My friend Diana offers Elemental Yoga in Singapore. Last night was the Water Element and as always, it was a beautiful class.
She began with a poem that inspired her. About water.
…and my mind. Well, it drifted. As she shared the poem, I travelled back to Tromsø in Northern Norway.
This Arctic town is a port, where the famous Hurtigruten docks and where I stayed after the Lofoten Islands. I immediately felt at home. Northern Norway is a place that is very familiar to me, though it was my first visit. Something about this part of the world speaks to my heart, opens me up. I feel embraced. I feel grounded. I feel found.
One day while wandering around town, I ended up at the dock. At first I was just breathing in the mountains. I was drawn to these mountains across the waters. I drank in the sight, taking in the whole concept of being in the Arctic circle. Standing at the edge of land, staring out into majesty.
Completely alone, but not lonely. So very small and yet not belittled.
Then I saw the water.
It was dark with undulating whites and greys. The movement was rhythmic and I was pulled into the depths. I was mesmerized. In that complete silence – maybe a dog barked from somewhere – my world became the water and me. All I saw was the shape shifting of the organic clouds of white. Sinking. Expanding. Surfacing. Contracting. It was nature’s magic show.
Even though my focus had narrowed, I felt expansive as I became the water, the movement, the cold. That cloud. I could sense all the things unseen by the eye from above. I was the flow, the ebb, the cold, the ever-changing and never-changing water.
And something unlocked within me. Like tetris blocks, something fell into place.
A few people walked by and looked to see what I was staring at. With a look of bemusement and perhaps confusion, they all walked away. For me, the beauty and the almost surreal connection were stunning and indescribable. Perhaps that experience belongs only to me, for me. It certainly lives on within.
