Me & Marky
This february 14th will be different from those before. This Valentines day I will be reading a poem at the funeral of my beloved cousin Mark, who died of Leukemia Jan 26th at the age of 37. We grew up together. 3 months apart in age, we spent weekends with our grandparents, summers in the Northamptonshire fields near our farm and suffered the indignity of becoming older siblings when my brother and his sister were born.
This week, as I prepare to take my children back to the UK to say goodbye, I have felt compelled to remind my students of the fragility of life, the preciousness of life. I teach yoga to mothers, teachers, pre-schoolers and high schoolers and in a regular yoga studio. This week I have been teaching back bends – heart-openers – with a focus around the heart chakra. Research recently showed that there are a higher collection of nerves in the spinal chord at the points labelled Chakras by the ancients. The heart chakra – anahata – is associated with the color green. If it is open and the energy flows cleanly, we can tap into compassion, altruism, empathy and love for all those we contact and beyond. When this area is blocked, we find it hard to love, difficult to understand the feelings of others – rather like some of those 3 yr olds or autistic children that I sometimes teach.
This friday I will be with my family, back in the UK. We will gather together to commemorate and celebrate Marky’s life. I find great strength and peace in the idea that our minds never die. Marky was one of those kids who was a fount of fascinating facts – the speed of farts, the size of the blue whales sperm, the age of the trilobite. His career involved understanding such complex nuclear submarines, that most of us could not hope to keep up if the topic ever got onto his work! I love the idea that those geeky parts of him will live on in another boy. That that side of him which gravitated towards the crying baby and soothed them intuitively, even though he never became a father, will pass onto a new young dad. That that side of him that moved in with our grandfather in his 20s, so that our grandfather would have someone to look after and would have someone to worry about, will pass onto that husband whose father-in-law moves in with him.
So, this Valentines day, look beyond the chocolate and flowers. Really look at those around you and open you heart, for you never know how much longer you may have to really enjoy their company. Open your heart. Tell those around you how important they are to you. Be kind and remember
©Tamsin Astor-Jack, Yoga Brained LLC