Thursday, November 7, 2013

The Backlash against Lululemon


Lululemon

A sports fashion clothing retail chain that includes, but is not limited to Yoga wear.

Of late, there appears to be a genuine backlash growing amongst the greater yoga community. The basic sentiment is that Lululemon is not an ethical company and is cynically leveraging off Yoga without demonstrating values that are aligned with the fundamental philosophy of the practice.

I've been of two minds about how I feel about this reaction. I'm not a great fan of the overt commercialisation of Yoga, but I have come to realise that I neither own nor control the word "yoga" nor what it stands for. The fact is, several years ago I got a formal teacher qualification and I am therefore allowed to call myself a "yoga teacher". At times calling myself such has really bugged me. For reasons that range from the stereo-type expectations of who I am and what it is I offer, to the genuine distaste I have of certain gurus and/or their particular systems of yoga -that have swept western culture like wildfire, soaking up a lot of money in the process.

My initial instinct regarding Lululemon is that it is a "business" that saw an opportunity and realised it. I have never seen that company as representative of anything but big business in the new age holistic fitness industry. I had a friend who used to perform Acro Yoga in one of their stores as a marketing ploy, and for doing so was gifted free clothing. Whether I think this is a useful representation of what Yoga is, at the end of the day, is irrelevant. As a libertarian my underlying attitude is that this was an agreement freely made by adults who both saw mutual benefits in the arrangement and my judgement is neither required or useful.

Lululemon sell clothes. They sell pretty and functional sports clothes. It seems like they are meeting a market requirement. while I don't think they represent Yoga in any sincere sense of the word, I'm not really sure where the depth of hostility towards the company is really coming from. I don't see that as a clothing company they are interfering with anyone else's Yoga "business". There seems to be this idea that lululemon has the power to alter peoples consciousness and divert them from the "true message" of Yoga. In my opinion I think that is an overreach. Anyone who's yoga practice is primarily defined by the brand of clothing they wear can't really blame a company who is ready to exploit their vanity, as the cause of their shallow yogic perceptions. All though it may be tempting, when it comes to our capacity to think for ourselves, that responsibility falls to each and every one of us as individuals.

Lastly, and I'm just going to say this. Fashion is part of human culture. For better or worse, it has deeply found it's way into Yoga, I mean seriously, the sheer volume of high-fashion yoga-asana photo's that roll past my fb newsfeed everyday is massive. These photo's are very much used with a commercial imperative to catch eyes; improve hits; and gain subscriptions; followers etc. Again, I've realised it is not my place to judge, I don't own Yoga, but I am free to define and evolve it in the way that feels truest to me, and especially of late, I do so without really giving a damn about what anyone else thinks. Surely, therefore I am obliged to return that favour lest I call myself a hypocrite?!?

So bottom line, as far as I'm concerned Lululemon can keep doing what they do, I'm never going to buy anything from one of their stores. Surely that in itself is all I need to say on the matter.
 

Saturday, November 2, 2013

My Rabbits eat Hay, but I don't..


So here it is. My personal view on eating meat.

I am well aware that a large proportion of the people on my friends list are deeply committed Yogi's. It is not a secret that it is also a big part of my own life, in spite of the fact that I quite openly reject aspects of Yoga, such as: Insincere commercialism; idolism; dogma and blind devotion to name a few.

A question that comes to me quite often, is what is my view on vegetarianism. I came to Yoga because I needed a path to physical and emotional health, and my single minded pursuit of being an elite runner had given me all it could. I'm not sure that Yoga was the reason I started a serious self-inquiry into my own life. I think that happened because when you hit a really low place, you are finally ready to start asking the right questions.

The simple fact is I am a physical person and need to live a physical life in order to maintain my sanity. The problem is that in most cultures you do that by finding a sport you are good at.  You then seek victory over others. Your identity becomes a by-product of your results, tangibly measured either by a stop-watch or by the number of points you can put on a score-board. To cut to the chase I came to the realisation that it is not what you do but why you do it. Defining your own self worth though sports results will eventually let you down. No matter how good you are eventually someone will come along who is better. I don't think this should dictate your own sense of self worth but for me it did, so I had to stop what I was doing and find another way.

So I didn't start Yoga because it had a predefined set of ethics or moralities. I started Yoga because I'd finally found something that apparently wasn't interested in judging me at how good I was at doing it. I won't ever forget my first class because it utterly humiliated me. Equally I won't forget it because not a single other person in the class, including the teacher gave a shit. It didn't matter that I could not do 90% of the poses the way most of the other people could. It was only me that cared about that, it was only my own ego I had to contend with and after what I had already learnt through my time in sports, I was ready to see the truth of that and "get over it".

