Suave

The origins of the word Suave have traveled around the world throughout eras of intricate language weaving. Like many of the Yoga mantras and texts, suave stems from Sanskrit. In Sanskrit, svādu, meaning ‘sweet’, is one of the six flavours in Ayurveda. Svādu has a grounding effect and alleviates the excess of vatta (air).

Svādu can also mean pleasant, savoury, palatable, charming, beautiful. Its etymological roots have pollinated the majority of the languages we know in Europe today. Over time, it evolved into the Greek hedos (delight, pleasure), the Latin suāvis (sweet, pleasant, delicious), leading to the Italian term soave and the Provençal suau, as well as the old-English swete (pleasing to the senses, mind or feelings; having a pleasant disposition), to the modern-English sweet, the proto-Germanic Swotja, later into the old Saxon Swoti, old Frisian Swet, Swedish Söt, Danish Sød, Middle Dutch Soete, Dutch Zoet, Old High German Swuozi & German Süß.

My heart’s closest version is the Latin-American Spanish Suave. This version carries its essence in the sound, the spirit and heart of the people who inherited the art of la palabra as “a bridge between two hearts” – a concept in Náhuatl for the meaning of communication and language.

In Savasana, after a sweaty Vinyasa practice, we are invited to embody Suave. The aim of this practice is to reconnect us with the essential quality of our inner sweetness, hoping this connection remains through our day, words, actions, relationships & even through our social media. This essential quality is also known as loving-kindness in Buddhism, or as a practice of “Friendliness towards Reality” (a term wisely coined by our last guest teacher Sarah Powers).

Our era can be characterised by its weaponised use of language, one that pervades our faceless interactions on the cyber-battlefield. It is no surprise that we see the escalation of ideological polarisation, cultural wars, institutionalised religious fervour, regression to primal mindsets and, ultimately, more violence. Integrating our current diverse perspectives and realities into a mutually inclusive future requires the self-reflection of our own contributions. Are we offering bridges to connect our heart or do we just want to be right? Do we want to regress further into tribalism? Or can we acknowledge that our evolution requires us to recognise all those parts of us, especially those which create more problems, and we easily project onto one other.

By Daniela Fuentes