No Rain, No Rainbow ~ all good things.....
The group browsing through our manuals and schedules on our first day, we had 28 more days to go! Sigh.
.jpg)
The lovely walkway from the main reception area to Lotus
Flower Rangoli on our first day
Me, doing what i do best, taking a million notes
Very delayed this post. Wonder if I'll remember all that goodness at Locavore! Mie and I spent 3 hours eating and talking, the food was exquisite. The restaurant had an open kitchen, so you could see the chefs and their team work. The staff was so attentive and so knowledgeable about the food they served, not as if they were reading out a menu, but literally like they'd prepared it themselves as they told us what each dish had. So lovely the whole experience. My favorite thing was this oxtail dish, that had the exact same flavours as my grandmom's mutton curry and it transported me back in time. Then there was this tomato sorbet dish, with clear tomato soup. I never take pictures of my food, but Mie took loads, I'll definitely add some to this post when she sends them across. When we eventually decided to get up from our table, we had a very very tough time trying to stand up after all that food. :) But we were celebrating after all. So we deserved every bit of it. I even broke my "I'll be vegetarian for the month" rule with that oxtail dish (so worth it!). The next day was pretty light with our morning practice, the final 'exam' class with the rest of our group and then we had the day off again when group B practiced. I finally went to the spa that everyone was raving about : Cantika, which was a little far away from where I was staying in Ubud, but so absolutelt worth it. Apent three hours there and then I walked all the way back to town, which was lovely. Nowhere to go, nothing to get to, no one to answer to, lovely to just be. These were my last few days in Ubud and who knows how much I would miss Bali once i got back home to Singapore, so I was relishing every bit of it. Two more days. Just two more days. For so long I kept saying 28 days, and it was all gone, we were down to 2 days. That evening Marcela had planned an evening activity for us based on the Grinberg method. Do watch the video to understand what it's about. It's one of those things that I can't really explain in words, you really have to do it for yourself to know what I'm talking about!
A big group, went out for dinner that night to Bali Buda and after hot chocolate (which was me) and loads of ice-cream (all the others), we all walked back home. I had packing to do, so arranged stuff, laid on my bed, and surveyed the amount of shopping i'd done. Incorrigible I am. Anyway, the damage was done. Something in me knew that I was going to shop that much, so I'd paid for extra baggage on my way back to Singapore on Tiger Air (Yes, I'm smart!). I put on some music on my laptop, and opened the suitcase that way lying in the corner of the room for the last 26 days and sat down next to it. And suddenly i didn't want to go back. But as much as I was feeling that, if you would've offered me a flight to Singapore that every moment, I would've been ready to go as well. So I sat on the floor of the room that had been home to me for the last four weeks and let myself process these two contradictory feelings and I messaged someone to tell them what i was feeling, and his response was spot on : " You can't have it all, Nayana". You can't. And so I started to pack. And relived the last four weeks, the classes, the meditations, the people I met, the things I learnt, the times I cried, i times I laughed : just let everything fall over myself. And I smiled and I sobbed as I packed. I'd waited an entire year for this experience, and now it was over. It had been so much more than I'd expected, but it was over. It was bittersweet, that realisation.
The next day after our morning practice, we had a written exam. Well, Emily tried to play it down as much as possible. And maybe that is why were weren't all that tensed about it as well. Everyone was taking it easy.The tougher part, which is the teaching was done and over with and the whole group was a lot more relaxed that day. Although, the thought that this was our last full day together was at the back of everyone's minds. After brunch, we all walked into our lotus studio, all of us walking back on that mud trail from the main reception area to Lotus very slowly, as if trying to make time go slow, cherishing everything that had been nourishing us for the last month, inhaling that fragrance, listening to the water flow down the stream, hearing the children in the school right next to the studio, watching the lotuses bloom outside the studio, feeling the pebbles under our feet as we walked barefoot for the last few times. We watched a short film on Ramdass and then Emily distributed the question papers. We were to work in a group, of 5-6, just to help each other out if we had any doubts as we answered those questions. My group, surprisingly (not), was yoska, mie, wattle, shelby - just because we happened to be sitting next to each other for the movie (or divine providence?) There were some 30 questions, a few of them were straight forward : name three backbends (!), most others were essay questions which needed some thinking and talking about your own experience. I love to write, so i wrote. A lot. Poor Emily and Nanna. Haha. But it was less of an exam, and more like you're writing your own journal. Mie and I finished last. Like literally. All the others finished theirs, went on a coffee break, and we were still writing, and then they came back and we were still writing. Haha.
There's my group during our written exam!
And here we all are! ~ Emily Polar, our star photographer :)
Anyway, we eventually turned our papers in. And the evening class, the last session for that day, was a restorative class by Emily. And we got our bolsters and blankets and pillows and for the next two hours Emily guided us through bliss. I must have dozed off more than once for sure. It started to rain and we pulled our blankets closer tightly and enjoyed these last few moments of life. literally. it felt like that.
That evening, we had a dinner planned with the group at a Thai restaurant. It was nice to see the whole team, together on one big table, like our brunch times. A couple of them decided to go check if there are any places in Ubud that has dancing and music. Tough in Ubud. Really tough. I had some packing to finish and wanted to spend the night in my room, my last night couldn't be spent dancing in some random bar. So I went home, and wrapped stuff up. We'd decided to meet at Atman for coffee and breakfast the next morning. I couldn't sleep that night. The anxiety, the feeling of losing something, the realisation that my morning would no longer start with 30 people in an open air studio meditating and flowing with each others energies, the reality that singapore would be in just a few hours and that Bali and Ubud would be far far away, like a memory. I couldn't sleep. I tossed and turned and sat up, checked my emails, opened my packed suitcase to see if I had put everything in, tried reading, took out my journal and tried recording my thoughts, nothiOf worked. And then around 3 AM, I finally laid my head on the pillow and squeezed my eyes shut and drifted off into dreamland. One last time...
