Part 4: The Sun Will Rise

See below for our latest check-in from Tahnee, GM of SuperFeast. If you would like to catch up on the preceding parts to this check in:

Part I (our general thoughts on immunity)
Part II (relevant tips for immunity)
Part III (sourcing and words of reassurance)

 

Mason and I are officially out of our mandatory 'quarantine' time. Mason has been back in the country for two weeks and has had no signs of the virus, so that's good news! That said, the whole country is now in isolation, and I guess there's nowhere to go. So nothing changes. No worries, eh? ;)

 

In other news, we've had movement on the shipping front, finally, expect some good news and a restock by the end of this week or early next. I know it's really frustrating for a lot of you waiting on herbs, and we are REALLY sorry. This is the new normal for now, as the world adapts, so we've adjusted our ordering schedule, and we'll be really onto it. Hopefully, we'll have no more issues once we're restocked in the next week or so.

 

Our warehouse team are still working away, packing your herbs and dispatching orders. I am so grateful for them, as I am sure you all are! Keeping us in herbs. What legends. We have two of our team members with OH&S and logistics skills managing our cleanliness protocols during this time, we've made a page on our website for all the things we're doing. Our entire office team is at home, and we're all getting used to working remotely and having Brady Bunch-style calls on Zoom. Pretty funny.

 

I am not sure how many of you are also staying at home? For us, the first week or two has been a bit messy. Mase and I had to get into a flow together. We especially had to work out how we were going to continue our practices and work without our warehouse and yoga studio to escape to. (I am so grateful we don't have a school aged-kid; that homeschool curriculum is no joke!). 

 

We had to sort out getting food deliveries and keeping a toddler entertained. All of that ended up being OK; we have some fantastic local vendors helping us stay nourished (shout out to Kenrick at Wicca Wood, Dani at Conscious Ground, George at Farm & Co, the team at Wooly Sheep and Nicole at Fat of the Land Wholefoods). Practice-wise, Mase has his mace (lol), his kettlebells, and Bellicon, as well as his work with Benny. I have been practising yoga daily, either self-led, or with Rod Stryker or Tiffany Cruickshank on Glo, or old Paul Grilley Yin Yoga DVDs (did you hear him on our podcast last week?).

 

I have also been doing a lot of Gayatri mantra repetitions. Like, a lot. This mantra is a lovely one in times of madness, I find. The Sun is a bit special in Vedic culture, revered as a God and the source of all life, of wisdom, and of insight. The Gayatri is basically a prayer for the embodiment of that in ourselves. It's also mentioned in the Gita, which is one of the texts Mase will be sharing in our 'fave spiritual texts' post on the socials this week (the Gayatri initially appears in the Rig Veda).

 

 

It's a transformative, illuminating (no pun intended) mantra. You can listen to it here and here.

 

Anyway, enough hippie-dippie stuff. ;)

 

I wanted to write today about some books I've been reading and the themes I am drawing from them - as well as the thoughts that have been ricocheting in my head since Katie Graham asked me to contribute a piece for her website (you can read it here). Katie asked me to comment on the collective shift from Yang to Yin and my thoughts on the current adventure of our times...

In the Taoist (Daoist) tradition, health and illness arise from the relationship between Yin and Yang. In a harmonious relationship, the swing from Yin to Yang is subtle, barely noticed. We adjust our course quickly, are moderate in all things and mirror ourselves against the cycles of nature. Who these days recognises this? Out of alignment with these cycles, we swing wildly or lean too far in one direction. We celebrate what is unsustainable, on every level of being. The sense I have in these times, is that we have leaned too far... READ MORE HERE

Without really meaning to, I've been reading a lot of books about paring life back to the essentials. 

 

In the last three weeks, I've read Anne Truitt's Daybook, Essentialism by Greg McKeown, Satish Kumar's Elegant Simplicity and Creative Authenticity by Ian Roberts. They've all touched on themes around minimising the choices we have to make daily, focusing our energy on what is vital and valuable TO US and contributing something more significant to the collective. They are all a call to arms, a cry for us to find our passions and for our contribution to be of our highest expression, not coming from a place of fear or apathy. 

 

Just last night I was reading the chapter on Finding the Poetry in the Everyday in Creative Authenticity, and this quote by Robert Henri grabbed me: "What we need is more sense of the wonder of life, and less of this business of making a picture."

This might sound limited to the artist, but I think it rings true for those of us who do not paint. How many of us take the time to experience the wonder of life? If we are all truly at risk from this virus, are we allowing ourselves the space and permission to accept what we have in this moment and to enjoy it fully? In no better place than nature do we get a sense of what Shakespeare was talking about when he spoke of, "tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in the stones, and good in everything." This is also a yogic approach, to delight in the wonder of the world; with all its madness, it is still immensely beautiful. Beauty being Truth, the inner resonance that we all recognise. I am reminded daily of the music the birds sing and the breeze through the door and even those dastardly brush turkeys that eat my garden. They're all a part of this place we call home. 

 

There is an excellent Rumi quote I read, "New powers of perception come because of necessity, so increase the necessity." For many of us, the limit, the boundary, actually can lead to immense creativity and expression. How many stories have you heard of entrepreneurs who turned their losses into lessons? Of people who hit rock bottom only to find themselves in the process. It's the Dark Night of the Soul of Joseph Cambell's Hero's Journey. Human cultures have these stories to remind us that the light follows the dark. Of the growth that comes from tricky times. To quote St. John of the Cross, "If a man wishes to be sure of the road he treads on, he must close his eyes and walk in the dark." 

 

Yin and Yang are always intertwined and dancing. The dark and the light. We will emerge, eventually, and we choose whether we weather this time and integrate its teachings as lessons to fuel our collective growth, or whether we continue with the status quo. None of us knows what it's going to look like, the time after the virus. But we can all choose to use this strange isolation to create a shift. Towards a circular economy, a holistic, elegantly simple approach that unites the holy trinity of "soil, soul and society" to quote Satish Kumar. To redefine ourselves in relationship to Nature and the Earth. To consume less and to find within each of ourselves what is truly essential, beyond the conditioning of culture and our minds. To assess our values and share them with our community and make our voices heard. 

 

I am thankful to practices like yoga and Taoism (Daoism) for helping light this path for me, and I hope you find some of that light shines through our work here at SuperFeast.

 

To all of you, my deepest love.

 

The sun will rise again.