Is the woman extinct?

Over ninety years on from Emmeline Pankhurst, the Suffragettes and hunger strikes and gender equality is still one of our most taboo issues. After almost a century of us females battling it out for equal treatment, the interplay between the two sexes has changed dramatically and, most probably, irreparably. What started out as a desire to be acknowledged as equals from a political and legal standpoint has turned into a plight to become the same from a biological perspective, too.

Chivalry and courteous behaviour from a man to a woman can be interpreted as sexist: women want men to treat them like men… but then decry the fact that romance is dead when they are not treated like the damsels in movies and novels of old in private. It seems that what women really want is to be hermaphrodites: a man in the boardroom, a woman in the bedroom. 

The fact that men and women carry out different roles in nature - and thus, must necessarily be built extremely differently - is something of an uncomfortable truth and one which western society tries most adamantly to ignore. It is now almost laughable for a woman to give up a career once she has children. Those who do so are branded as lazy. Women are expected to have careers and fulfil their original function as bearers of the next generation. Can't conceive? No boyfriend or husband? That's what IVF and sperm banks are for, honey.

We spend the first half of our life pumping chemicals and concoctions into our bodies to avoid the encumbrance of a pregnancy. And then when the tick-tocking of nature's biological clock looms louder, we pump yet more chemicals in to try and welcome back said encumbrance.

The very thing that makes us women, makes us feminine, makes men want to stick their parts into us is denied and even detested. That monthly event is seen as a major inconvenience. Men don't have off days, weighed down by bloating, cramping and lethargy, so we can't have those either. How will we get to the top if we take the day off? The notion that menstruation should be circumvented began for me - and for many others - in school when getting an off games slip on account of Patricia (as we affectionately called it back then) was nearly always refused.

The constant fighting, denying and resisting of fluctuating hormones and undulating moods is making the "problem" just that. Women don't want to be women. We want to be men in make-up and women's clothes because being a woman is not acceptable - despite the exponential existence of highly sexed-up adverts, magazines, TV shows, films etc which seem to worship the feminine body. However, look closely and these bodies have more often than not been airbrushed into oblivion, leaving no traces of definitive womanhood behind.

Fighting nature creates conflict in the psyche of women, exacerbating the symptoms associated with PMS, a.k.a. womb fury. The symptoms are not the problem. It is us perceiving them to be a problem by believing it is unacceptable to succumb to the natural rhythms of our body. Indeed, PMS is very much a Western affliction. If we embraced the fact we are women, capable of creating LIFE with our bodies (with a few essential ingredients courtesy of men folk, of course) then maybe we would start to appreciate these vessels that inspire so much lust. 

We need to start respecting and listening to our bodies and be grateful for them. In Syria (not usually lauded for its progressiveness in gender equality), female employees are permitted to take one day off a month to rest when nature comes a-calling. That certainly isn't equality from a Human Resource Management point of view, but it certainly is compassion.

The menstrual cycle is divided into the yin and yang halves. Yin is the female aspect. The intuitive, introverted, quiet part of the month when we may feel more tired, reclusive and pensive. Yang is the masculine aspect (occurring after ovulation) when we are full of energy, movement and more extroverted. Both phases are necessary to carry out our biological function as females. Instead of trying to make the yin phase disappear, we should learn to adapt and work with the two phases. Catch up on some reading during the yin phase; go crazy during the yang.

Next time the usually dreaded day looms, take the time to be aware of your body. Appreciate it. Rest. Eat if your body asks for it. And enjoy the fact that you were born a woman with life creating capabilities.

Downward what? The Misinterpretation of Yoga

"No, I've never done yoga, I'm not very flexible." One of the most common answers I have received when enquiring as to whether someone has practised yoga before. The answer demonstrates how misunderstood and misinterpreted yoga is in the West, and also in the East outside the walls of ashrams. Yoga involves movement and is often held in gyms and sports halls across the land. People wear work out gear to practise and sometimes break out a sweat during class. It must therefore be exercise. Thus, the aim of it must be to be the most flexible, the most contorted and the strongest student in the group, right? Wrong. Yoga DVDs, yoga books adorned with models backward bending into statuesque positions and Bikram yoga have led the majority of people who have not experienced yoga - and definitely some who have - to believe that yoga can be interpreted and practised like a sport or exercise.

Sports are measured purely on a physical level. While there is no doubt that yoga encompasses a physical element, the practice goes so much further. Flexibility, playing with personal limits, breaking a sweat and advanced postures are no doubt an element of yoga… but these are "by-products" of the practice, and not the sole aim. Yoga is a process not a goal.

There does not exist a Western equivalent of yoga - now as essential and integral to my life as eating, drinking and breathing. Few of our physical activities encompass the mind, and much less the spirit, as well as the body. Yoga is holistic. It takes into account our whole being. Believe it or not we are not only our body. However, it is very hard to use words such as holistic, consciousness, meditation, and even yoga, without inspiring a negative knee jerk reaction in most people. They are immediately put off even before coming to a class.

