Monday has rolled around again, and all of the intervening days have somehow evaded offering a suitable gap to finish my second post on Saucha, suitably titled “soapy Saucha shower.” Yet my current day attempts to complete it have left me with the loitering image of a smashed watermelon.
It’s fascinating allowing the nervous system space to speak. Sometimes with friends, and often with students, we will go through the process of building a stable structure, consciously creating space, or to describe the process more clearly, the sensation of release within it, which allows this space to become the canvas upon which our CNS can paint held difficulties and troubles. Which can feel like splinters trapped niggling under the surface. Today, this gap does not feel very clean. it doesn’t even feel stinky enough to carry on with my critique of the ‘overly cleanly.’ So I sit in my stink on this hot day surveying the mess of my thoughts. And this reminded me of one of the yoga books I read a couple of decades ago…
Rodney Yee was heralded as one the top Yoga teachers back when I was in the thick of teaching, He published two books, titled “the poetry of the body” and “Moving towards balance.” Since I sold both of my copies over a decade ago, I cannot remember much from them, and more pertinent to this musing, I cannot remember which book contained the image which continues to loiter, that of the shattered watermelon.
I can remember that he wrote this analogy after having his life fall apart, so it is probably from his second book, where circumstances had pulled him from one relationship to another, and the precious cargo of this relationships love, family, familiarity and belonging ended up being dropped, shattering into a seemingly irreconcilable mess.
I never liked this image when I read it, as a that time I saw it as an example of someone who’d ’not held it together,’ and maybe in some way not held true to the greater principals of Yoga.
Of course I was wrong, as life has showed me over and over that things you feel are solid, hard shelled and “safe,” are in fact just like the watermelon, where the right angle if attack, or the the slip of attention which leads to a fumble, which leads to the drop, can render the melon no longer intact or whole… and depending on the manner in which they are dropped, you may find that not a lot can be salvaged.
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So all this talk of a massacred watermelon can feel a bit doom and gloom, at least it did for me when I began writing this interlude… as this is a hot day where a cold slice of watermelon would be just the things to quench my thirst…
But hang on, perhaps this is the point, in fact it has to be the point, especially85 when we return back to the practice of Yoga: the creation of an internal gap within our structure, wherein one of the many benefits is manifesting a space where our nervous system can express as of yet unexpressed moments. It is offering us the opportunity to let go of the hard shelled fruits of prior undigested interactions.
Today, instead of being able to finish of my fun filled second instalment of Saucha, I found all I could do is ramble and muse on my internal frustrations which felt like a smashed watermelon. Yet, this led me to spiritual texts, which in turn has led to me the inherent wisdom within Mr Yee’s book and my nervous system.
In order to become more present, we must let go of unnecessary tensions in the from of physical knots, mental patterns and unprocessed emotional trauma. The nature of these tensions are actually very similar to a watermelon, as they seem impossible to get into without the right tool, and because they appear so very hard on the outside whilst protecting something so soft and vulnerable on the inside.
Sometimes we don’t have the right tool, and no matter how careful we are at protecting our ‘trauma-melons,’ life will often engineer us releasing them from our overprotective grasp, so we can witness them land and shatter in front of us. Our initial reaction may be to be flat, glum, downright depressed or angry, and this is good, or we wouldn’t have cared about the ‘trauma-melon’ in the first place. But after the aftermath, we will see some parts are free from lint and detritus, and others that will be pretty palatable after a wash. Which means we are then ready to absorb and integrate the nourishment inherent within the contents of our ‘trauma-melons.’
Then, we are not only free from the burden of carrying this particular ‘trauma-melon,’ and we all know how heavy these can be, but we also gain nourishment from digesting the contents of it.
Granted, the whole escapade could have been less messy if we’d managed to clinically dissect it and eat it piece by piece, but in dropping it all at once, space is created in us to experience alternative views, emotions and moods. Life is always offering us opportunities, and perhaps a smashed ‘trauma-melon’ is an invitation to feast off what you can, and walk all the more lighter for it. But the process of making the mess, and then trying to clear it up doesn’t have to be as traumatic and tedious as we think it does, as we must remember, there are always the lumps of the good stuff we can reclaim.
So thank you Mr Yee for this long stored metaphor of wisdom. And thank you to my nervous system for offering the perfect image and story to fill the space and interlude my weekly musings. And even though my skin may smell hot, my internal space does feel a little cleaner, which means perhaps this interlude was pointing towards another aspect of Saucha after all.