Lockdown: Life in the time of Coronavirus
We escaped to the Groot Winterhoek Wilderness Area with the wonderful Matthew Dowling as our guide -- check out his Hyrax Adventures.
Matthew and I taught together at Imhoff Waldorf School and I just love his sense of humour and bonhomie. We wandered through dramatic sandstone landscapes and along a surprisingly green valley with icy cold rock pools. We slept in a cave covered in ancient rock paintings hinting at the mystical experiences shared there by our San Bushmen forefathers.
The first people of our planet show great attentiveness to the animals and often depict figures that are half human half animal. The experts call them therianthropes and suggest that they relate to shamanic experiences. Our cave boasted yellow elephants, not unlike the rocks beneath the clear waters of the expansive rock pool at the foot of a gorge called De Hel. The figures often had wings and looked like fairies, or dragonflies.
It was wonderful to feel the stress of the pandemic and the general hullabaloo of modern life subsiding. It's essential to just walk under our sky, with the breeze on our skin, embodied and living from footfall to footfall. Finding shelter, taking nourishment and rest. Bathing in the river. It's everything. It's what we were born to do, what we did for millennia. Until we civilized ourselves into greater and greater convenience and at the expense of everything that matters -- a healthy planet and our own well being.
We arrived back in Cape Town to Lockdown on Thursday night. We are not permitted to leave our homes except for emergencies. No dog walking, surfing, or any other of the outdoor pursuits that are my usual sanity restorers. I respect the decision and am deeply concerned for the majority of our nation who do not live in comfort, who cannot practically remain put. I know how privileged I am.
Still, I found Day 1 difficult. We had a constructive Family Meeting and discussed our various needs and desires. We drew up a schedule and had a dance party. We watched "The Gods Must Be Crazy" which is a South African classic though very shoddily made and politically incorrect, it still has some sublime moments. A reminder that there is another way to live. A kinder way.
The Gods Must Be Crazy from william on Vimeo.
The ever present anxiety can well up and crash down as waves of panic, the sense of being trapped and waiting for the worst is very much with us. Of course when I remember to breathe and come back into my body, all is well. Or at least manageable. As always much of the suffering lies in projections of the mind -- trying to resist or cling to aversions or desires. Being stuck inside our houses is merely a metaphor for what it is to be stuck in our own heads. When social distancing became the buzz word du jour I thought it and self distancing two of the most accurate ways to describe Depression.
There are so many books to read and write. So why not seize the day? It's uncomfortable to come to terms with the fact that the only thing ever standing in the way of us achieving whatever we want is our own selves. All the energy we expend blaming and shaming -- and there's certainly heaps of that going on in community groups -- could be redirected in much more healing ways.
So, it's time to sit with what is. To lay aside the projections, the stream of tips, memes, #lockdownchallenges, which all have their place and can help foster a sense of community while in isolation, but are also just another way of avoiding being with ourselves. Last night we looked up at the crescent moon gleaming a thin smile in the still Autumn air. It reminded me that life goes on. That we are always beginning again.
Wishing us all more gentleness for these trying times.
Stress can bring out the worst in us and is awful for our immunity.
One of the positives of this pandemic is that in a very real sense it shows us how little our planet is and how inextricably linked we all are. I spend a lot of time teaching people all over the world. So many are also in lockdown -- from Poland to Madrid we share an embodied common truth. None of us are separate.
In the mean time my theme song, at least for today, penned after World War I and sung here by Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters during World War II, reminds us that music and the human spirit cannot be fenced in, not even at the worst of times.
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Matthew and I taught together at Imhoff Waldorf School and I just love his sense of humour and bonhomie. We wandered through dramatic sandstone landscapes and along a surprisingly green valley with icy cold rock pools. We slept in a cave covered in ancient rock paintings hinting at the mystical experiences shared there by our San Bushmen forefathers.
The first people of our planet show great attentiveness to the animals and often depict figures that are half human half animal. The experts call them therianthropes and suggest that they relate to shamanic experiences. Our cave boasted yellow elephants, not unlike the rocks beneath the clear waters of the expansive rock pool at the foot of a gorge called De Hel. The figures often had wings and looked like fairies, or dragonflies.
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| A messenger |
We arrived back in Cape Town to Lockdown on Thursday night. We are not permitted to leave our homes except for emergencies. No dog walking, surfing, or any other of the outdoor pursuits that are my usual sanity restorers. I respect the decision and am deeply concerned for the majority of our nation who do not live in comfort, who cannot practically remain put. I know how privileged I am.
Still, I found Day 1 difficult. We had a constructive Family Meeting and discussed our various needs and desires. We drew up a schedule and had a dance party. We watched "The Gods Must Be Crazy" which is a South African classic though very shoddily made and politically incorrect, it still has some sublime moments. A reminder that there is another way to live. A kinder way.
The Gods Must Be Crazy from william on Vimeo.
The ever present anxiety can well up and crash down as waves of panic, the sense of being trapped and waiting for the worst is very much with us. Of course when I remember to breathe and come back into my body, all is well. Or at least manageable. As always much of the suffering lies in projections of the mind -- trying to resist or cling to aversions or desires. Being stuck inside our houses is merely a metaphor for what it is to be stuck in our own heads. When social distancing became the buzz word du jour I thought it and self distancing two of the most accurate ways to describe Depression.
There are so many books to read and write. So why not seize the day? It's uncomfortable to come to terms with the fact that the only thing ever standing in the way of us achieving whatever we want is our own selves. All the energy we expend blaming and shaming -- and there's certainly heaps of that going on in community groups -- could be redirected in much more healing ways.
So, it's time to sit with what is. To lay aside the projections, the stream of tips, memes, #lockdownchallenges, which all have their place and can help foster a sense of community while in isolation, but are also just another way of avoiding being with ourselves. Last night we looked up at the crescent moon gleaming a thin smile in the still Autumn air. It reminded me that life goes on. That we are always beginning again.
Wishing us all more gentleness for these trying times.
Stress can bring out the worst in us and is awful for our immunity.
One of the positives of this pandemic is that in a very real sense it shows us how little our planet is and how inextricably linked we all are. I spend a lot of time teaching people all over the world. So many are also in lockdown -- from Poland to Madrid we share an embodied common truth. None of us are separate.
In the mean time my theme song, at least for today, penned after World War I and sung here by Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters during World War II, reminds us that music and the human spirit cannot be fenced in, not even at the worst of times.
Subscribe to Foot Sore & Fancy Free by Email
And please verify your email address (check your junkmail!)
Thanks :)
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