Awkward Lockdown and The Yin Arts.

I have been meaning to write this blog for months, to capture all the feels, the times and spaces and all the curious things happening in this world. 

Covid: What a strange time. One of my best friends had it in France and it was an amazing experience to witness and doula her through the crazy times and get a close to me version of what is surely a wildly loaded subject in the world. We spoke A LOT in as she was recovering the thing that stood out in her explanations of the experience was the feeling of needing to focus on her breath, and keeping her whole system as calm as possible. She spoke a lot about dropping totally in and dropping totally down - that the stress and inflammation was what gets you. It made me think: isn’t that what always gets us? 

Yin is the awkward lockdown within yourself. 

Yin is the space, time and experience that transmutes a necessary change of pace in habit, thinking and responses. It is the attention to the movements, the interactions, the spaces, the cleanliness of all our spaces -- inside and out. Yin is a collective reflection on our health and the ways we interact with our environments. 

Now, I want to acknowledge that our experiences of COVID on the west coast of so-called Canada have not had the same intensity of the world, so I know I am speaking from a more relaxed state of privilege. But when there is time and space for things to be different, we must embrace that we are not returning to the world we knew before. And we shouldn’t.

It is not the same, but it has the same feelings for me as the concussion experiences of myself and so many other people in my world. Shout out to the TBI Crew. Our collective experience right now - the sudden shifts and changes, the awkward stumbling, and then ‘the new normal’ - we see this echoed over and over again. We witness those who have already struggled with mega change and challenges, who have limited abilities and access, and those that have already died a few deaths and consciously decided to rise again. It is those of us that although we work endlessly and put our efforts into the world, we still end up just making it by each and every month. The systems of speed and growth are not the great spaces of yesterday that we strive to repair.  Covid and times of isolation are places to reflect and brew. There must always be a ‘retreat to advance’ moment in time. The world is calling for a new place and relationship. These are the times that should forever change the states of our existence, kinda like when yin as a practice shifts your entire structure, being and mind. We don’t know we are held in an unwell place, until we start to feel the well feeling. 

I actually propose the opposite: Don’t look back. Change it all. Shift it all. Take way more time at home, change your work to more home based if you can.  Spend less money, buy in bulk, buy local, support curated efforts of small business. Eat at home. Make sure waste. Take time to connect and check in on your community and friend family. We shouldn’t have to have a pandemic vibration to look to our communities to make sure all the needs are met. We need to be caring for our weaker link. Bob Marley said, ‘Help the Weak if you are Strong’. I have always lived a tucked in and simple life, regardless of what my world travels may look like. I value my kitchen, my communities and the ways we reproduce waste, limit our pressures on mother earth and shift the corporate corruption in the world.  Take these times of wildness with grace. Don’t fall for the illusion of the inability for humans to deeply adapt and heal. We are the miracles of the world. We are shifting the way we move in the space and world. We are examining patterns, habits and the things we know are overdue for a shift. It is hella awkward times. These are super painful times. And they are times of great change.  These times are a forced slow down - a bringing in. And it makes me think about the new world that is coming, the slow blooming of a more balanced way. The powers and values have shifted. They can’t go back. We are using the greed maginiged in the world. 

The more hours in your home, the cooking of all the meals, the new cycles and flows: These are all the things to embrace and carry forward. "The world's habits and functions were bound to change and crumble - and we are the fortunate ones who get to witness and rise. And it is raising from the compost that we must look at. The ability of this world to slow, stop, shift and change is a testament that it is possible. The Yin speed and lifestyle and philosophy are well matched to this new world. What if every single moment in time was instead a great pivot towards a new greatness?  In these times we must examine the great changes that help in short amounts of time. Yin is like this, the hard efforts, the seemling crazy long holds. They are the things that shift the norm, shift the holding and identity new patterns and ways of being. Seeing the world’s waterways clean up, animals taking over cities, ancient creations returning. This Covid Tuck YIN is shift and pattern that should hold as long as it can. Not just for the safety of vulnerable communities, but for the finned, hoofed, feathered and fur family of this world. We been racking against natural laws of consumption and being. Mother Earth is so grateful for this Great ReOrdering.