I can't say how amazing it was to find something I could turn my full tenacity to, without the fear of competition being the driving force behind my efforts. It didn't take long to realise that I am just a person who loves to work hard at things that capture my imagination. The pursuit of the results, and the idea of being defined by those results actually just gets in the way. Not only does it cloud the vision but it ruins the journey and disconnects me from being at peace with who I really am.

Having said all that, the truth is I never really found a single class or style of Yoga that felt 100% like me. In fact often it was a love hate relationship and there were teachers who crossed my path who left a very bad taste in my mouth. Either that or their belief system forced me to think about, and make decisions about the Yogic doctrine, and what parts of it worked for me and what parts I needed to discard, simply in order that I could continue to do "yoga" without feeling like I was no longer being true to my own belief systems.

So here's the thing about doctrines, whether they are tied to religion or sport or philosophies: They are a predefined set of rules that give the system it's structure. For this reason alone I am very uncomfortable being labelled with anything. It seems to me that the moment you hook your hat to a label you have introduced limitations on where your mind and heart can travel. The limiting thought structure is fundamental, and the example for today is via a quote from a deservedly famous Yogi

"Stop eating flesh, that is Yoga".

Not that it should matter to anyone who understands the concept of "critical thinking" but I am a vegetarian. I did however eat meat growing up, and I personally have no issue with the basic idea of humans eating meat, but I'll get into the details of my own philosophy a bit later.

For me though, it comes down to this. I don't believe anyone has the right to define Yoga in such absolute terms. If we are to take the above statement in it's most literal form, if you eat meat, then it doesn't matter what else you do, you are not doing Yoga. Honestly, regardless of the debate about whether eating meat is good or bad, I call bullshit on that. The world is not made in digital. We are not a series of ones and zeros. The digital world was designed to allow computers to approximate the real world (using cold hard logic) not the other way around. We should not make the mistake of applying such limited Boolean expressions to our real lives.

So to the question of eating meat. No I don't eat it, but it is not so much a decision about health, as it is a way of protesting commercial farming, both on land and in the oceans. ethically, I think humans do treat farm animals despicably. Animals are sentient. They feel pain, they feel love, there is no question in my mind they feel fear. Most people reading would have no problems recognising these qualities in their own pets. For this reason I feel we have a moral responsibility to farm animals with a genuine concern for their quality of life while they live. I don't, however think it is inherently wrong for a human to eat meat anymore than I think it is wrong for any other animal to eat meat. Our evolutionary biology marks us as omnivores. We are not true vegetarians go check out the biology of a Rabbit and you will find it is completely different from us. Failing that try living on a bale of hay for a month and see how that works out for you. Yes, I realise there are other options than grass, but my point is we are quite capable of eating and digesting meat and depending on some peoples constitutions, I am at least anecdotally convinced that certain people become quite unhealthy if they do not have at least some meat in their diet.

In simple terms, I take a naturalists viewpoint. Nature, in balance, has always involved the killing of animals by other animals for reasons of food and survival. However humans are now the shepherds of this planet, and we are smart enough to know that we have both ecological and ethical responsibilities to all other forms of life on this planet. Those people who become evangelical about being Vegan are not doing their cause any favours. All they are doing is alienating themselves from the people they want to change. Along those lines I have to wonder, is Yoga about trying to change other people to think the way you think?!?

That seems very "external" to me. I prefer to see Yoga as a personal and internal practice of self inquiry. As a practitioner and teacher I don't have any interest in trying to change anyone. I'm just doing and sharing a "process" that has made my life better, and I hope that in some shape or form it may do the same for others. I may have questions, but I sure as hell don't have answers, nor do I want to. For me, that is kind of the point.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

No class today!!! (16th October 2013)

Late reminder but I have been mentioning this over the last few weeks. There is no class today as the Hall was rebooked for an all-day client.

Ironically that client cancelled at the last minute but it was too late for me to reverse the decision to cancel this class.

Namaste all

Monday, August 26, 2013

Blood Collection tomorrow!!!

Hi all.

No class tomorrow since the hall is being used for it's quarterly blood collection.

So in the name of providing Vampires with much needed sustenance and to stop them attacking innocent people in the middle of the night, there will be no class for the 28th August 2013.

