Even though I’m a yoga teacher who falls into the trap of airy-fairy talk sometimes, I have a pretty well-tuned BS meter and I love people who call it when I slide in that direction; and

b) It turns out that we actually can lose contact with the ground, even without defying gravity.

I have a friend who didn’t realise, until she had been practicing yoga for a while, that she had made it through the first 35 years of her life without ever actually really feeling her feet on the ground. She might be an extreme example, but when was the last time you took off your shoes, stood on grass, soil or sand and really felt your ‘soft animal body’ release it’s weight into the support of the earth?

We travel in metal tubes that shoot through the sky at inhuman speeds. We live in landscapes of concrete and asphalt. Is it really surprising that we lose contact with the earth? We move at the speed of computer programmes and rest only when our bodies refuse to carry on any longer. Is it any wonder that we lose our sense of solid ground.

Here are some of the ways I find my own solid ground when the pace of life has outstripped my body’s ability to keep track or when the solid ground beneath me suddenly feels less solid:

  • Lying down on the earth, or on the floor – preferably on my belly.
  • Massaging my own feet.
  • Standing on those same feet, taking the time to feel the weight of my feet release into the earth.
  • Drumming.
  • Squatting, especially against a wall.
  • Yoga nidra.
  • Gardening.

What helps you find the solid ground within you when the world around you, or even the earth beneath you, is shifting?

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Posted in healthy, Nomad, Prepared

Gutted by Love

February 21, 2011

Whenever I travel, I often feel gutted by love, experiences, sights, sounds, smells, and beauty in the way Hafiz expresses here. Everything is intensified, as if the exposure and vibrancy settings on the world around me were dialed up a notch. The first time I read this poem I read it a few times in a row, and I kept imagining the wild array of sea creatures I saw in the early hours of the day I visited the Tokyo Fish Market.

{I’ll be back next month with a story I’m on pins and needles to tell, but today’s entry needs to be a brief one, as I have a book deadline in a mere 48 hours. Happy February, Gypsy Readers!}

Throw Me On a Scale

Today love has completely gutted me.
I am lying in the market like a
Filleted grouper,

Speechless,
Every desire and sinew absolutely silent
But I am still so fresh.

Everything is now the same to me.
Listen:

The touch of a beautiful woman
As she lifts me near,
Drawing my scent into her body;
She thinks about taking me home.

The touch of a wondrous fly
Drinking my vital fluids
Through a strange shaped flute,

The sun laying its radiant gaze against my cheek,
Human voices and the breeze from a passing
Horse’s tail,

All send miraculous currents into
My world.

God’s beauty has split me wide open.
Throw Hafiz on a scale,
Wrap me in cloth,
Bring me home.

~Hafiz

Christine Mason Miller is a writer and artist who loves to travel and explore the world. Her next trip is to Raleigh, North Carolina later this month.

www.christinemasonmiller.com

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Posted in Aware, Inspired, Sometimes Poetic, Soulful

Falling In Love At Le Cheval Rouge

February 14, 2011

Because it’s Valentine’s Day I thought I’d share a little love story about an experience I had soon after I moved to France. Tell me who loves you…

We have had the definitive French experience and I have no idea how to put it into words. Like the first time I stood before Botticelli’s Birth of Venus in Florence or after reading The Hours for the first time, I have stored it in my memory museum so that I can revisit it again and again. It was the absolute embodiment of why I wanted to come to France, of everything I love about this amazing culture.

The Farmer and The Wife graciously invited us to dine with them and a few friends at a local restaurant. Now this is exciting. Lots of things to consider though- what to wear? how to not speak rapid English while believing that perfect French is flowing out of my mouth? how to order something that doesn’t have brains in it? how to try all the wines and not be totally hammered before the 1st course? All this was swirling around my already busy melon for a couple of days.

Of course it was on the evening of the day all our stuff arrived and I was exhausted. I’m still trying to get used to the 8 o’clock dinner time here. Anyway the lovely Farmer Michel collects us to meet up with the others. He says “we are nine tonight” and I start sweating. How the hell will I understand a word once they all get yakking top speed? I’ll be left out, a complete doofus, smiling and nodding, eating rare brains.

We meet everyone outside, the Wife Patricia and her 3 longtime girlfriends, a husband and son as well as the other son of Michel and Patricia, Gaeton, a gorgeously fashionable young man who is studying marketing in Dijon and who has just returned from a 3 week English immersion course. He greets us in English thanks be to whatever. A quick check reveals that I am dressed appropriately, thank you again, god of French etiquette.

Now Le Cheval Rouge is a lovely little place attached to a large patio and bar so I’m thinking it will be nice, casual dining. The lady who owns it says hello to everyone who she obviously knows quite well. She is about 50, tanned, cool, great shoes, great jewelry, funky and French to the core. Gesturing, speaking a mile a minute, she passes out the very fancy menus and I see all the gastronomic treasures of Burgundy laid before me.

The food and wine were spectacular but the big love was to be found in the company.

First the ladies. Patricia brought along her English dictionary and explained to her friends that they would all need to talk slowly and they did, all night. They asked me questions, they complimented my hair. One of them thought the color so lovely that she didn’t believe it was natural! They were so warm and kind that I was almost in tears. They helped me order and, best of all, said I had no accent, that my French was quite good. They talked about their friendship spanning over 40 years and about how much they loved being 50 and 47 and 62. They were charming beyond description.

Then the men. To my left, Phillipe, identified to me as soon as I sat down as a ‘farceur’ (who the hell knows if I spelled this right) or a joker and he was indeed hilarious in any language. He talked very slowly to me all night and offered me tastes of his meal. The two boys were absolutely adorable. Gaeton spoke amazingly good English with Neil and was clearly taking an opportunity to make his father proud.

Then there was Michel seated at the head of the table, choosing and tasting the wine, suggesting what to order, taking the first bite of food. A sweet king holding court. He was beaming all night, so proud of his son speaking English with his foreign guests. He paid for the whole meal as a celebration of the end of the rental season of the Ancien Moulin. After dinner he drove us around the town to show us the waterfalls at night. He is a gentle giant and one of the loveliest men I have ever encountered.

The lady who owns the restaurant served us all night and she was absolutely hilarious. Neil asked for his meat medium rare and she guffawed loudly and said NON! You are in France now there is no in between!! When I asked about the debate raging in France over retirement age and pensions, things got really exciting. The volume rose, the pace picked up, everyone was talking at once, the young guys were rolling their eyes, it was fantastic. The evening was so congenial, so full of laughter, kindness and bonhomie that by the end it had become one of the best of my life. When Neil told this to Michel he answered in English (the most beautiful French accent) “I am very happy”.

At one point I quietly asked Patricia if it was rude to taste food from one another or to use tu instead of vous. She smiled her huge smile at me and said that when with friends this is the thing to do. Then she said to me “And Bobbi, you are with your friends, you are with your friends”. Even now as I write this it makes me all teary.

I don’t care how long it takes to get a bank account or that automatic cars are as common as unicorns, I am in love with France and, for at least one night, France loves me too…

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Posted in Nomad