Imbolc sends impulses to my dormant winter cells throughout January, simultaneously poking me to wake up…and urging me to wait. My yearly last-minute tax return – filed just in time for the Jan 31st deadline – shouldn’t be a surprise by now. Nor should it be a source of personal beratement. If I was a conspiracy theorist (and I am not) I might imagine it to be some sort of test: who can override their internal body clock enough to ‘succeed’ in the system?
Words dance in my head, occasionally assembling themselves into momentary coherences, only to scatter when I sit and open the laptop to write. Can I call myself a writer with such little commitment to giving the words time to properly
If you’ve loved and lost a dog you will know the pain of the days and weeks that follow. Everything is a reminder that my best friend is gone. His empty food bowl, his empty bed, dinner time, bedtime, walkies (I haven’t been on any kind of walk since)
A while ago, I joked online about feeling a failure because I don’t ( and won’t) go cold water swimming, and I don’t have a Podcast. I rather consigned these – along with the trends of ‘radical self-care and the ‘digital detox’ – to the ‘things I don’t do – let’s leave that to the influencers’ corner. Meanwhile, I focused on being consistent in at least one thing – my utter lack of self- promotion.
We all know that eating the right foods, and getting enough exercise are healthy choices. What isn’t true however, is that doing those things guarantee health. It isn’t a wellbeing vending machine transaction where we can insert organic kale at one end and get health out of the other. It doesn’t work that way. Health is complex, with individual, cultural, and economic factors. Health is social and societal.
The truth is, it isn’t a refusal so much as I don’t actually know what the game is, never mind what the rules are. And if you forgive me for extending the game metaphor further, from this side of neurodiversity, the game doesn’t actually look like very much fun. Also, from this angle, I get a good view of all the other folks who don’t get to play. But unlike a playground game, where not participating means we just don’t get to join in, this particular game of power actively and wilfully targets, exploits and fundamentally abuses our vulnerabilities. Indeed, it could be said that is actually what the game is!
the conditions that contribute to Post-Covid syndrome are complex, often severe and still not widely understood. I – despite my long background in therapeutic yoga – would not feel comfortable offering a ‘Yoga for Long-Covid’ class, workshop or anything else.
There have always been those in the yoga and ‘wellness’ communities who have distrusted science and ‘conventional’ medicine. However, it does seem to be a growing – or at least more visible- trend, along with a distrust of experts of
I am lying, awake, irritated by the sound of the neighbour’s central heating exhaust and worrisome thoughts about the ‘biosecurity’ of our ducks’ pen. (As if things weren’t bad enough, Avian Flu is on the march as well) I have
Today is Epiphany, The date when Christians in the Western Church celebrate the arrival of the Magi, and with them the manifestation and revelation of The Christ – the Light of the World – to the whole world. Who doesn’t