See you all the following week I hope (Vampires welcome)

Namaste
b

Monday, July 22, 2013

Class on this Wednesday

Just a short message to let people know there is a class on this Wednesday as St Andrew Church has been inspected and declared safe (after the recent earthquake)

Lets hope that this is the end of it and that what we have already experienced has created better stability rather than made it worse.

Namaste
b

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Blood Collection 15th May 2013!! (tomorrow)

arrrrhhhh!! So sorry Yoga Peeps, some sort of 6th sense made me decide to check the NZ Blood Collection website and I am very sorry to have to provide this last minute blog entry to inform peeps there will be no Yoga class tomorrow due to blood collection.

I really should have been across this the week before and given people due notice, but this is the best I can do. Of course, I will say that I have mentioned on more than one occassion peeps should check my blog-spot before coming to class to confirm that it is on!

Namaste, and enjoy your day off!!
b

Friday, April 26, 2013

Open Circle Kinetics

After quite a lot of time thinking about this, I am officially announcing the rebranding of my classes to "Open Circle Kinetics"  There are a lot of reasons I have decided to drop the word Yoga from my classes but the main ones are:
  • I want the freedom to evolve my class structure; methodology and underlying philosophy outside the already defined doctrine of Yoga. In many respects this is a retrospective assertion of what has already been happening for a long time anyway. There are a number of fundamental rules by which a yoga class is typically taught and I follow very few of them. In order to follow my own bliss, without a perceived conflict (from within and without) I have decided to let go of the very label that gave rise to this self-awareness.
  • A desire to disassociate myself from forms of Yoga that are in direct conflict with my own personal belief systems. My classes are not competitive, at least not in any traditional sense of the word. I think it is a word that must be treated with a great deal of care because it has as much potential to destroy as it does to create. I don't personally believe competition is inherently bad (and for better and worse it has been a huge part of my own life) but it just so happens that humanity is already awash with competition so the conscious removal, or at the very least management of this concept is something that resonates with me very strongly.
  • The escape from unrealistic aspirations. Yoga is and will always be a part of my life, but I have no interest in being judged as being a good or a bad yogi. It is hard enough just as a practitioner, but being identified as a teacher as well is really too much for me. I don't want to follow rules just because they are part of a doctrine I am apparently associated with. I follow my own rules, the ones that feel right to me with the full acknowledgement that I am a work in progress. I am far from perfect and I know it, yet ironically I believe I have a greater chance of evolving into a better (and more authentic) person if I'm not saddled with a system that expects far more from me than I am willing to give and in some cases don't even believe in.

I would like to finish by saying that I am not turning my back on Yoga or the many amazing people I have connected with through this beautiful system. I prefer to see it as a decision to stop turning my back on myself. I am genuinely excited about my classes and how they are continuing to evolve. They do not need a stereo-typed label to stand on, they are their own thing, and I believe they are beautiful and represent the light side of who I am as a person.
Namaste!!
 

Monday, February 11, 2013

no class 13th feb!!

I hate it when this happens. I was told some time ago that the St Andrews Church Hall has been booked for thr NZ Blood Services and will therefore not be available on the 13th feb.
I totally forgot about this myself until just now (day before class).
I realise that pretty much no one botherse to check this blog (which is a bit of a drag because I have stated at many classes people should do so to confirm the class is on)
But anyway, for those that don't read this you could always decide to give blood instead :)
Namaste
b

Sunday, February 3, 2013

No class Wednesday 6th Feb

Just a quick note to state the fairly obvious: As it is Waitangi Day I've decided to generously give you all the day off from Lunchtime Yoga. The following week is a different story, be there or be square (and have stiff and inflexible joints and muscles)
Namaste
b

Monday, January 28, 2013

2013 Open Circle Yoga Official Timetable

Monday:      Open Circle Yoga @Myoga, Marion Street, 12pm-1pm (1)
Tuesday:      Yoga @Way of Life Gym, Parkway Wainuiomata 6pm-7pm (2)
Wednesday: Open Circle Yoga @St Andrews Church Hall, The Terrace, 12pm-1pm (3)
Thursday:      No Class
Friday:          No Class
Saturday:      Yoga @Jenkins Gym, Station Village, Railway Avenue, 11:15am-12:30pm (4)
Sunday:        No Class

(1) Open Circle means this class belongs to me and concession cards purchased can be used for all classes labelled "Open Circle". This is my newest class and it is in a beautiful space close to where I work. Please try it out if the time suits. See here for more info on this class.

