In the face of so much uncertainty, many of us are living in lockdown, our plans cancelled, in fact a cessation of pretty much everything we took for granted as normal. I do hope that you’re all staying courageous & strong in these troubling times.
I wish everyone who celebrates, a very happy Easter & for those who don’t this is a great moment to celebrate the arrival of spring as best we can.
This Easter like many others we won’t be heading off on a spring break, or spending time with our family. But with the hubbub of human activity, the absence of the sound traffic it seems that bird song is louder than ever. In our small London back garden the birds are preparing their nests, foraging for food among the spring bulbs chirping on the garden walls & singing from the roof tops. Just to take a cup of coffee out into our back garden & feel the long awaited warmth in the sun is uplifting. The air is tangibly cleaner & fresher & our little back yard is bursting with spring growth that We usually don’t even get time to either enjoy or nurture.
Why is it that we think that constantly working, travelling, socialising & over scheduling our diaries is what makes a full & outwardly successful life? In the past few weeks it has become starkly apparent to me that we can get immense joy from our appreciation of smaller simpler things. It does make me wonder, why & when it was that so many of us lost touch with that? We might be discovering that the new normal might end up up being more beneficial to us than the old normal.
Of course not everyone is in lock down. For many in the frontline of healthcare, science, transportation, the food & medical supply chains & utilities & public services trying to keep us all safe this is pandemic is enormously challenging. We have seen photographs of nurses with faces bruised by their PPE masks, workers exhausted at the end of understaffed shifts because their colleagues must self isolate without knowing whether they have the virus or not.
For all of us, whether we’re playing our small part in battling this contagion by staying at home, or out in the workplace risking our own health, now is the time to adopt some effective coping strategies.
I hope that more of us will find some benefit in trying to remain present through yoga practices & be conscious of keeping our breath smooth & long. We can stay connected & feel supported by community, friends & family albeit on the phone or online.