Dear friend,
I find myself struggling with my words of late, when it comes to giving form to the gulf of emotions that dance, simmer and trash in the ocean of my heart. More often than not, I retreat into silence — not in defeat, but in deep reverence for that which cannot be told. Words have been my medium for too long (I suspect, ever since my dad bought me my first Enid Blyton book), but I am also wary of their ability to both exaggerate and diminish my heart's truth. So instead, as was my tendency ever since I was a little one, I fill my silence with the words of writers (loved reading Teatime with the Firefly by Shona Patel, and Water by Bapsi Sidhwa), and in the company of the delicate few who are comfortable with the unspoken.
If there's one thing I'd say, it would be that this past year has been one of unlearning, and that anybody who's been on this pilgrim's path would likely agree how gritty and trying the process of shedding is. Lessons, both of the loving and devastating nature, were delivered, but most poignant and frustrating of all were the identical ones, wrapped in the trickery of dissimilarity. I saw them as puzzles to be solved and, for ages, went at them with the fervour of a girl accustomed to barging doors open with sheer will.
I can only see now what I could not see then — my will was my biggest obstacle of all. Thinking I know what I want is my greatest deceit, for I am not yet blessed to see beyond. So I am unlearning, through the ever generous tradition of Yoga and my teachers, to be a little less wilful about living life my way, and a little more willing to having life lived through me.
Rumi says it best:
"Try not to resist the changes that come your way.
Instead, let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down.
How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?
With all my love,
Leigh
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