(2) This class belongs to Way of Life gym, but has the same pricing as my Open Circle classes. It is a local class close to where I live

(3) Open Circle means this class belongs to me and concession cards purchased can be used for all classes labelled "Open Circle". This is my oldest class and many of the people who come have been with me from the start, even before I taught at this venue.

(4) This class belongs to Jenkins Gym, and you have to be a member of the gym to attend (membership plans are very cheap though). It is my only 75 minute class and for that reason alone it is an important class to me. See here for more info.

Small note: Keep in mind I am a 1 man show. There will be (fairly rare) circumstances when a specific class will be cancelled due to holiday; injury or sickness. When I become aware of this, I will post a blog entry about it here so participants are strongly advised to check this website to confirm a class is not cancelled to avoid disappointment and inconvenience.

Namaste!

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Quick Update

Hi all.

I know one or two people are waiting on me to confirm whether Jenkins Gym will allow concession card access to the new Saturday 11:15am class that has recently started.

I can only say I have raised the question with the Gym Management there and am awaiting the slow wheels of bureaucracy to come back to me with an answer.

I promise to update this blog spot as soon as I know.

I also want to quickly mention that my friend Amber Spear is still planning to teach a Master Class in Wellington but the exact date and venue is still to be decided. I am in communication with her and am making it a priority to get this sorted ASAP so will post clear details on the time and venue very soon. My current hope is that the masterclass will be run at the Powa Center (venue of Melissa Billingtons Myoga Studio)

Namaste all!!
b

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Open Circle Yoga comes to Myoga


Namaste all

I am excited to confirm that I will be teaching a Monday lunchtime class at Melissa Billington's Myoga Studio at the Powa Centre, starting the 21st of this month.

Myoga Class Timetable

The idea of teaching at a Yoga Studio is something that has intrigued and perplexed me for a long time. As my own teaching style cannot be easily categorised into any of the recognisable yoga modalities the main barrier has always been a genuine concern on my part that I may be a round peg trying to fit into a square hole.

As my own Yoga practice has, for a long time been defined by my unwillingness to be bridled by the tenets (for want of a better expression) of a specific style of Yoga I did not feel any synergy with the idea of teaching at a studio that has already defined it's own identity.

What did that leave me with? Answering this question properly is going to be a real journey:

I started out my teaching career with a thing called Bodybalance. A modern fusion of Yoga; Pilates and Tai Chi set to contemporary music. This was a gym based class and it had a very specific formula in the way it was taught. For starters, it inherited a method of teaching by example that came from other more traditional group-fitness classes, such as Step. It followed a very structured blue-print of ordered "tracks" where a track is defined by a specific piece of music and choreography. From memory it would be ordered as: Warm-up; Sun Salutations; Standing Poses; Balance Poses; Core; Hamstrings; Hips/Twists; Relaxation.

Each track was tightly choreographed to the music, I learned the value of "counting the beat" when teaching this class in order to know when to transition to new positions/postures. This was actually quite challenging for me as it demanded the sort of qualities you might more readily expect from a dancer. There were quite strict rules about how to queue, as verbal communication was regarded as a key factor in becoming an effective teacher. Staying tight with the music; communicating well with your class and demonstrating good (or accepted) technique were all skills that needed to be merged together and played out concurrently. The ratio of female to male teachers was very high, and there is no doubt a big reason for that is that men struggle more with the sort of multi-tasking qualities needed to pull this off.

The truth is, being a Bodybalance teacher was (and is) quite a talent. It takes a lot of work and you most definitely need certain inherent skills (such as a basic sense of timing and musicality) in order to be a good teacher. It was a tremendous learning curve for me and at the same time helped (at least partially) address an area of great challenge in my life: A serious lack of self-confidence topped off with a good helping of low self-esteem. It was the beginning of a journey into self-belief and purpose, and one that had to be backed up by hard work to bring it all together.

There were some scary memories from my days teaching Bodybalance. Moments when I forgot the choreography and went off on a momentary creative tangent of my own design. It didn't happen often, and if nothing else the simple fear of forgetting was enough to push you to practice the tracks over and over until it really felt like it was drilled into your sub-conscious. I need to credit Bodybalance for allowing me to craft a strong set of basic teaching skills which I've carried with me to this very day. Even more than that, it has influenced quite significantly my teaching style, which to be honest, proved to be another nail in the coffin in terms of putting me at odds with more traditional Yoga teaching methods.

