Making God Laugh

My Dear Friend,

In the last weeks I chose to share some of my personal experiences on Instagram, something I rarely do. I made an exception because it feels so important to be reminded of the fragility of this precious human life, and of our absolute belonging to each other. I'm now a few weeks in, and can offer slightly more here. This is a longer text than I usually write in this space. Hope you can bare with me. My friend Anne once shared this quote with me: 

“If you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans”

Halfway through my second retreat in beautiful Tertsa, Devi and I were biking downhill to have dinner with my sangha when a village cat froze in the road. She stood completely still, gazing straight into my eyes as my bike rushed towards her. I flew off to avoid hitting her - thankfully she was unhurt. But I broke my hip and scraped my face and body.

And while I lay there on the road, only half conscious, she walked over, climbed onto my belly, and purred. It was a strange, wondrous moment of care in the middle of the worst pain. 

I was in shock, extreme pain, severely dehydrated, unable to retain any fluids and vomiting continuously for hours. Some of the roughest nights of my life followed, shuttled by ambulance between a local clinic and a room in Tertsa. We only found out later, but my vitals were so compromised from it all that I was at severe risk of kidney failure or serious heart arrhythmia.

“But that didn’t happen, because what I had was family, and friends.”

Back in Paris, Uma, Magnus and Paula moved mountains to get me transferred three hours by ambulance in the middle of the night to an intensive care clinic in Heraklion. Magnus flew in the next morning, and he and Devi stayed by my bedside while I began to stabilise. Five days later I was transferred by ambulance plane to hospital in Paris.

Arriving in Paris

I arrived in the middle of the most intense heatwave. Without AC, the entire hospital floor kept in darkness, curtains drawn against the heat. I shared my hot, run-down room with a beautiful grandmother named Kelto. A practicing Muslim woman who blessed our space with her prayers while waiting for knee surgery. Although we were both in poor condition, we felt safe together. Our naked faces and tender situation seemed to dissolve any distance between us.

“Kelto’s relationship with the divine infused her every breath.”

Quietly being present with her shifted something deep in my heart that I still can't find words for. Over the days I was introduced to most of her extraordinarily beautiful, and very large family!

After more tests and scans, my surgery was finally scheduled, then more than three weeks ahead. I was sent home by ambulance to wait, with strict instructions to limit all movement and put no weight at all on my right leg.

So here I am, remaining very still for weeks before and after surgery, before gradually beginning rehabilitation. I’m told I should be able to return to teaching gently in September when I’m scheduled to give a retreat at Yogarocks in Crete.

There is still a long journey ahead. But although I'm physically very challenged, all I can feel is immense gratitude, for still being here, for being alive and held by my family, beloved friends and sangha. And for receiving health care. Such a fundamental human need, that is beyond reach for so many people in the world. Those carrying me, changing my sheets, checking my blood pressure and scanning my bones. Changing my IV, bringing me water and cleaning my wounds during my most vulnerable moments. They all linger in my heart like guardian angels.

“These everyday Bodhisattvas have taught me what real compassion feels like, and it has moved me in the deepest way.”

What I also have is decades of unbroken practice. Now, more than ever I’m reminded what the power of this practice holds. Because of practice I am not afraid to let go. I know what that feels like. Practice has taught me how to not resist my experience but to move with it. That does in no way mean that I am untouched by all of this pain, grief, helplessness, love, wonder and heart break. On the contrary. I cry. Every day. My meditation practice mainly consists of holding space for my tears. I feel it all deeply and directly. But Mettā Bhāvanā has showed me how hold my tears and my broken heart and bones in compassion. Rather than using my energy fighting against uncertainty, I can gently take in the teachings I'm offered in this tender space of not knowing. This is truly a gift worth sharing. I am eternally grateful to be able to do exactly this as my life’s journey.

Pain and crisis has its own way of teaching, and one of the things it’s shown me, again, is the importance of community. Of holding each other close so that no one has to go through something like this alone.

And I think, too, of how fragile this all is. How much of my recovery and my practice depends on simply having had access to health care and a strong, loving community. A profound privilege of circumstance, and it shouldn’t be. It should be a human right, equally available to all beings sharing this tender planet.

Again and again I circle back to her, the cat. In the middle of a dirt road in Tertsa. She literally stopped me in my tracks and threw my entire life and all my perfect plans around. She keeps visiting my mind stream like a talisman. She may be one of my most profound yoga teachers.

With Mettā x

kia, Paris July 2026