In many cultures, especially in east Asia, people have long come up with creative ways to train their bodies and improve their mental health. Different forms of asceticism and exertion in Asian countries such as India, China, Japan, Iran etc are designed to meet the mind and body’s needs for endurance, resilience and a heightened sense of wellbeing. For the soul to be renewed one needs to read, see, hear and do new things. No reborn person has ever emerged from the ashes of their old habits without leaving their comfort zone and pushing their limits. Now you might ask how one can start pushing these limits. Well, one can always start with simply intending the desired change and exploring ways of undertaking it.
Misogi for instance, is a Japanese practice of ritual purification by washing the entire body with cold water, like, say, under a waterfall. The philosophy behind this interesting ritual apparently is to do something one day a year that changes the other 364. For this change to take place then, the challenge should be a real one. Such that fulfilling it seems impossible at times (with a 50/50 chance of success) but never so dangerous as to leave out security concerns. It has to be quite risky and jaw dropping but relatively safe at the same time. An experience of true daring that will stick in mind and set a higher limit for your body and mind. Misogi is about breaking free of the older thresholds and defining new ones (which will be broken in the coming year again).
Kooch, the biannual migration (transhumance) of Iranian nomads and their livestock from winter pastures to summer pastures and vice versa, is another way of engaging oneself in a limit-pushing activity that will be memorable and life changing. Accompanying the agile nomads on their migrational trails through mountains and valleys where one’s adaptability is put to test, can be a difficult and risky challenge for someone who wishes to try a new physical activity and experience a life altering cultural immersion. Anyone who wishes to test themself in living a minimalist life while doing a maximum physical activity, will definitely benefit from Kooch and experience an enrichment that will satisfy their soul for not just a single year but years to come! Kooch, through the various challenges it imposes on the adventure seeking traveller, pushes their limits and calls for a higher level of physical stamina and mental effort. Kooch itself is a movement. A protest against lethargy and stagnation. A journey from settling down to flowing. Then why not make actual and literal what seems so poetically symbolic and inspirational? Why not join the hospitable nomads on their seasonal migration for a renewal of one’s whole being and blooming into the spring of one’s life after the unbearable monotony of many winters?
“It is not madness. It is an effort to transcend the rigidities and the patterns made by the rational mind.”
-Anaïs Nin
“It is not madness. It is an effort to transcend the rigidities and the patterns made by the rational mind.”
-Anaïs Nin