Eventually, my reasons for leaving this system were that I needed to grow. Perhaps if I were to be honest it was also a case of feeling like I was a small cog in a very big wheel and I was never going to go anywhere beyond the place I was already at. The structure of this class began to feel very limiting to me and I wanted to explore other ways of teaching. The only choice was to become a Yoga teacher and I needed that feedom.

Initially I did that without seeking a formal qualification. Instead my training and experience in Bodybalance coupled with my own very dedicated asana practice formed the basis of my classes. When I did seek teacher training it came in the form of Erich Schiffmann who coins the phrase "freedom yoga". His approach is to be inwardly guided and to connect and trust your own innate wisdom. It was in perfect sync with my own philosophy and to this day I don't think I could have picked a better person to seek a qualification from. At the end of the day I don't really think a paper document means you are either a good teacher or a bad teacher, but it does mean you cared enough to make the effort. In reality, who I am as a teacher has little to do with my teacher training, it is mostly a product of my own evolving practice and philosophy.

The method of teaching in front of the class, as it so happens works very well for what I want to offer:

1) Non interference

Hands on adjustments are not something I am inherently against and this is not a question as to which way is right or wrong. Touch is a form of communication and connection with others. There are dangers though. I have been injured by teachers who became quite ambitious on my behalf and pushed me too far into a pose. In the context of Teacher/Student, there is a balance of power heavily tilted towards the teacher. Both people are playing a role. However the role I choose to play is not that of a traditional teacher. I am not trying to create a vision for my students to aspire to. I wish to be a facilitator of a very abstract concept: to help the participant connect to their own evolving inner truth, body mind and spirit. To adjust a student I am therefore doing two things in conflict with my objectives: (a) Inflicting my vision upon them (b) Externalising their experience. I realise a new student needs guidance, but for me I limit that to keeping them safe and following basic alignment rules with which to wrapper their experience and growing conciousness around.

I'm working on a very basic premise here: That I am not the true teacher of the self. That is you. That is where I found my own truest teacher and it is what I want for my students as well.

2) Flow

I do not see Yoga asana as a discrete set of poses. I see the whole class as one pose connected by a thread of alternating breath and continuous movement. The truth is I often hold poses when I'm teaching a class, but just because the external movement has stopped, the internal movement, the breath, the flow of energy; thought and emotion still continue to occur. Pacing is a very relevant part of what I do, and there is no better way to be a facilitator of timeless flow than when you are experiencing it yourself first hand. I know there are systems of Yoga that prohibit the teacher from doing any of the poses in the class, and again I don't argue against the reasons for this approach. I will say I have been to many such classes where the combination with this and making student adjustments, the rest of the class is left to fry in a challenging posture for what can seem like a small eternity. Far from bliss it becomes a sort of torturous hell where you see if your will is strong enough to outlast the teachers absenteeism from the rest of the class. Often, when the teacher realises they have lost their sense of flow they will then rush the next side, which in my view only amplifies the imbalance. This is one aspect of Yoga where I feel closer to Ashtanga, as it becomes more about the student and the flow, than it is the teacher.

One of my students very recently came to me after class and told me she felt like the whole class felt like a dance. Her comment made me smile for the rest of the day. I don't want my Yoga peeps to feel they have done a set of individual yoga postures, I want them to feel like they have experienced a holistic asana practice.

3) Creative Evolution

Before teaching a class I have an idea of what the theme will be, but being in the moment, being in each pose, I am often guided to allow the Asana flow and connections to alter and evolve from their more regular patterns. For this reason no two classes are ever completely identical. At times very similar, yes, but sometimes a little different or sometimes a lot. Very cool things can happen that I could not have predicted because one moment suggests the next and you cannot circumvent that process. You have to let it happen and trust each moment to guide you to the next. This is not about random-yoga. I call on my own experience to use the building blocks and connect them in a way such that the sum is always far greater than the parts, perhaps even transcending them altogether. Certainly there have been some classes that went so well that I find myself feeling sadness in the knowledge that if I were to ever try and recreate it, it would only slip further away, but that is the nature of how I teach

So having said all of that, I found my home as a teacher at Gyms or independently at community halls. For the last 2 years I taught at a studio called Purebalance. It was a good fit because the owner did not teach Yoga but a contemporary blend and she was very open to my approach. Myoga is in some ways a brave step for me as I come closer to an established system that more deeply honours many of the traditional mechanisms we associate with Yoga. The truth is owning your own Yoga studio in a country as small as New Zealand can be a challenge financially. I have always liked what this studio represents and it has been reflected in the broad range of events Melissa has allowed to occur at her venue. One of the reasons I'm going to teach there is Karmic: I genuinely want to support and help Myoga grow from strength to strength. Another reason is that it feels like a great next step for me, to be closer to a traditional Yoga audience and share what I do with them. It feels like it is time and that I am ready: I have a much deeper sense of peace and understanding in what I do and what I offer, and of course what I get back from it.

