A Tethered Camel
A couple of weeks ago I was saying to one of my students that I wished I was free to travel to exotic, far-flung places and attend yoga workshops of special interest to me, but how the constraints of my teaching schedule prevented me from doing these things. She said “Ahhhh ‘the Tethered Camel’!
My student is a teacher trainee and in amongst her studies she’d come across the story of the camel that thinks it’s tethered, when in fact it is free to go.
The story went something like this:
It is night time and a Camel Herder ties down his herd but there are only enough tethers for eleven and he has twelve camels. He ties down eleven and encourages the twelfth to lie down with the others, hoping the Camel will stay.
In the morning, sure enough the twelfth camel is still lying down with the others. The Camel Herder unties the eleven camels and they stand up, but the twelfth camel won’t get up. After much coaxing the Camel Herder eventually pretends to undo imaginary tethers. The Camel then gets up!
The moral of the story is that we can imagine we are tied down when in fact we’re free!
Just before Christmas, I met up with a friend and fellow IBMT practitioner to practise Authentic Movement. Over cups of jasmine blossom tea – before moving together, we chatted and I spoke of my longing to travel. Authentic Movement involves moving from inner impulses and it often brings up interesting images. On this occasion, I was witnessing my friend as she moved, and in quick succession I imagined the Angel of the North, Newcastle, then the Corcovado, Rio de Janeiro. “See” she said afterwards, “you don’t need to go anywhere exotic ….you can go places in your moving imagination…and what’s more… this is a much cheaper way!” I laughed and really liked this concept but somehow it didn’t dispel my yearning to travel.
Since hearing the Tethered Camel story I’ve been pondering some of the many events I haven’t felt free to attend. They’ve included my Son’s Graduation, my Sister’s 50th Birthday Party, an auction of postcard size drawings and paintings by famous artists and ‘slebs’ such as: Antony Gormley, Damien Hirst, David Hockney, Bernard Dunstan, Bill Nighy, plus some ordinary mortals like me! A couple of weeks ago I was invited to attend a private viewing of David Hockney’s retrospective at the Royal Academy, which again I felt I had to decline.
I made the decisions to turn down these opportunities and events because I take my teaching and training commitments and responsibilities very seriously. But the Tethered Camel story has got me wondering if I really need to be quite so strict with myself.
I’ve also been mulling over the writings of palliative care worker – Bronnie Ware – and the Five Top Regrets of the Dying. A few weeks ago I read about Bronnie and her patients in The Sunday Times and then we discussed the ‘Regrets’ in my classes. My students made some very interesting comments. One woman said she’d received an email that day saying ‘Lots of people would love to have your life – do you?’ She also said she tries to set an example to her young children by trying to model being ‘true to herself’ and not necessarily ‘following the herd’. I, personally, have been thinking that not having visited those exotic, far-flung places of my dreams, would be a regret on my death bed if I didn’t do something about it.
So I’ve booked to visit Vietnam in April, and to work with an inspiring yoga teacher in London in May!
