Five times a week I teach yoga. In my classes I encourage everyone to pay conscious attention to their own body, mind and spirit and then to choose to act, move and speak from that basis. I emphasise the role of each person’s ‘internal teacher’. I tell them that I can offer suggestions for their yoga practice but only they know how each pose feels for them. Only they know what feels good, what brings balance where balance is needed, and what feels wrong.

I say all these things because I believe them. I believe that each of us has within us all the wisdom we need to make wise choices for ourselves. I believe that if each of us does the work – or play - to find our own unique balance, our own way of being in the world and our own brand of genius, we will all be serving each other in the best way we can.

I believe all this. I dedicate much of my life to teaching practices that can help people find their way to this place of integrity. But sometimes it takes a German backpacker in my garden to really show me what it means.

I’d just returned from teaching one of my yoga classes when I got one of those lessons. My boyfriend was out in the backyard with the two young Germans he had hired to help him get through a huge pile of heavy yard work.

He’d come across the first of the Germans through a mutual friend who had heard that we needed some help putting in a retaining wall. There was a young German backpacker in Wellington who had just qualified as a landscape gardener. He was looking for some work and we were looking for a worker. We got him out to the house and it was immediately apparent that he was perfect for the job. Not only did have great ideas to improve our plans for the wall, he was also obviously enjoying himself so much that when we took a break, he would be off in another corner of the garden finding a tree that needed pruning or a fence that needed repairing.

He mentioned that he was travelling with a friend and that she also needed work. We told him to bring her out as well and the next day they both arrived. As the day went on it became clear that gardening was not her passion. She got through the work, but did so slowly and, unlike her partner in grime, without the attention to detail that only comes from passion.

At the end of the day, as I arrived back from yoga – full of my theories about each person finding and standing in their unique place – I asked my boyfriend whether he was asking them both to come back the next day. I thought maybe he would let the reluctant gardener go. He said they were both invited back, of course, but he would have to find something different for her to do, something that she would love.

I suggested maybe she would like to do my housework for me, but sadly he didn’t think that would be the answer. He was sure that he could find a job in the yard that she would find enjoyable. It was, he said, his only management rule: Find what it is that people love doing and give them more of that to do.

In that one simple statement he showed me what all my theory about supporting people to find their unique place in the world really meant in the cut and thrust of daily life. For my boyfriend it meant letting go of his own ideas about what needed to be done and instead looking to see what would best serve this person who had showed up in his garden. He knew that what served her best would, in the end, also serve him.

So, once again, our garden and the man who tends it are teaching me what it really means to bring my yoga off the mat and out into my world.

Yesterday I had big plans. I was going to write a new chapter for my book, amongst other things. Instead, because the sun was shining, I did five loads of washing, hanging each out in the sun to dry. It takes some time and effort to get five loads of washing sun-dried in one day. You have to hang the washing wisely, with the heavy fabrics in the best spots for maximum sun and breeze. You have to check regularly to remove the laundry that is dry, making room for the next load. You need to keep moving the almost-dry pieces into the less optimal spots to make room for the new heavy pieces.

There is an art and a rhythm to drying laundry the old fashioned way, and it’s part of a different pace to life here in the cottage. As part of our effort to reduce our impact on the planet, we keep things simple, which means we do many things the ‘old-fashioned’ way. This takes time. It takes time to wash and dry the dishes when you have no dishwasher. But that time, standing at the sink gazing out the window at the garden, turns out to be especially fruitful for creative ideas.

It takes time to lay a fire, time to chop and stack the wood, time to select the smallest pieces for kindling, time to clear the ashes from the hearth, time to sweep away the mess each fire seems to leave in its wake. It takes time to lay the foundations of the fire, to roll up newspaper, to ignite the pile and then wait to see if it takes. There have been mornings when it’s been so cold that I’ve been impatient. I’ve thought wistfully of electric heaters or central heating. There have been mornings when I’ve reluctantly dressed in my warm coat to go out for more wood. But the ritual of laying my fire every morning adds shape to winter mornings and there is no warmth like the warmth of a real fire in your kitchen.

It takes time to water your garden from a tank of rainwater rather than turning on the hose and sprinklers. We use the catchment tank to preserve precious public water resources but it means I need to stand out in the garden with a watering can for an hour rather than turning on a sprinkler for 30 minutes. Some days I think I don’t have the time. But if I put down what I am doing and go take up the watering can, I always find that the time was there waiting for me. The bees keep me company as I water and my ideas have time to soak up the warmth of the sun, ready to blossom.

It takes time to grow our own vegetables and cook from scratch – to boil up the celery roots, carrots, fennel and onion to make vegetable stock. It takes time to slow-cook tomatoes for homemade sauces. It takes time to soak and sprout my own beans, make my own hummus and blend my own pesto. It takes time to harvest all the plums and make my own chutney or jam. It takes time to weed the garden, stake up the peas and harvest the herbs. Some days I don’t think I have time for all of this. But when I put down what I am doing and go take up the garden spade or the wooden spoon, I always find that the time was there waiting for me.

It takes time to do things the old-fashioned way, and I’m not always ready to find that time. But the more I slow down, the more space I give myself to water the garden, chop the wood and hang out the washing, the more space I discover I have.

