Fly practice

As I mentioned in last week's post, I was in Spain for a yoga retreat with Jonathan Monks and his lovely assistant / top student Beth. In the mornings, Jonathan would always go out to a particular place in the garden and do his own practice between about 7-11am. That's certainly a very dedicated personal practice - and yet he still complained there wasn't enough time to fit everything in!!

Anyway, in the first couple of days I was there he talked about the challenge of dealing with all the flies buzzing around in the garden. He said how difficult it was to be ok with them buzzing around, landing on you and crawling around. It was pretty hot, even at 8 in the morning, and the flies were fresh from a good night's sleep…

When I arrived on Sunday I set my intention of doing an hours sitting each day of the retreat. Naturally I sat inside the studio to avoid distractions. However, after hearing about Jonathan's experience with the flies, I thought I'd give it a go too.

So on Wed, Thurs and Fri I sat in the morning 2x30mins outside by the pool.

It was ok at first, no flies came. Then there was one on my arm. And one on my face. The one on my arm flew up to my ear. Then there was one on my nose trying to crawl up my nostril. Meanwhile the one on my face had crawled over my lips and was heading up to my eye. Then there was another on my other eye. And another on my ear. Bzzz, and it landed on my ear again. Goosebumps rippled down my left side. The ones on my eyes seemed particularly attracted to the corners (where I guess they could find some food… euww).

During the sitting, they would come, buzz around a bit, take off and re-land, then go. One or two would stay, feasting on the gunk in the corners of my eyes or around my nostrils. When they were still for some time I could feel the cold dabbing of their "tongue" on my skin. Around the back of my neck it was tickley, on my ears I got goosebumps, and on my eyes it was just weird.

Initially it was all about mindfulness of sensations. My whole awareness was filled with flies. It was a practice of letting go of the distraction, the annoyance and irritation, letting them be, getting on with their business of feeding. The important thing, I noticed, was the knowledge that they weren't doing any harm (if they were mosquitos the situation would have been very different!). It was actually fascinating to really tune in to all the sensations they produced.

On the second day of sitting outside, it became much easier to let them get on with it, and I started being able to come back to following the breath. Gradually I started feeling a detachment from the body and its sensations. My body is not me, these sensations are not me. Just accept things as they are and observe the moments passing without wanting them to be different. I found the 'not wanting' started releasing the tension and allowed quite deep relaxation.

Try it sometime…!