our-yoga

I'm in Singapore right now. I came here last week to attend my younger brother's wedding, and will be here for another couple of weeks before I head back to the U.S.

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you may remember that for the longest time, I have been experiencing a lot of fear about coming back to Singapore, or even thinking about the place itself (for more details, see this post). So why have I decided to come back this time? Ostensibly, it was because of my brother's wedding. He sent me an invite a few months ago, and even somebody as hard-headed and hard-hearted as yours truly cannot resist the pull of some basic familial obligations (along with some guilt-tripping on the part of my parents).

But on another, deeper level, there is a more powerful reason for my being back this time. On some level, I have decided that it is time for me to really come to terms with certain things from the past, that if I am to move forward confidently with my life in a way that is free and unencumbered, I need to come back here and squarely face up to the baggage that I have been carrying with me from the past. I'm not going to bore you with the details of what exactly this baggage consists in: That would take another long post or two, and I'm not in the mood to write that much at the moment, anyway. Suffice to say that there were some promises that I made to certain people many many years ago, and I have been burdened with guilt over the fact that I have not fulfilled those promises and have therefore betrayed these people. Anyway, I met up with these people over the last week. All of them understand that my life is now in a very different place from where it was years ago, and that it would be unreasonable to hold me up to those promises. Actually, a few of these people were surprised that I even felt guilty about the whole thing, as they themselves could barely even remember me making that promise to them!

I understand that all of this is probably very vague and probably very unsatisfying, from a story-telling point of view. But as I said, I don't feel like writing a whole other post explaining the content and background story of these promises. And in any case, I feel that the explicit content of the promises do not matter so much as the emotional and spiritual anguish involved in holding on to something that has outlived its relevance, and the liberation that comes from finally letting go of these things.

Right now, I feel a lot more free and confident about moving on with my life. One thing that has really bothered me a lot in the past few years is the question of where home is. On the one hand, nothing can change the fact that I was born in Singapore and have gone through many irreplaceable formative experiences and encountered so many wonderful people here. But ever since coming to the U.S., I have also had many other experiences and met so many people that are just as irreplaceable. I have always been uncomfortable with the notion, held by many people, that home is only the place where you were born and where most of your family is. I think that there is something to this notion, but this cannot be the whole truth, because I also believe that as a person evolves and grows, what kind of place he comes to call home must also evolve and change. This is especially true if he has moved to a place that is different from his birthplace, and has allowed that place to irrevocably shape who he is as a person.

Because of these considerations, I have, after much reflection and soul-searching, come to the conclusion that I am a person with two homes: Singapore will always be my home, but the United States is also equally my home. For me, there is no other way, because I simply cannot bring myself to put down one place in order to elevate the other. I have tried to do this in the past, and the result has always been a lot of unnecessary emotional anguish and suffering. What all this means is that I have to grow to become somebody whose life and heart is big enough to encompass both these places, whose life is big enough to enable him to truly become a man of the world. 

I could probably say more about this whole emotional and spiritual journey here, but I guess I'll stop here for now. Maybe I'll share my thoughts about being back in the place where I was born after 13 years (yes, I've been away for 13 years...).

One of the first things that hit me during my first few days in Singapore was: The whole island is one big freaking shopping mall! Everywhere you turn, there is some kind of shopping mall or other. So much so, that one can't help but wonder if the people in charge built the subway system (the MRT) simply in order to make it easier for people to go all over the island to shop at the different shopping malls! As you can well imagine, this, combined with the very high population density--there are more than 5 million people packed into 276 square miles--makes the entire place a very crowded and tightly packed concrete jungle. One of the first things I noticed upon arriving here was that many of the open spaces that I used to know as a young person growing up here have since been filled up: It seems that every square inch of open land here has been developed or is been developed into some kind of shopping mall, office building or condo. I'm not even going to tell you what I feel about all this, because, well, who wants to go there?

But thankfully, some places and people have stayed the same. Yesterday, I had lunch and tea at Holland Village with a good friend I haven't seen for a very long time. It was I who suggested meeting there, and the moment I got there, I remembered why I missed that place so much. The whole place has this laid-back, bohemian feel to it, and it has preserved this feel after all these years. To be sure, there are a whole bunch of new shops and restaurants that I don't recognize, but there is something about the way the streets are generously laid-out and the relaxed attitude of the locals that cue you in to the fact that the character of the place is very much alive and well after all these years. We went to this restaurant, ate lots of Indian food and shared a bottle of white wine, and talked the entire afternoon about our remembrances of things past and plans and hopes for the future. My friend, who was a young lady the last time I saw her, is still a young lady, plus a husband whom she is happily married to and a very adorable young daughter, both of whom I have yet to meet. It is great to finally see somebody who has constantly been in my thoughts all these years, and to see her so happy and fulfilled in life.

