Essay - Corpus

Blood moon at dawn

30 July 2018 5 Comments

Sue Wootton

2018_07_28 Blood Moon — Selenelion sunrise: Dunedin, 28 July 2018

We live in Dunedin, on the east coast of Te Waipounamu, New Zealand’s South Island. It’s a beautiful place at any time, but every so often the planets (so to speak) align and gift us some extra magic. One of those every-so-oftens happened at dawn on Saturday morning, 28 July 2018, when the sun, Earth and full moon aligned (with Mars in close attendance) to produce a lunar eclipse.

Dunedin was going to be a great place from which to view the blood moon, but even better, the perfect location for experiencing a selenelion. A selenelion is a rare celestial event that occurs when the eclipsed moon is visible on the western horizon at the same time as the sun rises in the east.

We set an alarm. And so too, it turned out, did half the population of the city. We might be Homo Scientificus on the outside, but we are still Homo Lunus in our souls.

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On the frankincense trail

23 July 2018 4 Comments

Sandra Arnold

Five thousand years ago Oman was the centre of the world’s frankincense trade. Frankincense was traditionally burned at funerals and to repel malaria-bearing mosquitoes in the coastal regions. Other uses included the treatment of wounds, nausea, blood pressure, fever and inflammation. It was in great demand by the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and Israelites for their religious ceremonies. A whole year’s supply was burned at the funeral of Nero’s wife. As one of the gifts to the Christ child, frankincense was considered more valuable than gold. To transport frankincense across the desert, camels were domesticated in southern Arabia. At least one of the Magi is said to have started his journey to Bethlehem from southern Oman.

The Frankincense Souk in Salalah is reputed to be the best place to buy frankincense in the whole of Arabia. The Souk was our first stop on the frankincense trail when we lived in Oman in 2004. White smoke spiralled from little clay burners on the stalls of the Souk, mingling with the scent of jasmine and sandalwood. I was transported in a second to The Arabian Nights of my childhood imagination.

Does yoga support social justice for women?

16 July 2018 1 Comment

Nicola Wilson-Jones

The popularity of yoga has blossomed since Swami Vivekananda introduced its philosophy to the West in the late 19th century. Western women have led the charge toward mainstreaming the practice of yoga, women making up, on average, 80–90% of most yoga classes. It is very rare to observe more than fifty percent men attending. In India, however, the opposite situation prevails. As Deepak Chopra and Rudolph Tanzi say in their 2015 book Super Genes: The Hidden Key to Total Well-being:

Ironically, the practice is taken up mostly by men in India and mostly by women in this country [USA]. In India, the pursuit of higher consciousness is open to everyone in theory, but in practice women have been excluded.”

Because women in the West support yoga as an industry, it is worth asking if yoga’s ideology supports and enables women. Does yoga culture reinforce the objectivisation of women? Does it entrench an expectation that women be primarily maternal beings? Are we advocating for the empowerment of women who live and work in the Indian ashrams and temples? Do we gain purchase from our victim status, or do we choose to be self-determined, self-articulated and self-governed? Ahimsa (to do no harm) is one of the cornerstones of yoga, but are we inadvertently supporting violence against women? [Read more…] about Does yoga support social justice for women?

The capacity to be fully in the moment: a visit to Iran

9 July 2018 2 Comments

Annette Rose

“You are welcome to put your feet on my eyes but I’m worried my eyelashes will bother you.” This is an Iranian folk-saying that conveys how hospitable the Persians are towards visitors, who are seen as a gift from God.

My daughter and I have slipped out of our hotel room and are hitting the streets of Kashan. It is just on dark and a stream of white cars is heading into town. All along the sidewalk free soup is being stirred in large vats and ladled into bowls which runners carry on trays to revelers in their cars. It’s like a giant soup drive-in. We are instantly folded into these proceedings, handed a tasty bowl of thick green soup – which tastes of mint, beans, pasta and chickpeas – shown a place to sit, and an English-fluent explainer fills us in on the details. It’s “falling in love with the last Imam” soup he tells us. What a lovely name for a soup.

Out of the garden

11 June 2018 3 Comments

Grace Carlyle

In autumn I began cutting back the Japanese anemones as they finished blooming. Then I became ill again and the last few still in flower were left to look after themselves. The flowers fell, the tips of the canes where they had been turning to white cotton. This held a novelty for a while, but then they began to look shabby.

I felt the same way, heading into winter barely able to walk from one room to another. Shabbiness in the garden was not a high priority. Keeping myself clean and fed was.

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My father’s case

28 May 2018 2 Comments

Laurence Fearnley

My father intended to retire in September, when he would be turning sixty-two. On the fourth of July he came home from work in agony and went into hospital. He was told he had stomach cancer and he died on July the 23^rd.

My father was a doctor and very tidy, without being fanatical. When he came home from the surgery, he always tucked his case in a dark space beside the foot of the stairs. He placed it carefully, so that it stood upright and was always parallel with the bottom banister. I doubt he ever took much notice of this, he just did it automatically. On the day he came home sick, he dropped his bag in the hall and ran up to his bed.

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