The business model is slightly unusual. Members of Melissa's studio get to come to my class for free, as it is covered in their membership plan. Existing and new people to my Open Circle classes can use or purchase my existing concession cards and will effectively have access to both this class and my Wednesday lunchtime class at St Andrews. I am committed to giving this class time to grow roots and become strong, but like my class content, I am open to see how it evolves, and each moment will lead to the next. Hope to see you there.

Myoga Address

Peace

b

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

The Christmas Lilly


I have a close friend who has been going through chemotherapy for the last few months. For many years we have shared all the gory details of our lives with each other, and in doing so, have continued to grow closer and closer. Slowly building the sort of trust that money could never buy.

It hasn't always been plain sailing. For my part there have been times when I was lazy and selfish, not investing in the friendship nor giving back that which I had been so generously given. With any sort of relationship comes the burden of responsibility and expectation. At times I was found very much wanting. There was even a point, perhaps in my own arrogance, where I decided I didn't really need this friendship. My life was going so well  and I felt it was becoming too much work, I rationalised my lack of effort by blaming her expectations as being too much of a burden.

Funny how a few years later when my world came crashing down around my ears she was the first person I thought of, and the first person I reached out to. Such was her quality that in spite of my own abandonment and betrayal of such a precious gift, she was there for me, 100%

It's moments like these that are our greatest teachers. They teach you about yourself, and they teach you about others. Sometimes giving love feels very easy. It pours from your heart like waterfall over the face of a cliff. Other times though, you have to really work at it. You need to fill the bucket with water, and trek miles over barren desert in order to deliver the payload. Then you watch your small bucket of love evaporate into the sand like it was never even there. So you take the trek back across the desert to your heart, maybe try to find a bigger bucket,  and begin again.

The lesson I learnt, was that whether your love feels like a waterfall, or whether it feels like you are hauling buckets of water across the face of the Sahara desert, you need to understand it's not just about you. If you both value and honour the plant you are watering, you will do it, no matter how hard it feels inside.

I have a Christmas Lilly growing at the front of my house. It is shielded from the rain, so unless I water it regularly, it will die of thirst. It was given to me by my mum and step-dad a few years ago, at a time when I had re-established a fragile relationship with them. That relationship exists no more and I will only say I am very much at peace with this: Wisdom is knowing when things are beyond your control. However, the year after I was given the Lilly it flowered, and then over the winter months it died. I was not sure if it was negligence on my part or the harsh conditions that killed it, but either way I pulled it from the earth and thought I would never see it again. But in spring small Christmas lilies started to grow from the otherwise barren ground. I was so surprised that I watered them with great enthusiasm and the following Christmas they flowered again, even more beautiful than the year before. 

It is quite an effort to keep the Lilly from dying over the summer months. The ground dries and turns to dust very quickly. But it really means something to me. Keeping this plant alive has become deeply symbolic: To let go of bitterness from my own heart; to remember and honour love that was once given; and to look towards the future with belief that love will rise again if you tend to it diligently.

My friend who has cancer fights a fierce battle that comes on many fronts. She lives with the physical betrayal of her own body, and she lives with the brutal side affects of the chemical treatments. Those side affects are more than just physical, they mess your your brain chemistry and hormones. The emotional trauma is every bit as bad and perhaps worse than the physical suffering. On top of all of this, the challenges of her everyday life are multiplied ten-fold. With all this going on, she is still my friend, and by that I mean she still works to support me and the personal challenges I face in my own life, even when they pale to triviality in comparison to what she is going through.

I have realised that my responsibility to her, and what she is going through right now is also the gift I earned over many years. In spite of my failings I did water the plant and it grew strong enough to survive. Maybe others would not have, and this one is as strong as it is beautiful. Perhaps I am luckier than I deserve.

The purpose of this post is twofold: To impart wisdom learnt from my own life experiences, and to acknowledge a beautiful and rare friendship, one that I hope and pray will not be taken from me for many years to come. For my part, I must do better to water it, while I still can.