Que Sera Sera...
Grovelands park is five minutes run from our ‘home’, it feels expansive and open... The grass yields in a wonderful way under my feet and invites running...
Anadi and I rose early to run around it, as I was driving to Sussex to work. I had set Deva Premal and Miten to wake us with the Gayatri mantra at 6.30am...
I woke naturally, half and hour before the alarm... And so it was me, rather than Deva, suggesting to Anadi that it was time to run....
On the early morning alarm calls, that I don't wake before, I am always glad I have chosen this beautiful mantra as my wake up call...
It is said to purify both the chanter and the listener; I prefer my initial waking sensation to be one of purification, rather than the shock that previous choices of alarm have started my day with!
This meaning of the mantra confirms for me why I like to start my day with my own modern day 'call to prayer...'
Oh God,
the Protector,
the basis of all life,
Who is self-existent,
Who is free from all pains
and Whose contact frees the soul from all troubles,
Who pervades the Universe and sustains all,
the Creator and Energizer of the whole Universe,
the Giver of happiness,
Who is worthy of acceptance,
the most excellent,
Who is Pure and the Purifier of all,
let us embrace that very God,
so that He may direct our mental faculties in the right direction.
The version on my phone lasts 8 minutes, and sometimes I set the alarm early enough to listen to it, and allow the getting up to be more like a ritual and a practice, rather than a struggle...
The more we can own our choices... The more we remember that no one is making us get out of bed to run, that no one is telling us what we must and mustn't do... The more life flows and early morning runs are to be welcomed rather than dreaded...
And - we will see that if there is a struggle, it is within us...
I have, it must be said, found it much easier to get out of bed to run, when I know that all my runs are sunny ones...!
We were greeted today by another perfect early English summer morning; we could smell the glorious smell of freshly cut grass, hear the familiar sound of the cawing of the crows... As we ran through the woods, the sun was filtering through the leaves, dappled light... The lovely loop... Three laps and back to the Stables...
We stepped over Octavious, the tortoise, who was enjoying a sunbathe on the path, and said 'hello' to Poppy, the guinea pig, who was looking at us curiously from her cage....
I was on the road soon after returning from the park, following the route set by my mobile phone…
I had some trouble leaving, and did and initial loop that brought me back to the front door...!
After that everything seemed set fair.... However the route that my phone chose was a strange one.... I was driving on roads I never had before, a route completely different to the one I had been on when making this same journey in December... And there was no sign of the M25....
I had no map, and I was in unknown territory, with my phone suggesting I head for the A13....
This all seemed very unfamiliar, and I could feel tension creeping up my tummy and into my chest... I had a sense I might never arrive at my destination, and that I had no idea of where I was, or where I was going....
And so I started singing the Gayatri Mantra...
If it hadn't woken me today, it was instead now going to clear the tension and connect me to a place if trust within me, 'purify me' of tension, and bring me back to a place of 'que sera sera....'
I sang the chant over and over, and the tension left my body… I found I was enjoying driving along, trusting that the sat nav on my phone did know something I didn't, when suddenly my satnav/ phone rang....
It was Paul the osteopath, who I have been recommended by Nina 'my landlady for ten days...' I had left a message with him last night about booking an appointment...
He was returning my call, and confirmed he could see me.... Before we hung up I asked...
'Do you know if the A13 will take me to Sussex’?....
He wasn't sure, but he thought it would take me to the Dartford tunnel.... ‘Brilliant; Thank you’, I said....
I was heading in the right direction...
I reflected again on tension and how unnecessary it is, and how easy it is to clear if - If we want to....
Like everything, it takes noticing when it is happening, ‘pressing pause’, and not acting out of it, and then practicing clearing it...
Day in and day out; so that the natural state becomes relaxation and it is then easy to spot tension creeping up our body....
I reached the A13 and the M25 was signposted! I called Anadi, confident that now I was 'full steam ahead'....
As I was on the phone to him, I sailed past my turn off to the M25, and was now on the A13 heading somewhere new...!
With the help of Google maps on Anadi's computer, and him directing me as I drove, I found my way back to the M25 and to familiar territory....
As we were chatting and I was driving, I said to him…
'This is the metaphor for our life... Not quite knowing the way, driving on new roads, knowing that the road will become familiar if we trust the inner guidance (in this case Siri on my phone!) releasing any tension as it arises, supporting each other, and always returning to enjoying the journey and a place of…
Que Sera Sera.....