In Western society we have been raised in an ego-centric and materialistic environment: the physical world is all there is. Competition is rife. It is all about pushing limits. Being the best, the strongest, the fastest, the richest. Limits are there to be pushed through and rest is only for the weak. Balance is not an option. We let our egos run the show. We act how we feel we should act, not how we really want to. We even feel how we think we should feel, suppressing what we really are feeling. We are not even aware of it.


A person's original reason for beginning yoga - whether to embark on a path of self-realisation or purely to get a perfect body - is irrelevant. The most important thing is that they are practising. It may take anything from months to years, but its subtle magic will work its way into the life of that person without them even trying. Yoga is a cure all. Mentally, physically, psychically.

Yoga means "union" - the joining and balancing of two things. What are these two things? The masculine and feminine energies in each of us. The left and right sides of the brain. The extroverted and introverted natures. The breath and movement. And on the more esoteric, spiritual level (N.B. spirituality does NOT equal religion), the supreme and individual consciousnesses. 

While one may study yoga for years and keep finding new ways of describing its essence, at its core it is very simple. Feel your body. Notice your breath. Relax. Each yoga practice - each posture, even - is a blank page. Enter it with no expectations.  You, and even the most experienced yogi, will never do the same position in the same way more than once. The important thing is to just OBSERVE what is happening in the body and in the breath. And then relax. That is all there is to it.

Contrast this with the majority of sports where the external is the measurement of success. How fast you can run, how high you can jump, how much iron you can pump. Success in yoga is how relaxed you can make yourself, how deep, slow and rhythmic you can make your breath (and mind) and how aware you are of what is happening in your body. The flexibility, strength, ripped abs and the rest will all come in due course.

In yoga we are constantly exploring and trying to go beyond our personal limits, and at the same time being respectful of how far over the limits we can go. It is completely inappropriate, unnecessary and unhelpful to compare the yoga practices of two people, regardless of whether they have been practising for the exact same number of yoga classes. Yoga is adapted to each person, and not the other way round. What is important is not how a posture looks from the outside but how it feels from the inside.

So why do yoga at all? According to yogic philosophy the body is the manifestation of the mind which is a manifestation of the spirit. The first aim of yoga is to relax. After relaxation comes health of the body. Thereafter, health of the mind and an ability to connect with our true nature: our soul, which connects us to everything and everyone else in the universe and which is always peaceful and happy. According to yoga, ALL disease - from colds to cancer - are psycho-somatic and caused by stress and inner conflict. Yoga dissolves mental conflict, allowing for a healthy body…. which is, after all, what the NHS spends billions each year on trying to achieve for the nation. 

Another question frequently asked of me is "what type of yoga do you do?" To satisfy anyone wondering about the type of yoga in which I am being trained to teach: Hatha yoga. It is a reflection of how entrenched marketing mentality is in our culture that now even yoga is branded. This makes the consumer - and potential practitioner - believe that these styles are very different. Not so. The subdivisions exist mainly as a way to get people coming back to a specific class. The fundamentals of all these yogas are the same. The postures are all the same. What may differ is the sequence the postures are practised in and the pace. The core principles are equivalent. Or should be. 

The mind is an ever-shifting, scattered place. Yoga encourages one-pointedness of the mind by honing concentration onto the body and the breath, inducing the relaxation we so badly need in our stress-riddled lives. If the breath and body are all we observe, there is no room for all the worrying, deliberating and wavering.

And by stress, we are not only talking about life quaking events and situations like bullying, break-ups or bereavement. Stress includes all the day to day activities like sitting in traffic, being irked by the d**k ahead of you in a queue or waiting for your turn to be served in a busy pub. That fist-around-the-stomach rush you feel when you see your crush is also a form of stress. 

Stress is required. But our modern lives are such that the stress response - a cocktail and rollercoaster ride of hormones - is on pretty much all the time. And we have no control over it. It is a completely involuntary physical response to events. Yoga helps turn this, and eventually ALL, involuntary physical and emotional responses into VOLUNTARY responses. We become the boss of our minds and not vice versa.

So, what you are all dying to know: can you lose weight with yoga? Hell yes. 3 weeks into my yoga teacher training course and I am slimmer, toned and feeling fantastic, even though yoga is currently my only form of exercise - bar some gentle walking on a daily(ish) basis. It is not just the calories you burn and the increased muscle tone you achieve through the postures. Through control of your mind you will be able to avoid over-eating. Being more aware of your body will help you realise whether you are actually full and when you are actually hungry. You will develop increased levels of energy so you won't need to fuel what might be a deficit in mental energy with food. And we all know decreasing the calories will bring bout weight loss.

Another aim of asana practise (i.e. practising a sequence of postures) is to put the body in a Sattvic (pure) state in preparation for meditation practice. We tend to fluctuate between either a Rajsic (restless) state or a Tamsic (lethargic) state. The idea is to reach a state of equanimity in which we can maintain a sitting meditative posture for an extended period of time.


