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The first morning of lockdown I felt in one of those apocalyptic movies. I was in the hut with my partner getting ready to go to Rangi, our common kitchen, and I didn’t know how to prepare myself. “Should I wear gloves?” I have never liked wearing them, not even when I was riding my bike during a freezing Scottish winter. “Don’t forget your mask!!!” Would I be able to breath normally? “What about the hand sanitizer?” ........................... Nothing was making sense to me, to the best of my belief, but at the same time I was receiving so many different inputs, frequencies from my surroundings that I started to feel a bit overwhelmed. So, once I put a scarf on to cover my mouth and the hand sanitizer in my bag, I was ready to leave the hut, refusing to wear gloves. I felt like a ninja walking in the forest with the mission to not be seen or touch anything. As soon as I stepped into Rangi, I knew I over-reacted, people in the kitchen were behaving normally, respecting each other's space, discussing the current situation, sharing their point of view, but nothing like I was imagining in my mind. Once we had breakfast, it was time to go to our new garden slot. My partner bought seeds to plant, before all shops were about to close, so we could have some veggies during lockdown avoiding going out of the community. Gardening has so many positive aspects and when we were reminded to stay at home, to stop for a moment, to actually breathe; why not learn to work with Mother Earth, to practice unconditional love. For what I believe, this was one lesson that the lockdown was already teaching us - to open and balance our Heart Chakra, which governs the physical heart and lungs. This time was also an opportunity for Dinny and I to meet and share good quality time together. We always wanted to learn how to grow our own fruit and vegetables and be able to slowly stop buying from the supermarket, reducing waste and the use of plastic. We were so happy and proud of ourselves when we were reusing stuff around the community in our garden. For this very reason, zero waste is one of Art Yoga’s principles. Since we believed so much in our mindfulness project, we started giving online Art Yoga classes on Zoom. Each class was based on one Chakra, in order to strengthen and embrace the qualities of those energy fields with the intention to raise the frequency of people during this challenging moment. Until one morning, while I was walking up to my partner's hut with smoothie in one hand and cups in the other, I tripped and fell over hurting my entire right side, from my ankle to my wrist. Straight after falling I stood up so quickly and covered the mess I made with a dry fern leaf... please don't ask me why! This accident put me in the position of not moving for more than 4 weeks basically for the whole lockdown. The universe was sending me omens to stop and really think about myself, so I had to take it and be grateful. Although this meant to stop going to the garden and practicing yoga secretly with Dinny, for the very first time I didn't fight, I simply accepted the situation. It was a moment of self-reflection, observing how it felt to be still but remain with a positive mind. If the mind is healthy, the body will heal faster, it's all about the power of the mind. Body and mind are connected and this was another lesson from this period. So since I needed to keep my mind active and healthy, I started practicing more and more meditation. At any time of the day when feeling less vibrant, I would stop and connect with my inner-self whether to gain strength and support or to find peace and balance. However, I am an active person so, as much as I like to meditate I also love moving my body. Art Yoga, for me, was the perfect combination between being still and keeping my body moving. It motivated me so much during those weeks. Everytime I felt thrown back to festival time, when we were enjoying one hour of our day engaging with our inner child. It was also beautiful to see how Dinny was growing as well and how teaching using a computer, for her, was natural and easier. She was more open and confident in spreading what Art Yoga means for us and how much potential this practice has. On the other side, I was feeling stuck and not natural at all. It was a big challenge for me to learn how to connect with people without sharing the room together, to feel their energies through the screen. When I left Scotland and started travelling, I made a promise to myself to not get into technology too much anymore and I loved it. There were periods that I was barely using my phone and still creating beautiful connections that I maintained using other ways of communication, such as postcards. During the lockdown though, I realised that everything is good with a balance, I was grateful to have a way to get in touch with my family and friends on the other side of the globe and be able to send them love and good vibes. And so Art Yoga was in Zoom and Live on Facebook for the very first time. LOVE AND LIGHT Rawhiti 
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I have been working as a Graphic Designer for over 10 year and in the last few years I had the chance to experience a key role in English for the first time, my second language, for the yoga retreat where I was also living. This opportunity made me grow stronger and gain self confidence by upgrading my marketing skills as well as my entire commerce vocabulary. At the same time I realised how much I was seeking new challenges and a brand new beginning in my life which I was sure was waiting for me right past the corner of my desk. For this reason I decided to resign from that role after the Yoga Festival and that very weekend was my last one in the marketing office. I was finally unemployed and ready to place all my energies into my new freelance project as a designer. Nevertheless, timing was not on my side. I was completely unaware of the worldwide situation and how much it was affecting everything around on a massive scale, including my well organized plan. Only three days after I quitted, the Government decided to shut the borders and prepare for our first four weeks in lockdown with immediate effect. I didn’t know what to do or how to feel. I was just about to enjoy my freedom and suddenly I was already stuck, over thinking about how I could manage this problem without any income to support my life with no job. On the other hand, I somehow felt blessed to have unlimited time to dedicate to myself because I couldn’t work on any appropriate solutions carefully planned. My family back in Italy was already experiencing their third week locked into their apartments. They kept updating me regarding their situations and how much the virus was destroying some of our friends’ families by permanently taking away their illed relatives. This global infection never felt so real and powerful until people I personally know where dealing with it face to face. Contrarily, I somehow felt blessed for my situation, unemployed but weirdly happy. It was hard for me to feel this way without judging my emotions, but there was no other place where I could have been stuck for this unusual experience. The yoga retreat put in place several new rules to face this unique setting, I had to move to a different kitchen to avoid a big crowd of people sharing the same facility all at once. This was my only concern, this took me away from my friend and I was so worried I couldn’t find any other chance to enjoy those calm days with Rawhiti’s company. However, we were set in 19 acres of native New Zealand bush and I was sure she could be still part of my ‘bubble’ somewhere there to share feelings and emotions around the situation; in a way or another we had to make it work and so we did. We both requested to have one plot each where we could grow our vegetables over the lockdown and surprisingly we found out we were garden neighbours. That was it, our ultimate ‘bubble’ spot where we were meeting every morning to water our plants, sharing our thoughts and learning new skills about gardening. In addition, we decided to secretly meet every afternoon to enjoy outdoor yoga classes just for ourselves surrounded by trees and birds. Meanwhile, the marketing team was still working and they decided to take action too by implementing some online classes available for the whole community to keep in contact with one another through our devices and ensure that no one felt alone or bored. This was another great opportunity for us to collaborate again on our mindful project and to bring Art Yoga on the screen of Kawai Purapura. Our contribution took place straight away and since we didn’t know how long the lockdown was going to force us there, we planned a whole journey through the seven Chakras. Our ‘bubble’ got an official confirmation which allowed us to be together within the community even if formally just once a week. Nothing discouraged us, not even when Rawhiti fell down in a slippery path into the bush and forced her to slow down for an entire week of bandage on her arm and leg. I could have reacted in a completely bitter way about how the world was turning upside down and messing up with my good intentions for the nearest future. Instead, I slowly accepted the situation without knowing the consequences of this new era we were experiencing including how long it was going to last and if I was ever going to find a job to make a living. I was rewarded for being stuck surrounded by calm nature because it silently helped me plant the seed for a new chapter of my life. I still see it patiently growing everyday and I am grateful it took me where I am right now where I couldn’t even expect to be so far. But this is another story. During those seven long weeks, Art Yoga started to flourish strongly, cultivated by our love for ourselves and the necessity to support others on a deeper level of mindfulness. To be continued… LAUGH. SMILE. DANCE Dinny
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January 2021
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