Dip A Toe.
Vancouver is home. Until July of 2014 Lahore in Pakistan was home. Before that, Guernsey in the Channel Islands was home. And before that, it was another city in another country. In 31 years I’ve moved to and lived in 9 different cities in 3 different countries.
Some friends get offended with my changing loyalties. “How can you call this home after spending all that time with us somewhere else?”
I tell them I can’t consider a place as home unless I call it that to myself. I feel as if I’d always be in a state of transition without having settled in a place in my mind first.
Dip a toe.
I was a teenager when I first read, “Sophie’s World.” Something spoke to me in that novel. It was Heraclitus telling me that I cannot step twice into the same river.
Apparently I cannot step twice into the same river, because the river is ever-flowing and changing its water. At the same time I have become a different person with the passage of time, and the first test of the water with my toe has changed me. The second experience will be different from the first, and so on.
Imagine the idea of an age-old Greek philosopher telling a teenager what she cannot do. And yet that was the one thing that I needed to hear in the age of perpetually feeling misunderstood.
This philosophy steadied me, and I began to see order in the chaos. All I had to do was take a deep breath and see where I was compared to where I wanted to be. I began to see myself as human GPS. I am here. This is now. Where do I want to go? There is a way. This seems to be it. Let’s go.
Dip a toe.
I first got introduced to yoga sequencing in Dani Shapiro’s book titled, “Devotion”. I learnt of two particular ways to do yoga, which deepen the practice. One is krama, an orderly sequence of defined steps. The other is akrama, which is the opposite of krama, meaning everything is done all at once. So one is sequenced, and the other sequenceless.
Krama is all about the attitude, alignment, and the action, while Akrama is about opening to grace. Yogis claim that practicing both Krama and Akrama together ensures a stable practice, because you’re keeping the alignment, attitude and action in mind, also considering that you are not limited to your physical self, but defined by all that surrounds you: the ground, the air, the kind of day you’re having.
So one thing remains constant in both the krama and akrama variations of yoga, and that is the breathing technique. The breathing remains steady and continuous. That is way to achieve equilibrium through the steadiness and the unpredictability.
Breathe in, breathe out. Follow the steps... breathe in... embrace chaos... breathe out.
Dip a toe.
In April I’d started my studies to become a certified employment counselor. A few months before that I’d read N. N. Taleb’s theory of The Black Swan. He talks of extremely improbable circumstances and the human tendency to seek and find simple explanations for them, making them easier to accept.
It tickled me to read the same theory in class, to help us get in the mindset of shifting with the constantly changing environment. By embracing change ourselves, we would be better equipped to help our clients do the same.
Here I was 9 months into my 9th move, and I was once again feeling like that human GPS. I had all these possibilities before me that would unfold in the coming months. I could have felt lost. And yet I felt right at home.
Dip a toe.
I am here now, a full Canadian resident who is increasingly older and wiser with each experience.
Krama, because of all the things I have learnt, and the best ways to apply them and get optimum results for myself and those around me.
Akrama, because there is no one definite answer in a constantly changing time. The river keeps flowing, and in order to cross to where we would like to be, we have to take that first step.
Keep breathing in, don’t forget to exhale. Breathe in, breathe out.
Krama akrama, step by step and all at once.
Dip a toe.