Why bother meditating? Because it, too, brings about the health and calm which lead to happiness. And this is what we spend our whole existence trying to achieve through sensual pleasure, fast cars and iPads, isn't it? 

Chai High

I feel like I am on some delectable concoction of valium and ecstasy. I would be content if heroin tasted like this. Something infiltrates the air here. A permanent ether (mist? dust? cloud? smog?) exists between peaks - so dense they look like enlarged bushes: smoke after benediction: the smell contributed by the incense of fruit sellers. It's as if parts of all those other dimensions - dreamt up by science and science fiction - otherwise invisible to us, are leaking out to share our puny existence. The physical manifestation of some God character or divine presence inhabiting our realm.

Animals are plentiful and roam the roads and alleys as if they are lords.

Garden of Eden. Calves nothing more than fur and bone sniff you curiously like care free dogs. Monkeys go about their monkey business- picking fleas and chewing bananas. People make way for nature here. The dogs are daubed with red bindis between their eyes. 

I am on an acid trip, spiritual high. Cliche, but true. Everything is meaningful. I lock eyes and smiles with swamis and reflect back their warmth. Nothing can touch me.

I no longer walk. I drift, ebb, flow and float. I can feel my soul swelling in my chest and it pulls in others. I am handed a beautiful fan made of peacock feathers in exchange for a one or two pictures of me and a few handshakes. 

Arcadia, halcyon, nectar, honey are words that spring to mind. I want to smile and say hello to everyone I see. I do. Glorious chai high. I am sticky with secretions and dirty with dust but it makes it all the sweeter.

I feel as if I could go without food or any other physical gratification for ever, if only I am drip fed this essence from now on. All the nutrition I can ever need delivered intravenously. 

Lying back in Savasana I enter the half world between the banks of sleep and wake and sail away on trips, swimming through space and time warps. A plug inserted into the socket of my brain, leaving my body behind. 

Purgatory

Doha Airport. A stark, shiny-floored, strip-lit hell. The air-conned air is dry and stings my nose, already parched from artificial plane atmosphere. Thousands and thousands of watts pumping to battle and oppose the muggy hotness outside.

The terminal is inhospitable. But sterile like a hospital. Music filtres out from stereos in open plan shops, there to make damn well sure you're going to spend that left-over home currency hogging space in your wallet.

The sound leaks, becomes thin and tinny and hisses jarringly, mixed in with all the other noise pollution. Thousands of shuffling shoes upon floor. Shoes belonging to people from a motley crew of nations. People trapped in mandatory limbo hover and drift and hover and drift like fruit flies, looking just as futile and brainless.

Smug and protected the first class lounges nestle evenly spread around the garish sprawl of the transfer terminal. They have their own teams of be-hatted concierges, dripping foundation and ready to administer polite scorn or factory-made salutations depending on your gold card status. Just the right amount of glass is left un-frosted to afford a view onto what we could be experiencing… but are not.

Queues at Costa clash disgustingly with the mess of Duty Free (disappointingly alcohol-free) making my eye balls throb. No sign of any suitable watering hole that might make my nervous system tingle, blood warm and flow more soundly. Bloody Marys on the next flight shall be my consolation prize.

I am at the epicentre of a people-quake. Souls who would never have set eyes on each other do so here. Tea-towelled Arabs and African queens and Vietnamese tourists. I want to stare at everyone and imagine what their home town looks like. I don't. I'm a frightened, sleep and alcohol deprived rabbit caught in Doha departure hall's head lights. The brightness offers nothing to hide behind. I scamper and scuttle away.

Amid the putrid jungle I find the Quiet Room. The most unexpected and unimagined oasis. No freshwater pools or palm trees casting welcome shade. Instead an almost lightless room: only glow the departures screen, thoughtfully placed at the back and out of eye-shot.

The silence is respected and maintained. So bizarre and blissful to share this space with a few dozen other strangers - from and headed for stranger lands - sleeping, slipping into dreams or sailing the seas of their inner weather.

Reclining chairs face the glass facade that looks out onto the hideous nomads of the hall, coughing and spluttering their way in a procession to and from the smoking chamber. The blindness dealt to them by my haven's dark interior has them peering in and pausing, making me despise them more. But in my cool, calm cocoon I feel like they are the exhibit. 

The cupboard of a smoking area oozes its compacted odours, pervading my sacred space. Through the glass doors it looks like a Turkish bath. The trapped creatures within are sweating tar and plastic meals.

No longer subjected to the glaring and invasive light of outside, I enjoy the time before plugging back in to the crackle and roar of air travel once more.

Up in the air, Bloody Mary safely in the bloodstream, I wonder about why such places were made as they were. Is it to reduce flight delays? Is it a genuine mistake? Or maybe the capricious sadism of an anonymous civil engineer?