Climbing Mountains

I climbed a mountain last weekend. I climbed it with my dog. There are lots of references to mountains in yoga practice: you can meditate like a mountain, solid and still, rooted in the earth, yet rising to the heavens, or visualise a mountain when you sit. Some of our greatest teachers spent time living in caves on mountains, like Ramana Maharishi on Arunachala and there are sacred mountains all over India. Here in the UK there are mountains where saints and mystics went to pray or to spend time alone: there is a cave in the hillside on Holy Isle where the 6th Century mystic Saint Molaise lived and I recently climbed Carningli (Mountain of the Angels) in Wales, which 5th Century Saint Brynach climbed when he wanted to commune with the angels.

The thing that strikes you when you reach the top of a mountain is how peaceful it is up there: when you are at the top of a mountain, you can completely understand why some people climb them to talk with the angels. It is quiet on top of a mountain, no matter how many other climbers you are sharing the space with, the wind howls in your ears even on the finest of days and you really can't hear anything but the roar of it in your head. It is a place to clear your mind, to seek answers to the questions that have been travelling with you. Up there, you feel so close to something elemental, it seems that an answer might manifest itself from the sky which seems so near.

The view wraps around you and instills you with awe whichever way you turn to look. It is exciting to stand so high and to see so much, to feel so small and so far above the workaday world, it is easy to believe as you stand there, that one of the siddhis (mystical powers) of the yogis that Patanjali spoke of might be true: that you can make yourself both as small as an atom and as huge as a universe. You feel both as you stand there, a tiny element on a great big hill, but somehow elevated, encompassing everything you see, one with all that surrounds you.

When you walk down into the valley on a sunny day, you are struck by the silence, more arresting for having been up at the summit for a while with that roaring wind in your face. There are no words here, no sign-boards, no pictures, no advertisements, no roads, no concrete paths, no houses, no cars, not even any aeroplanes to mar the sky. And you realise how noisy this life is and how easy it is to become so filled with all of that noise, those words, with the images and the stories, that you can't very easily hear the sound of your own heart, of the little voice inside you that knows what it wants and needs, and which is so easily squashed by the more brazen sounds of the world. And it's already hard enough hearing it through the noise of other people's opinions.

In yoga we are blessed to have a method for seeking and finding that small voice, no matter where we live and what we do with our days; withdrawing into unstimulated silence is what we make time to do. But I urge you to find some bigger space for your silence this summer, because what you find there will inspire you. And when you get there, see if you can just be quiet for a time and let what is wash over you without the need for comment, or reaching out for others to share your experience, or getting out your phone to take a photo or two.

Indeed, the bigger space for your silence could be right here in your every day life: can you spend an evening without turning on the television or the radio? Can you commute to work without reading any of those adverts that line the walls? Can you spend a minute or two just in the outside air, on your own, in silence - a cigarette-break for the soul?

Ramana Maharishi, who made his lifelong home alongside the sacred mountain of Arnuachala, told the thousands of devotees who came to him that silence was the purest teaching. For him, it was that simple.

And what is there in life, but seeking that silent beauty everywhere and knowing it for what it is.

Everything might lead to this.

Sarah x

(I wrote this back in 2013 - almost ten years ago! And I have climbed many mountains since and continue to find just the same joy at the top of every one. And that dog for those of you who knew him, was my beloved Cosmo RIP x)

Letting Go

One of the hardest lessons of life might be learning to let go.

Letting go of past relationships, old jobs, old romances, beloved pets and, of course, people when they die. Letting go of parts of ourselves that we have outgrown or which naturally cede to create space for the new.

Letting go of good health is difficult. Particularly if there is no hope of return to the good health of old.

If we want to stay adventurous, if we want to enjoy life and be filled with joy, if we want to overcome the anger that sometimes accompanies loss - that sense that something has gone wrong and can never be put right again - then we must learn to accommodate our losses. To live alongside them with as much acceptance and good humour as we can.

We can miss something forever, and often we do, yet there is always joy, always. There is love and beauty when you look for it. It’s only that sometimes life asks us to look somewhere new for it.

The new places where joy lives are often smaller and more quiet. I still have not lost the habit of being in a bookshop and seeing a book that my father in law would love and being sorry that he has gone and so has missed it. Sometimes I read or listen to things on his behalf, buoyed by the idea of the conversation we would have had about it afterwards. I don’t get to talk to him any more, but I do get to think of him often and wonder what he would have thought of all of the things that are happening now.

Of course, one day we too will be gone and we will have to find a way to let go of our lives as graciously as possible. This is not morbid, it is a simple fact of life. Buddhists teach a type of meditation where you imagine your own death. It is a powerful thing to acknowledge that impermanence, but more than that it is a joyful act, because it reminds us that life is so beautiful and brief, why waste it on what is not truly important.

As is so often the case, nature shows us the way: tides come in and out, washing the beach clean as they do so, flowers bloom and fade, trees grow green all summer and then fade in a blaze of glory.

Let go of the old and embrace the new without regret. Try to not hold onto life too tightly, you cannot save everything and nor would you really want to, since some of the best things you have are here because something else was gone. Childhood opens into lively teenage freedom, youth mellows towards middle aged wisdom, wild days mature into the joys of mother/fatherhood.

One day we will have to let go of life completely, and who knows what adventures begin then.

Sarah x

Everything is Relative

Comparison is the uncle and aunt of all misery.

We know we shouldn’t compare our insides to other people’s outsides, because what people project about themselves in social situations and on social media does not paint the whole picture. Mental health struggles are not usually visible from the outside and we never know what someone else is going through.

More insidious than that kind of comparison though, is constant comparison with yourself. The habit of always comparing yourself to who you would be if you were perfect.

Things you know, but forget:

• The best grade you ever got at school does not define you any more than the time you failed that exam. It might have felt better or worse in the moment, but it didn’t define who you are.

• Nobody ever fell in love or into friendship with you because you once ran a marathon in 2 hours 30. Achieving targets can feel wonderful, but they don’t define you. And never hitting that speed again won’t make you a failure.

• Your messy home does not tell the world anything about who you are or what you have to give. Some people like tidy; others like mess; get over it.

• Everyone else has forgotten that silly thing you said last week. In the midst of all the great stuff you say, it was nothing to anyone but you.

Some days are for climbing mountains; others are for scrolling through social media in your pyjamas. Lighten up. Take a breath. Learn to respect the ebb and flow of your own body. Some days are for expanding, growing, achieving; other days are for quiet reflection, pottering and not getting much ‘done’.

Perhaps, in fact, one depends upon the other?

If you’re always pushing yourself on days when you should be pottering, then you never replenish your energy to really go for it on the expansive days … And if you never let yourself go for it, climb the mountain, follow new leads, run a little bit faster, then you won’t appreciate the peaceful cadence of a duvet day.

Compassion, not comparison. Let your outsides reflect what is going on inside. And in so doing, teach your beloveds to do the same. How might we all be happier and healthier then.

Sarah x