Talk about first world problems in third world countries. A significant “loss” for me during this COVID time was that I was unable to go swimming.
Swimming is important to me. I feel “at home” in the water. It is direct experiential evidence to me that we evolved from the oceans. When I swim more, I can feel my muscles heat up. However being in water, I can feel it simultaneously cool too. This enables me to move more. Also, just floating in water is like floating in a pool of love. Just being. Essentially it is a way of cooling inflammation. Physical, emotional, mental, social inflammation.
When I am faced with challenges, I become very silent. It is a way of preserving energy, and letting the internal process do its thing. This is not a chosen strategy. This is how I have been manufactured. However, being too intensely “locked” in silence is unhealthy. Then my inner intelligence pushes me to break that silence, while still being tuned into the internal thing. Normally that breaking naturally happens in the form of art (drawing, painting). This year, it broke in the form of singing – but not quite so naturally. I was ridden with doubt initially.
I am not a singer, i.e. I do not naturally break into song. In fact part of my intense internal processing via silence includes not even listening to music. Sometimes for years at a stretch. Again, not a deliberate choice. It’s the way it happens. This year, the inner impulse told me to seek out a singing teacher – and the same intelligence that created the inner impulse arranged for online classes with a very understanding teacher in Durgapur (what is distance to the internet?). I realize that it is the intelligence-from-beyond’s gift to me to cool inflammation. A replacement of the swimming pool. It is also a way to connecting with the less-material more-formless, which is an exquisite experience.
This is a new journey I have embarked upon – connecting to the formless via singing. I hope I will write to you more about it, because its all too fascinating. Not just singing, but all the innumerable different ways of experiencing the dance of energy. Right now, food and tummy are getting impatient to meet each other, so this is it for now. Ciao!