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How a sound bath turned into a reminder that I’m also annoyingly human.

Reclining on my yoga mat this morning, eye covers and warm blankie in place, the opening tone of the sound bowl pervading the space, all was in place for a relaxing 40 minute sound bath. You can likely tell from the tone – or maybe the title gave it away – that this is not quite what happened.

Picture the scene: an experienced teacher; beautiful crystal bowls; clear requests to turn off phones and watches, be mindful of not knocking over water bottles, to shift position quietly; good intentions; a room of 20 or so people who chose to come and enjoy melodious sound and relaxation for 40 minutes … and good old human nature.

Back to the opening tones starting to pervade the space, the promise of remembered deep relaxation. Wait, is that someone rattling the door? It’s locked when the class begins, as per the rather large and clearly visible sign on the door; it’s not the kind of class where you can arrive late to thump across the wooden floor, heave yourself down and get comfy, drop your metal water bottle and whatever else is clanking like that while the rest of us are trying very hard, through increasingly gritted teeth now, to jolly well relax!

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MANY OF us know the images of the Allied forces liberating prisoners from concentration camps in 1945. We are also no strangers to images of malnourished children in many African countries. The urge to feed and nourish a starving person is instinctive, yet there can be severe consequences when this is done too hastily.

There is a potentially fatal condition called refeeding syndrome, where sudden changes in body chemistry can trigger various causes of death. Basically, in response to starvation your body adapts by making changes to it’s chemistry in order to survive. When you start eating again, a wave of fluid and electrolyte shifts take place, increased insulin production being one of them. So it’s not that you can no longer digest food, but that your body needs time to readjust.

With the promise of a gradual easing of lockdown in many countries around the world, including here in South Africa, the question in my mind becomes “how do you break a fast?”

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WELL HERE we are, slowly adjusting to the new normal. We also have over three weeks of lockdown and cabin fever behind us, and just over two weeks to go!  And it’s here, right about at the three-quarter mark, where things can be turned around or can get a little hairy.

I am deliberately writing about this now, as we approach the three quarter mark and trying not to hold too tightly to 30 April! Anyway, the point is that for now we have 30 April as the end point of this version of lockdown, and this is where we get to an important stage of the process.

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TODAY IS halfway through five weeks of lockdown – significant for South Africans, though there is nowhere remaining on the globe that some form of lockdown is not happening, where it may, or where it in some cases is being eased. Concepts like hard or soft lockdown, essential services, to mask or not to mask, have become part of life.

It’s a funny thing, being halfway (at this stage it’s still five weeks)… It’s not quite shock denial anymore, and there’s some appreciation of relief from traffic and food being back on the shelves – after a fashion. There are most likely still those bouts of worry interspersed with chilling on the couch, and even a little acceptance of where we find ourselves now. It’s also two days before we were expecting lockdown to end, so there may be a little weariness with the situation creeping in, and wondering how we are going to get through the next two and a half weeks and what comes after.

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ONE OF the great ironies of the coronavirus lockdown and social distancing is that we are all reminded that anyone can become infected, everyone is affected, and no one is a stranger anymore. This reminds me of a spiritual teaching I heard once, saying that if the foot has a problem (a thorn in it), the hand is not in pain but the hand helps it anyway because the body is interconnected. Social support works a lot like this, and so this post is devoted to exactly that.

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