Woke up at 6 the next morning and got ready to go meet my people at Atman. Had a cup of lovely coffee and spoke about things from here and there and everywhere with Marcela, Oliver, Emily, Caroline, and Miroslav and rode with Oliver to Yoga Barn, felt the wind brush against my skin, blow my hair back and looked left and right, taking in these streets that I had walked over and over again the last month, one last time. There was a heaviness in my chest, that hasn't left me since, almost like how you feel when you're about to cry but you hold it back, so you feel that ball in your throat, I've carried that feeling with me. Of course things have happened to add to it after my return to Singapore. But I still remember tears stinging my eyes, clouding my vision of Jalan Hanoman, as Oliver and I rode in silence.
That morning we started with pranayama and meditation a very intense practice with Emily, she dabbed drops of her Joy oil on our palms one last time and no one wanted to wake up from that Shavasana. The prospect of that long table filled with amazing food no longer excited us, no one wanted to move. But we eventually did, no matter how badly you want to hold onto time, it's like sand, it eventually slips away, flowing further and further away from your clutch.
Hillary had made these beautiful ceramic bowls for us that had Tat Tvam Asi (I am that) inscribed on them. She had us sit in a circle with our eyes closed with our palms on top of each other on our laps, palms facing up, and she went around placing a bowl each in our palms. And made us recite one of my favorite mantras :
She also brought with her the bowls that Mie, Yoska, Riddhi and I had made in her studio in that workshop. All glazed and looking pretty. I picked up one that I'd made especially for someone and found myself crying with happiness, as my tears fell into it. Held it close to my heart, kissed it and wrapped it back in the paper she'd got us.
I sat next to Mitchell at breakfast, we always sat next to each other, and he teased me one last time about the amount of food I eat, i looked at him like a guilty child with a pancake in my hand, and he hugged me, one big papa bear hug. That day was all about goodbyes and hugs, and keep in touch, and best of lucks, and I'll miss yous.
After breakfast we went back to our lovely studio, one last time, and sat in a circle and shared with each other whatever we wanted to share, I spoke about my experience with my grandfather, and thanked the group for holding me, supporting me and making me feel safe enough for my grandfather to realise my happiness that made hin come to me to bless me that day at the high priestess's. Everyone cried when they spoke. Yoska, gave each one of us an envelope with personalized messages and a seed inside that envelope, asking us to nurture that seed that we'd all sowed together in Ubud. And then we all started to chant Sharnam Ganesha and were called one by one as Emily handed out our certificates and a small gift from High Vibe, the atmosphere was reverberating with the sound of sharnam ganeshas. It was beautiful. When my name was called, I bowed in front of Emily, touched her feet, thanked her and took my certificate and gift. Got up to hug Nanna, a tight real actual hug. And walked back to my seat, and sat down and stared at the certificate : Nayana Parvangada Cariappa ....... a dream come true.
The group had got two rainbow coloured maalas made for Nanna and Emily, to signify the Shakti Rainbow Warrior Tribe :)
And just like that it was over.
Photographs, kisses, hugs, goodbyes followed and I didn't want to go back. But had to leave right away, as the music started playing and the group began to dance, to catch my flight back to Singapore. Rushed home, zipped up the bags, paid my bills at Jati Home Stay. Hugged and thanked Wayan, and looked back one last time at the homestay as I dragged my suitcase to the main road, where Dewa was waiting with his car for me. We picked up Andra from her hotel, she was flying back to Singapore on the same flight as me, and were on our way to the airport at Denpasar. I'm glad I had her with me. I would've gone mad, my mind wouldn't have stopped thinking, i would've been sobbing mostly throughout the journey. But we had each other. The plane ride back home was horrid, the turbulence at one point was so bad, that the plane literally shook sideways, veering out of control almost, people screamed. Andra was close to tears, we held each others hands, and she chanted, I counted my beads, thought about mom and dad and aiyappa and those waiting for me back in Singapore and prayed to God. After about 5-7 minutes it ended. The pilots apologised and agreed that it was a bad one, you could see the in-flight crew thanking the lord as well. The rest of the journey was uneventful, thankfully, I wrote my journal and then did what I do best in airplanes, stared out of the windows into nothingness.
I reached down to my bag, and touched my prized possessions, the three bowls I'd made with Hillary and the one she'd made for us. So full of love, felt their energy run through my fingers and smiled to myself, rested my head against the seat and closed my eyes for a bit.
My meditation bowl, thank you Hillary!
When the flight landed in Singapore, I thought to myself, back home or back from home?
As i walked out of those exit gates at the airport, I looked up and smiled at someone, and still felt that constriction from that morning's scooter ride down Jalan Hanoman, little did i know, that it was my soul warning me of things to come.
With that, I end these posts about my journey. I'm sure, stuff will come up in a million different future posts, because Ubud, Bali, Emily, Nanna, Andrea, Octavio, Chris, Mitchell and the 29 others I spent my time with, have touched me in a million different ways.
With gratefulness,
नमस्ते
Agnihotra ceremony with Emily and the group. We chanted the gayatri mantra a million times, wrote in our intentions on a slip of paper and with all our hopes and prayers, surrendered our wishes to the fire God, Agni.
Comments
Post a Comment