Insights from my experience of‘The Flood’

Six months have passed since our house was inundated by floods after Cyclone Jasper. We have been waiting for the final decision from the insurance company. I learned so many things from this flood. I went to visit the house the other day. It is surrounded by a big fence and it looks like time has stopped since it was erected. Nothing has changed at all… then I glanced at our garden. Wow! It looks like jungle. The plants all look so happy and green. The Gingers are taller than me, the single Cassava that I planted has now become one big family. I can imagine that it must be a ‘cassava heaven’ under the ground. Our Bananas have become big family as well. I feel a great energy from our garden. It looks like the plants have more life than before.

This massive contrast between the house and plants gave me an insight—I realised that this is the difference between Nature and artificial things. Nature has resilience. Artificial things decay. Of course, I already knew that, but it became so obvious when I saw them next to one another.

 I recall the article that I wrote before, soon after I came back from Japan. My suitcase acquired a tiny hole. I left it in the corner of the room to repair later. At exactly the same time I acquired an ulcer in my mouth, about the same size as the hole in the suitcase. One week later, my ulcer was healed, despite having done nothing about it. The suitcase, however, remained the same. Nature includes human beings and our ability to repair ourselves. Furthermore, only human beings have the extra ability to fix a house. We have creativity and imagination. What we need to do is to use them wisely without disturbing our own resilience. I have another insight to share. My family and I have been so lucky to find places to live since our house became unliveable. So far, we have moved 5 times. I have enjoyed wonderful experiences in every place we’ve visited and learned a lot of different things. I won’t try and list them right now, although there is one thing I would like to share. The first place we stayed was a luxury apartment on the top of a hill overlooking the beach that lies reasonably near our house. This apartment had 3 bedrooms with fantastic ocean views. The insurance company had little choice but to offer this as there were no available, cheaper places at that time of year during the Christmas holiday. We stayed approximately 2 weeks there, then moved to friend’s granny flat close to town. In contrast, the granny flat was small, but it contained everything we needed. It was simple, but tastefully built and very unique as my friend’s husband had refurbished what was formerly his shed into the granny flat by himself. The next destination was another friend’s spacious B&B by the beach. This house had 4 bedrooms with beautiful pool. The next location was a small flat underneath another friend’s house close to town, again, for a couple of months. Following that, we then moved to huge house near a beach a fair distance away from town to do house and cat sitting. Throughout these multiple moves I discovered a very interesting thing. Irrespective of where I stayed, I maintained my same daily routines. These included yoga practice, meditation, chanting and so on. I slept on a mat on the floor, despite the fact there was a king-size bed available, as this mat was perfect for my spine. My discovery was that it didn’t matter what size the house was, or where the location was. I discovered that I could find peace in myself and remain calm wherever I stayed. Each morning, I practise an intensive routine of Knoff yoga and Sanskrit chant. I suppose that this means that my body is my ‘Holy Temple’, so wherever I go, it stays with me. Long-term yoga practice taught me this. Our surroundings don‘t affect us if we can control our mind. I think this is, possibly, the most precious benefit from yoga. To paraphrase the first line of the yoga sutra… “yogas chitta vritti nirodha” ‘yoga is the removing of the fluctuations of the mind.’ I have never experienced moving 5 times in 6 months, before. Perhaps this happened for me to convince me of this principle. I will move again, next week. I am looking forward to more insights, hopefully.