Samasthiti

I love star gazing. If you let me be under the sky, I can stare up at it for a very very very long time. I might start humming if I'm alone. I might start talking about something absolutely random, go off on a tangent most times, or I might just stand and stare. There's that poem right, I can't get the name for some reason, what is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare ; or something like that. Star-gazing, gives you that opportunity to just stand and stare. There's something about that. :) I remember, when we were young, mom, dad, Aiyappa and me went on a road trip through Kashmir - Leh - Ladakh, and we stopped at Dras for the night and the sky from there was such a brilliant sight. I could just watch the sky full of stars the whole night. That image has stayed with me all these years and will be with me for the rest of my life I think. Today was a tough day at class.  We were coming out of an off-day. I was super tired. I didn't realis...

That's the question I asked myself after I finished the second part of my day today. And I didn't really know the answer. So today is New Moon and the people ofBali consider the day to be very sacred. There are all kinds of ceremonies and pujas that are performed in the temples and our teacher Emily suggested that it is a very holy and auspicious day for us to visit the water temples or Tirtha Empul . And I really wanted to do it, not because of today being an auspicious day to visit a temple, but also because it's supposed to be a lovely temple and i wanted to go check it out. I don't remember when, but Emily also spoke about a high priestess in Ubud who works with water to purify people. Her name is Ida Resi Alit and she a Hindu priestess, you can read more about her here . And a couple of us really wanted to go meet her. The group started off with 8 people, then trimmed down to 7, and then finally settled at 6. The 4 of us ( from the pottery workshop) and two of ...

I know, i know, I promised that I would write about Octavio. But I just need to write about today and will write about Octavio and his music classes at some point in this blog. So it's been two weeks (and a little more....) and today was our second day off. We all needed it. To be honest the second week did go by really fast even though it was Andrea and philosophy. Like I've said before, Andrea and his style of teaching philosophy is just absolutely beautiful. Almost like he held us all in one big embrace and slowly introduced us to these concepts. Even though I'm pretty well versed with the Bhagwat Gita and relatively ok with  Patanjali's Sutras it was just lovely to go along with Andrea on that journey and then there is something about sitting with 29 other people and feeling their energies and feeling their confusions at times, and also feeling their "omg wow" moments with these ancient ancient scriptures. His classes ended yesterday and the whole class w...

Today was a tough day. Very tough. Nothing to do with the training as such, it's just that some days you wake up with that feeling where you are drained of all energy and all you want to do is lie in bed. I woke up at 6:45AM! Way past my alarm time! Although I managed to get ready in time and make chai for the day to put in my flask AND drink a cup before heading out to my studio, i just didnt have the energy to face the day. I think it also had something to do with my neck pain. I haven't spoken about that, have I? SO I got into headstand the wrong way, well not the wrong way, but just the way I am not used to, and I knew when I was up there that I had hurt myself. So I immediately came back down and went into Child's pose. But it was already too late. I'd hurt myself. And the pain only grew as the day went by. Chris looked into it and knew I had compressed it the minute he touched it (!) and then he said I don't have the curves in my back to support a headsta...

(This is the walk from the reception at yoga barn to our  shaala  (शाळा) , our little container for the duration of the course. It's a lovely little walk :) Well, technically third. I taught Sarah in between. but that doesn't count. Mostly because it was a pathetic attempt at a class. And also maybe because it doesn't feel the same way when it's just one person in front of you. Though it's a good thing to keep in mind. What if i at times, have only one student in front of me? Then? For my third class I had three 'students'. We had to choose a theme and weave it into our class, maybe share a quote or something relating to your theme that makes sense to you and will make sense to your students. Mine (if you haven't guessed from the title of this post already) was Gratitude. What I'm writing here will be a part of my language at the class with my students and partly also my explanation and other tangents for why i ended up with this ...

( This is the view from my balcony as I write my post today) "For a seed to achieve it's greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shells crack, it's insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn't understand growth,  it would look like complete destruction." - Cynthia Occelli We are getting there, slowly but surely in this training. Loads of changes, loads of revelations. And it's just been a week. A week, I feel like I've been here for ages already, which is a lovely thing because I'm loving every minute of it and I don't really want time to fly! But it's a lot of information, there is so much going on that sometimes I feel like I'm in a dream and all these people I'm seeing around me are characters in my dream. We did this asana the other day and we decided to play with our hands and instead of facing the palms upwards, we turned them down and made puppet hands. I feel like that puppet at times...

( this is just a picture of the mosquito net above my bed. i just think it's cool and so it's here!) I've stared at this blank screen for a long time today. Something in me tells knows that I want to write, but as soon as I try to catch all these different words that float into my head to put them into a sentence that makes sense, I fail miserably. Maybe because there's so many different strands to writing what's in my head right now. And I am also trying to make sure I get to bed on time and finish homework (need to teach tomorrow, so have to theme and plan a class) and write this post. So I decided to write about how Im not being able to write, and hence this start. But I now, kinda know. Emily shared this beautiful article ( the crossroads of should and must ) with us before we came out here and I happened to read it on my way to the airport in Singapore on Jan 3rd. On that note, tomorrow it'll be a week since I've been here (hurrah to myself!) I...

One of the things, i was really afraid about coming out here was being all alone and being lonely (because they are two different things). When I spoke to my mother one evening, I shared this fear with her, and she said she didn't see why I was worried, because in her mind I had already done all of this before: going away doing things on my own, for my own. Leaving home, moving cities, finding a place of my own to stay in, finding my own rhythm in life, friends I could depend on when I needed someone right by my side. And doing that over and over again. So what was there to fear? And the more I thought about that, the more courage it gave me. I began to trust my decision to leave everything for a month to do this training. And besides, if I do feel alone and lonely, I'll deal with it. Not new feelings, I've dealt with it before and can do so again. Leigh, my teacher, and I had this conversation about feeling lonely, and having this overwhelming sense of you're all alon...