February 2024 | Imprint — Oceana Mariani

NOTE: This was originally published as part of my newsletter in February 2024. Subscribe to my newsletter to receive the next Om Letter direct to your inbox once a month.

At the end of last year I felt too much overwhelm to put the proverbial pen to paper and as a result, the newsletter suffered some neglect. Having spent the winter holidays resting up on my home island and, having had a few weeks to settle back into teaching, it’s time to return.

In recent weeks we’ve been using the Yoga Sutras of Patañjali as a jumping off point in class. More specifically, we’ve been looking at Samadhi Pada - the first pillar of the Sutra’s. The first pada gives us a wide-angle, ‘big picture’ view of the main subject of the Sutras which is samadhi or, enlightenment. Samadhi pada unfolds the roadmap of the yogic process for us and lays out the routes we can take to reach samadhi, as well as highlighting some of the roadblocks we might encounter along the way. Of course, the idea of living in a state of enlightenment can seem rather unlikely so I thought it might be helpful to give you a reason to aim in the general direction of this lofty ‘goal.’

One of the arguments often made in favour of space travel and the steep cost of the research associated with it, is the fact that a vast number of scientific discoveries have been made as a byproduct. In a similar vein, there are wonderful (in)sights along the path towards enlightenment. Back home I was reminded of just how powerful the small picture of our daily, individual actions can be. So much of that island paradise has been shaped by the vision and ethos of one man: Cesar Manrique. He died in a car accident in 1992, but as an island we have never been more fortunate for his foresight and conviction to preserve this natural biosphere.

Manrique’s vision permeates every part of Lanzarote’s visual, environmental and political culture. From a distance our homes look like little white cubes poking out of the black lava landscape. Up close, the concrete with which these homes have been rendered is often fluid and imperfect - a reflection of both the quality of construction that has been available here until recently, as well as the volcanic rocks and forms that envelop the homes. Homes near the ocean mirror its vibrant blue within the colour palette of their doors and windows. Homes in the agricultural heartland of the island brandish green woodwork. These cues that give the island a visual unity were his doing.

A little bit closer to our London home, I also think of the biologist Jennifer Owen who, with a helping hand from her husband and children, spent nearly four decades studying her own suburban back garden. In the process she discovered four new species of insects that had previously been entirely unknown; alongside dozens of other findings relating to climate and agricultural changes.
Each of us has an equivalent to Manrique’s island kingdom or Owen’s back garden paradise. A place where our undivided attention and good intention can create a positive ripple effect within the wider world.

But if our mind is unfocused and scattered we will fail to find our place within the bigger picture, and even if we accidentally stumble into our spotlight we might not have the focus needed to make an impact. That kind of focus is honed and practiced - we have to know how to steady our own mind and become still enough to hear the answers that lie within us.

Every once in a while it helps to zoom back out and catch a glimpse of the bigger picture. Let the success stories of others be a guiding light to you in moments of doubt and then continue placing one foot in front of the other. That is the embodiment of yoga - small daily actions that seem imperceptible, but eventually they amount to something we once couldn’t even imagine being realised.

With love,

OM x

Monthly Mantra

“I stop thinking, swim in the silence and the answers come to me”

Albert Einstein

February 2024 | Imprint

Monthly Mantra

“I stop thinking, swim in the silence and the answers come to me”

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