Wisdom Bodies

I’m beginning to wonder if anyone is going to show up.  I’ve worked on a hundred different projects around the world, often with grand intentions to be met with a tiny group of participants leaving me debating if my path is misguided and money better spent on a specific donation.  However, this mindset is putting the emphasis on quantity instead of quality, and what the years of social activism have taught me is that no matter the number of participants for whoever does attend it can be a powerful experience beyond any calculation.  Just like with any action we take which is backed with a compassionate and wise intention it is often very hard to even anticipate the long term effects.  

 

Once again my doubts were washed away as a auto-rickshaw pulled up and a huge group of women piled out.  Amazed at how they all managed to fit inside they cautiously rearranged their thread worn saris and huddled together.  Each woman had lifetimes etched in her face.  The majority were older.  Their skin was sun and time worn yet ages were hard to estimate.  A few stumbled forward with wooden sticks as make shift canes, hunched over, eyes fighting to see. Each woman was very dark, tribal skin – the original people of this land.  Born free from caste and therefore at the very bottom of the well entrenched hierarchy.  Chests, hands and feet bore tattoos from their ancestral line which were at first invisible but like a magic eye pattern, once I saw -  I saw many.  Eighteen women in total joined us, they had traveled six hours on foot, bus and now rickshaw and with very little idea of why they were here.   They were welcomed them with a sweet lassi – a statement of how the days were to continue.  They were our guests.  They would be fed good food, fresh fruit, snacks and chai.  They would be waited upon.  They were here to rest and rejuvenate, to strengthen and heal.

Urmi introduced us and explained the purpose of the workshop.  They nodded in response and then were invited to share their name with a movement.  This they did with varying degrees of gusto.  Some clearly unsure what to make of it all.

The story teller dancer (whose project this was) began by leading them through movement to sporadic music.  The music was sporadic simply because it was hooked up not with a plug but with wires leading directly into the outlet, so it kept falling out.  One of the Asha team attempted to fix it by sticking tiny sticks of wood directly into the socket.  It kind of worked.  Admittedly I was skeptical to how the foreign music, foreign facilitator and foreign movements would be received, but they were.  It was like a breath of fresh air had just whisked through the room and old bent bodies came to life.  I followed with some very simply asanas.  Primarily from the pavanmukatasana (joint freeing poses) series. The movements are basic and designed to gently lubricate the joints while strengthening the mind body connection. Urmi translated into Hindlish (ie. Hindu splashed with English) so I followed that she was telling them the body is like a machine that has to be regularly oiled and used to stop it from freezing up.  It I teach the sequence regularly and all over the world.  In comparison to my usual lycra clad students at the Yoga Barn, the women’s movements were awkward.  It was  like watching the petals of a flower gently thaw open after a frosty morning. It was a testament to their life of hard work and the luxury of having access to both the time and knowledge to connect to one’s body.  I thought back to my Indian friend in Kolkata who scoffed that these tribal women would know more about how to move and the practice of yoga than me. If nothing else, I hoped that perhaps a couple of them would remember some of the movements which may over time help to relieve tired joints and contracted limbs.  And in the meantime I could visibly see connections being formed – between minds and body, facilitators and guests.  For the first time I could also see the benefits of teaching through an interpreter.  Confident that if I said something too esoteric or inappropriate it would be congenially intercepted.  Continuous reflections came that a smile can melt away even the most convicted frowns.  Really seeing, and by that I mean speaking through eyes rather than with my tongue goes such a long way.  It was indeed clear that for many of these women they were not used to having such direct recognition.   Years of being ostracized, of being feared and taunted had worked its way into their very being.  And within just one morning of being invited to Be was a privilege to watch and at the same time a testament to the danger not of witches but of those who believe in them.  I really had no idea what to expect, yet soon they began to share their stories.  One by one.  Some survivors or domestic violence and others of the witch hunt.  And survivors is the key word.  These women are strong, resilient, powerful to the core.  I watched their words before I was able to hear them.  I saw flickers of emotion rising through posture and tonation.   Many of those hunted as witches had similar experiences.  Some it had been years ago, others more recent.  To my ears it sounded reminiscent of the klu Klux klan days.  Perhaps this was my vivid imagination but unfortunately as the stories began to correlate I feared not.  Women courageously recalled how they were hounded, made to eat human excrement, forced to leave their families, stripped naked and left in the forest to scavenge for food. One older woman who was perhaps one of the most reclusive in the group had a scarf tied around her head.  It looked very strange, as the others all wore their long graying hair tied back, with nothing than the occasional flick of the tail of their sari over it.  She began to tell her story.  She was accused of being a witch.  She denied.  She was given shit to eat and so she did and then to further prove her innocence she was told to go to the local temple and shave her head.  Although her hair had begun to grow back for any traditional woman in India to cut her hair was a huge shaming. Another told how she had stood up for her accused friend, now seated by her side, and then her and her family had also been persecuted.  One of the more lively women in the group, explained with great animation how now she would go to a chai shop which before would refuse to serve her, demand her drink, finish it, slam the cup down on the table in front of her audience and proudly walk out.  Holding your head up high as a named witch was being a true warrior woman.  And she was.  She had also been part of a three woman street theater group who toured the local villages, performing and educating on the violations of women like her.  Another boldly said the women felt good now.  Here in this moment, because we could see them, we were talking to them, listening to them, but when they went home they did not all have this luxury.  I was reminded of a panel I had attended on survivors of Indonesia’s many war crimes.  Of women who had lived through the 1965 massacres, of the East Timor massacres (1975-1999) and in West Papua 1998.  The panel strongly emphasized that until the women could tell their stories it was next to impossible for them to move on.  They absolutely had to voice what they had endured and then from then on they could begin to forgive, move on, grow from what they had survived.

