Kapha Snorkeling throughout Vata Panic

I'm catching up a bit with the blog.  I was away for Thanksgiving in Florida and I knew that I would not be able to post while I was down there.  I've spent some time thinking about this post and what I wanted to focus on and the theme that kept coming through my experiences and my writing pages was  the intersection of vata and kapha.  Panic and stuck-ness. The freakout in my mind as I work through those simultaneous and oppositional experiences.  Sounds a lot like the challenges of my dosha type and my winter work.

Kapha Snorkeling

Feet in Fort Lauderdale

When I was in Florida, Matt and I went snorkeling. Mind you, I have never snorkeled before. I assumed we'd be walking out into calm water and sticking our heads down in the water to see beautiful fish and coral.  Well, that wasn't exactly what happened.

Biscayne Bay, Miami

It was a rather windy day in Key Largo and we got on a boat that took us about 10 miles out into the ocean. The coral reef was a ways out in the middle of… well, water.  Water all around.  And the wind was strong.  There was a strong current and white caps were breaking all around us.  I looked around and realized that I was going to have to swim in that rough water.  Not exactly the image of calmness I had imagined.

I kept telling myself that this would be a great experience.  Submerging myself into the water of kapha--such a dominant force in my life-- might be a way to learn how to move through those dense and liquid spaces that feel so treacherous in the moment.  The power that liquidity holds overwhelms me. I often get lost in it during the winter season, or at least I get lost in the fear of it taking over.  As I watched those waves, I saw how easily they could take me down, down, down into depths I never knew existed.  Although the water was not that deep near the coral reef-- maybe about 5 or 6 feet, we were not to touch the ground.  The coral would be damaged by our touch, so we need to stay horizontal in the water.  I was scared.  But I went in the water with my snorkel in my mouth,  my life jacket on, and a water noodle tucked under my arms.  I'm sure I was a sight.  I was a bit scared, but I swam.  I kept kicking my legs and moving through the waves. It was exhausting.  I was trying to get enough air through the snorkel as I swam and found myself out of breath quite quickly. It's hard to realize in the moment how much work it takes to swim against the current.  I was scared, though, so I just kept swimming to stay up.  I was not enjoying the experience.  I was doing to do it.  But Matt came over and told me to look down, put my head in the water.  I was so scared that up until that point, all I was doing was keeping my head up and swimming.  But then I looked down.  And I saw beautiful fish--yellows, golds, reds.  I saw spiny tree-like coral. I saw a big flowering coral.  It was amazing.  And I then relaxed. I could really see.  I swam more and moved further and further from the boat toward the coral reef.  I looked down and saw more coral and colorful fish.  The panic was still present, but I was able to mediate my fear by letting to go and seeing, really seeing, that I was in this amazing place for this amazing moment.  Admittedly, soon after that Matt came by in a panic because he had swallowed some water. My worry returned for his safety, so we headed back to the boat. But that moment mattered,  even though it was a brief. It helped me see how much the vata panic is not the remedy to the dark heavy fear that kapha can instill within me.  Instead, I need to use the stubbornness of kapha and the focus of pitta, to help me let go.

The Story of Vata Panic
Frenetic.  Vata is here and she is vibrating uncontrollably. She is here and inside of me, vibrating, making it impossible to feel comfortable.  Making it impossible to feel calm.  I'm trying to sit with her, be with her.  I'm trying, but the mind keeps moving and moving, making it hard to settle down. Making it hard to be with.  I'm trying to remember kapha snorkeling. I'm trying to remember that moment. That brief moment in which I looked into the water and saw the beauty beneath me.  The moment I saw the beauty of presence. I'm trying very hard to remember, but vata keeps vibrating uncontrollably.  She is here and demanding that I move with her. Moving, moving, moving.  I'm trying to be with her, but not join in her frenetic dance. I'm trying to just be with her.  To be a witness to her.  I'm trying to remember what it felt like to look down in the water and see the beauty and feel the calm within.  The calm despite my inability to control the water, control the wind, control how I moved in the water.  I'm trying to find space in the panic. Space to stop and observe.  Space to understand that this is just a moment.  A set of moments.

Silhouettes