“WHEN YOU FALL DOWN, GET BACK UP AND KEEP MOVING FORWARD.”

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