The story teller dancer transformed the horror stories through movement.  She instructed the women to paint with invisible coloured light of their imaginations, use their hands, feet and back as a paint brush and to my amazement they followed.  Smiles lit up eyes, and the spirit of forgotten youth brought their frames to light. Once again demonstrating that yes her and I were from radically different cultures, with radically different lives, and yet though movement we could share freedom in this moment.  Watching her passion and emotion was truly inspirational, and another testament that even though this workshop would only last three days, it was three very unique and sacred days.

At the end of the afternoon we sat together outside, drinking chai and watching the days sky turn to dusk.  Asha was a sanctuary, and compared to the “modern” and suffocating hotel I and the team members were staying in, this was paradise.  One woman joked with us that she had the worse seat in the rickshaw, and every time she fell asleep it woke her up with a violent bump. She would jump up and down in her plastic chair laughing at her morning journey.  A hundred photos were taken, hands were held, my tattoo behind my ear examined by many hands and eyes.

As our driver (who had spent the whole day waiting for us, clearly with no other work and no intention to waste petrol on an unproductive long drive home) pulled the jeep out many of the women held onto me and told me to stay.  I wanted to yet I had been invited by the team and my place tonight was still with them.  However, I realized that my intention to be a bridge for the light and love of my special community back in Bali was being tangibly constructed.  When we arrived back in the hotel I opened my email to receive a message from Cat Kabira:

What you are doing is so important and worthwhile - you know this, your soul knows this. Just in case you're still questioning, what you're doing is 1 BILLION PERCENT VALID. You're on your perfect path. You are so empowering, refreshing and inspiring to so many. Keep it up -simply by being the dedicated loving human you are.

Grateful to the women who asked me to join them here, grateful to the women who I had the honour to meet today, grateful to the women around the world who support and encourage me to keep sharing, grateful to the women who have shared their wisdom and craft with me, grateful to the women whose line I am from and whose lives were so very different from mine, grateful for all the privileges I have had and continue to have.  Grateful.