We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of life our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time
… T.S Elliot
The longing I’ve always held for travel and exploration was born into me. Back when I was only a child, I used to cut out travel ads in newspapers and magazines, making scrap art from those unfamiliar & exotic images, lost in the luring landscapes of misty mountains ranges, panoramic lookouts, architectures from another world.
I’d imagined the sights, sounds, smells… the touch of snow. This was back in the days before budget airlines existed and global travel became as ubiquitous as hopping on a subway. I remember taking buses to the airport just to wander about, looking at travellers and their multi-coloured suitcases and coats. I’d listened to announcements over the PA and wondered about the adventures that await them or the experiences they had returned from.
I didn’t get on a plane till I was 21. But I was hooked long before the journey started. I needed so much to explore beyond the little red dot on the map that’s Singapore, the mysteries that laid in store beyond the little island city state on the equator. It was also this insatiable wanderlust that led me to subsequently leave behind my self-contained life, my cosy apartment, corporate career.
After I stepped into my 40’s, something shifted in me, made porous by the lessons learnt on the road – solitude, adaptability, grit, courage, respect, resilience, fear, love, and impermanence. And all that frenzy of looking outwards for mirrors of self-expression started to change course. As I delve further into the practice of self-inquiry and introspection, a different longing begins to take shape… a beckoning from a familiar place, calling out to me to not forget, to remember – of who I am and where I come from.
To retrace the story of my own becoming.
This subtle stirring in my heart a few years ago became a visceral yearning when I lost my father last year. Now the ambers have been stoked into a wild fire of recognition, a deep sensate resignation from the nomadic seeking, to return to the birth place of my karmic imprint, like a fish swimming back into familiar waters.
“Take your attention down into the tiny, miraculous stitching of the life you are creating from nothing, and trust that each small thread is connecting you to the greater body of belonging. One day, maybe today, you will look back on everything that came after your decision to attend to your life like an artwork, and you will see a great number of years symbolized in moons and stained with blood, stretching across a great landscape behind you, and you’ll know you have come a great distance. Here, with your great cape of wound-moons, a piercing presence in your eyes, a living history on your skin, you will know you have always belonged.”
Toko-pa Turner, Excerpt From “Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home”
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I’ll be moving back to Singapore in a few weeks time, after 12 years of wandering to be in close proximity to my family and friends who have stood by me through all these years. I’m also looking forward to bringing more of my skills and practice in therapeutic modalities to serve the local communities in Singapore and around the region.
Starting from November, I’ll be offering regular Yoga Therapy and Integrated Bodywork 1:1 Sessions in Singapore, with the flexibility of in-house, home visits and clinic sessions at Soma Clinic and Terra Luna Yoga.
I’ll also be launching teaching and therapist professional development programs for those who’d like to learn more on working therapeutically with a sensory approach in bodywork and movement.
Singapore-based sound healer extraordinaire Jasz Lau and I will be partnering up again to offer a deeply therapeutic embodiment series of four Somatic & Sound Healing special classes at her lovely new studio The Senses Therapy from November through to February. And look out for the Somatic Wisdom Therapeutic Workshops at the trauma-aware Terra Luna Yoga which caters specifically to women.
For teachers and practitioners looking for continuing education, don’t miss out on two Somatic & Yoga Therapy trainings that I will be offering in Cambodia (December) and Thailand (February).
If you are a teacher trainer or wellness education provider, I’m now available to help you create customised therapeutic curriculum that I can also facilitate or deliver in your existing training programs. See below for more details.
Coming home.
Blessings,
Daphne
This post was originally posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on October 31st 2019