Yesterday evening I was on my way to a talk by a visiting Buddhist teacher. I was feeling out of sorts. My heart was filled with yearnings for the life that I didn’t have and this was getting in the way of enjoying the life that was right in front of me. Although I wouldn’t admit it, I was hoping that the teacher would offer me a shortcut out of the funky mood I had been in all week.

When I arrived in town, I decided to stop by a friend’s apartment to drop off my heavy bags. I was due at her house for a party later that evening to celebrate Guy Fawkes Day.

Guy Fawkes was a Roman Catholic revolutionary who, in the 16th century, planned to blow up the (Protestant) British Parliament. He was arrested hours before carrying out the plan. It is one of the delicious oddities of British history, inherited by those of us who live in the colonies, that this failed attempt to kill the King and most of the British nobility and aristocracy is celebrated every year with displays of fireworks and great bonfires upon which an effigy of Fawkes (the “Guy”) is burned.

My friends have a long-standing tradition of celebrating Guy Fawkes at this particular apartment where the roof affords us a perfect view of the city council sponsored fireworks.

The party wasn’t due to start for several hours, so my plan was to drop off my bag, pop out to the talk and return filled with wisdom and equanimity, ready to be pleasant company.

Instead I walked in to find my friend busy in the kitchen trying to make up time on a party preparation plan that had been sabotaged by an unscheduled and lengthy work call. So instead of heading off to the talk, I put down my bags and started making dips and cutting carrots.

As we worked alongside each other, I told her a little about my no-good-rotten week. I was mindful of the fact that her father had died only a few months earlier and therefore somewhat apologetic about my comparatively petty concerns. She was gracious in her response, assuring me that her grief didn’t trump my small sadness.

There was space in her kitchen for my petty blues as well as for her deep loss. There was space also for my profound pleasure in hearing stories about a wonderful new love in her life and for her joy at a long-held dream of mine that was starting to take shape.

I’m not sure what the Buddhist teacher would have said had I made it to the talk, but I suspect he would have encouraged us to practice meditation. We would have sat together in silence as we settled into the spaciousness that is big enough to contain everything that arises, whether sadness or pleasure, grief or joy. Instead I found that space in the tiny kitchen of my friend’s apartment.

She may be more retro-chic rock-star than Buddhist teacher, but last night she taught me all I needed to know about being a large enough vessel to hold whatever arises in our hearts and the hearts of those we love.

Yesterday I missed the train. It’s a short story. I was planning to catch the 4:13 train. But there was no 4:13 train. There was a 4:03 train, which I chased fruitlessly along the platform. The next train would be too late to get me into town in time to teach my yoga class.

I spent a moment wondering why, when all the other trains run thirteen minutes after the hour, the 4:03 train had to be different. I spent a moment berating myself for not double-checking the timetable before I left the house. I spent a moment contemplating calling my boyfriend, before I realised that he couldn’t get me into town either and although I wanted a little sympathy what I really needed was a plan.

I considered my options. They were few. I have no car, there are no buses from our village and the next train would be too late. It was too far to walk or bike, at least in the time available. I glanced across to the highway on the other side of the railway tracks. I watched the cars whizzing by on their way into the city. I realised there was only one way for me to get to my class on time. I was going to have to do something I hadn’t done since I was backpacking around Africa more than ten years ago. I was going to hitchhike.

I felt a moment of hesitation. Would I be safe? Was I about to do something really foolish and end up as a headline in the evening news? Probably not. I decided to take a chance on good fortune and the kindness of strangers. I walked to the end of the train platform and crossed the busy highway. When I got to the other side I turned around to face the oncoming traffic and thrust my arm out, thumb up.

I had been there for about thirty seconds when a car pulled out of the village onto the highway and immediately pulled over in front of me. I walked up to the vehicle and bent down to open the door. The driver was a woman in her forties or fifties. She didn’t look up at me but, keeping her eyes on the road, asked “Where are you going?” In the passenger seat was a black curly-haired dog who watched me with anticipation.

“I’m going to the city,” I replied, “I just missed the train.” “Well, I’m only going as far as Porirua,” she responded, “but there are plenty of trains from there.”

“Great,” I said as I bent to climb in. The dog leapt over into the back seat but as soon as I was settled she jumped back and perched on my lap. She was not a small dog. The woman scolded her affectionately and eventually she conceded the seat to me and retreated to the back.

“I’m Alison” she said.

“I’m Marianne. Thanks again for picking me up. I was a bit stuck there.”

All the way to Porirua we talked about composting toilets, wetback wood burners, solar panels, water storage tanks and household sized windmills. We shared an interest in making our homes as self-sufficient and environmentally kind as possible. We talked about the council’s efforts in the 1980s to put our village onto sewage systems, rather than the septic tanks we (thankfully) still have. The problem, Alison pointed out, with a town sewage system is that the developers can come in and build high-rise and multi-unit properties. It’s harder to do that on a septic tank.

As we pulled into Porirua I was telling Alison about the community yoga class I teach in the village hall and she was telling me that she had been meaning to come along for months. We arrived across the stream from the train station just moments before the 4:03 train did, so I ran across the bridge and through the tunnel under the tracks and made it up onto the platform just in time to leap onto the train before the doors shut again.

As we rolled away towards the city I smiled because missing the train is one thing, but missing the moment would have been much sadder.