NOT AFRAID

The image of those words in the crowd in Paris.   Its a pity they didn't spell out courage.   Not afraid is a bit like not ugly, instead of beautiful - its almost there but not quite.

I've noticed in yoga this and last week more anxiety.   OK, its the beginning of the year and there are tax bills to pay for those of us who earn enough to pay tax bills, who aren't celebrities or who have off shore trust funds.   I know a lot of people who's parents are very ill, because its the age - theirs and ours - when this happens.   Some are compassionate and thinking of them, others are resolutely self absorbed, wallowing like pigs in mud.  

'm using a visualisation in yoga of an eagle flying over hills and villages, and towns and climbing up to a mountain.   Its to do with perspective, seeing the bigger picture and not getting lost in the detail.  I got the idea from a drawing Tom did for me of an eagle flying over our home in Najac.    Its beautiful,  Its perceptive on many levels.   Its about being an observer, a watcher.  And I have been watching.  Not judging, just watching.   Watching the TV news coverage, which has been (ironically with the exception of Al Jazeera), sensationalist and irresponsible.   Just like our politicians.   The image of the policeman being shot to the ground over and over and over again like some computer game character being killed off, gets into the head and creates an anxiety, a subconscious one.   And the conscious one is bad enough.   And Cameron, despite his best PR briefing, looking puffed up and insincere, as do they all, realising that no one believes anything they say, no matter how camera savvy it is.   That we are being told to be vigilant and join together against the 'enemy of freedom' - while they check on all our email and blogs and accounts.   We are the most CCTVd place on the planet someone told me recently.    Big Brother is watching us more than it is watching those fakes playing to script in the 'House'  Thats Westminster Parliament, not Channel Four.

I keep thinking of the part of the Charlie Brooker Review of 2014 about the documentary maker who produced a film (I think yet to be shown) on how a politician in Russia is using 'confusion' to divert, divide (and conquer) the populace - turning them to apathy and immobility.    Essentially he was saying we can trust no one.   Well, no establishment.    Putin is a puppet for others (but who are they? are they even Russian?).   The USA, supposedly our close allies, have never been our friends, and yet we still buddy up to them like some mate in the playground who if we're not nice to them, will punch us in the face.   And Prince Andrew, no longer headline news.   Although why Victoria Beckham never smiles will probably still make it somewhere into current affairs (I don't know why she never smiles, but it was a headline and I don't want to know.  They should hire her out for funerals.

So close your eyes, listen to your breathe and be an eagle. Ignore the empty voices of our politicians and the images that are meant to keep us fearful - sold to us by our own 'side' and rise above the fear, the confusion, the manipulation and observe.  

And as one client told me this week after a class 'fly over the hills and mountains and towns and villages, and crap all over those who deserve it - just trust your instinct in knowing who the 'enemy' is. Fear itself.