I've also had the opportunity to share my Ashtanga practice with a few friends. One of my friends saw that Youtube video of me doing primary series (if you haven't seen it, check out this post), and remarked that what I am doing is a good set of physiological movements that activates all aspects of the system. However, he continued, it is too tough for common folk in the street, and it probably doesn't help that many Singaporeans (yes, that's what you call people from Singapore) are overweight because Singapore is blessed with too much food (most of which is very delicious, but also very bad for you). I can't help feeling that what he says here is also a good description of Americans. Hmm... and I call both places home? Wonder what that says about me? :-)

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Sorry for my absence, dear readers - I took a last-minute trip to my 'homeland' for my Grandma's 90th birthday, and have been playing catch-up ever since. Lots of little posts in the making, don't worry.
In the meantime, a few photos of beautiful Vancouver island in summer. I find few places  as peacefully breathtaking as the temperate rainforest in British Colombia. It's funny how after all these years of living overseas, in some ways that part of the world still feels like 'home'. It's an area where I spent many summers as a child, sailing up and down the coast, playing in the ocean and camping the forests. Looking back, I'm so grateful to my parents for having given me that early education about the natural world - the rhythms of nature, the creatures of the land and sea.  I remember encounters with deer and racoons, and then there were the expeditions to the beaches and tide-pools, which usually resulted in my sister and I bringing back buckets full of crabs, limpets, starfish and even gooey jellyfish. I am still fascinated by all the ocean's creatures, but nowadays I prefer not to bring them home!

Before you ask, no, I didn't practice yoga in that forest or by that lake - but walking around them in the company of loved ones was as good as any yoga practice - and I did get lots of good practice in. Jet-lag (and a 4:30am sunrise) is great for early-morning yoga!

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When I end my yoga classes, I like to bring students out of savasana, and back into a sitting posture.  Ending the class in the same pose as they began their practice, I ask my students to take stock of their body, thoughts, and emotions, just as they did before the practice began.

An asana practice is like a journey, in so many respects. And perhaps the sweetest moment of the journey is that time, or place, when you come full circle, when you come home. When it dawns on you how much, or how little, has changed, when you can finally sit back and take stock of the roads you have travelled.  Sitting with friends and loved ones, you can laugh or cry about the times you lost your way, the mishaps you encountered, the new things you discovered that enriched your life.

So, friends, I am home.  My yoga practice has been constant, but my blogging over the past year has been patchy at best, as I have been focusing my energies on my other passion - that tricky, sticky world of development and humanitarian aid.  But I am bringing some balance back into my world and hope to be posting here more often again!

Namaste~

Bree

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Royalty free image from: www.inmagine.com

Following the signs... That's what Suburban Yogini did this week, as you can read here.

We have all been through those times when it seems as though the whole Universe is pointing us in a certain direction.  It starts as an idea, that like a seed once planted begins to take root and push its way inevitably upwards.  We water this seed with our dreams, our ideas, our gut instincts, until finally it pushes its delicate head above the surface, blooming and blossoming from an idea into a definitive path, a signal marker pointing the way.  All that remains is to start down the path.

Yoga helps us to recognise these signs.  And by putting us in touch with our selves, Yoga also helps us to make the choice to follow them.  For me, this is Satya - truthfulness - the desire to be true to yourself.  Yoga helps us to realise that we are always choosing our reality - choosing how we act, whether or not to react, how we perceive a situation and what we do as a result.  Yoga helps us to live more mindfully by going from a reactive frame of mind to a proactive frame of mind.  So instead of letting our bodies, emotions and minds make choices for us, we are mindfully choosing how we experience life as it comes to us.

Where are the signs pointing for me?  Well, you'll have to wait a little longer to find out!  But there are things in the works, so stay tuned!!

Readers, what are the signs in your lives telling you?

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Yawn. Stretch. Mmmmmm. Yes, hello! I'm back!!

My unannounced blogging hiatus has been caused by a few things. First, I was struck down by a nasty tropical illness called dengue fever. Literally struck down - completely out of commission for an entire week, now recovering still, slowly but surely.

Second, I have been visiting the homeland. Canada. Victoria, where my paternal grandmother now lives, and island of my childhood summer escapades, and Calgary, my birthplace and where I lived until I went overseas at the age of 8.

Memory has a taste, bittersweet, strong and smoky, yet soft and infinitely complex like a fine full-bodied wine. We carry it in our own minds, but it flows deeper than that. It is in our blood, the collective memory of our ancestors, the culmination of the roads they travelled weaving the societies that shape us, coursing through our veins. A family photograph, my grandmother, my father, and myself, our heads all tilted at exactly the same angle, our faces reflections of one another. An evening spent with relatives unseen for years, uncovering the similarities that bind us through our blood: "oh, I do that too, oh, yes, that runs in the family". This land has always been my homeland but long not been my home. It is an alternate reality that nearly defined me - who would I have been, had I stayed? Yet some things do stay, like the knowledge of my ancestors - pioneers, prarie settlers, survivors of the long, dark winters. The sound of my own voice lapsing into an accent as familiar as a lullaby yet a surprise as it rolls off my tongue.

I am fortunate to have two living grandmothers, women who were born nearly a century ago. I cannot even fathom the change they have seen in their lifetimes - World wars, the depression, the cold war. The fall of imperialism and the rise of consumerism. The automobile, the airplane, the Internet. I am proud to be related to them, to share their blood, to be their legacy. Someday I hope to be in their place, watching from my favourite chair as the future
generations carry on, smiling gently as the world speeds away, knowing that a part of me lives on.

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