The season of sowing
"Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves." - Bruce Lee
The past month in Shanghai has brought more lessons about life than the past year combined.
I had spent my whole life avoiding Mandarin - I struggled so badly in school because my parents speak only English and Malay, and as a result of that my brothers and I did not get the chance to practice it at home.
I could get by on the streets with the minimal command of the language that I was acquainted with, albeit the fact that this came with a limited vocabulary and embarrassing inaccuracies of enunciation. What I did not expect however, was how I would end up having to host my Restorative Yoga classes in a bilingual fashion - no mean feat in itself.
I relied on google translations and the help of my colleagues and the Singaporean community who so lovingly reached out to correct my pronunciations and provide phrases that would support my teaching delivery.
- it was such a steep learning curve, but it broke the language barrier and helped me to connect at a much deeper level to the beautiful beings in Shanghai, and for that I am so thankful.
The season of sowing is usually quieter - we dig deep, we bury under, and we wait without any clue of how the seed is doing. There is a tremendous amount of uncertainty and discomfort that we have to have bandwidth for. We can't rush the process and unearth the soil to check the progress prematurely; the darkness and hibernation supports the process of growth at this particular juncture. We can't over water or over expose to sun; this would only hurt the process.
This season of waiting requires so much faith in the practice and the preparation that I've worked on for this chapter of OASIS; so patiently I have waited, to discover the needs of the beautiful Pure Shanghai community, who met me halfway with their open hearts and words of affirmation.
"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but the seeds that you plant" - Robert Louis Stevenson