Being Centered.
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 went up one by one and hugged him, we were so sad to see him go. He led a few meditations for us in the morning and some of my deepest meditations here in Bali have been with Andrea leading them.
Even though the week did go by pretty fast, we all seemed like we needed the day off. Mentally we had a lot going on with philosophy, physically we had the toughest classes this week, there were some mornings when I literally couldn't move my body and my neck pain seemed negligible in front of the pain in my ribs, shoulders, thighs and what not! Emotionally, as well, we seemed drained. The ideal off-day for me would have been to just lay in my bed, every morning when I woke up last week, I promised myself " This Tuesday I will do NOTHING and just lay in bed." And come Tuesday, I was up and ready to leave the home stay at 8:00 AM.
There is this lovely lovely lady, Hillary, who practices with us in the mornings and she runs a ceramic center here in Ubud: Gaya Ceramics and 4 of us decided to do a pottery workshop with her. I've tried my hand at pottery now and then and failed miserably. Well failed is the wrong term to use. I haven't really pursued it on an ongoing basis or with any dedication to give myself the chance to learn. So I decided to give it a try again, something in me told me I had to do it, and Hillary is just so beautiful that we felt like we wanted to be around her all the time. And the reason it feels that way with her is because she is so grounded, so centered. That explains the title of this post.
Being Centered hence has to do with Hillary's workshop. I don't know if it's a yogi thing, but we do it all the time. We try and relate everything we see around in the world in yoga-terms. And Hillary did that today. And the four of us, Riddhi, Mie, Yoska got it immediately, we started nodding our heads ferociously in agreement. She said something to the effect of "pottery is about finding the center and holding that strong and building everything else around it". And everything we've learnt about yoga (and life) so far in this training, uses that same philosophy. As long as you have your foundation and your core strong, the rest will naturally follow and you'll continue to build your life around it. Isn't that such a beautiful thought. Someone once asked me, while talking to me about Hinduism, about how I pray and what a regular prayer consists of. And I said to him, "I begin by thanking the lord for the core of my life, and that always starts with my parents, and the people I love and the people who love me, and I request him to watch over them always" And that is how I've prayed, all these years. I use a few mantras here and there, and I do find solace in chanting them or even just saying them in my mind. But the core of my prayer, is about my core.
And so we all met at Kafe at 8:30 this very rainy (it was pouring like CRAZY) morning and Dewa (which is the name of every second person in Bali), our driver picked us up from there and drove us to Jalan Sayan. We spent 3 hours with Hillary from 9 - 12:00 pm and made three bowls (or less), of what seemed or resembled bowls, I guess. She is a lovely teacher and I could see so many similarities in the way she teaches and the way Emily teaches. And they are in fact doing a workshop together later this year that talks about your experience with clay and how the way you work it, has a lot to do about how aware you are about your body. The best part about Hillary was that she gave the four of us her undivided attention when we were at our own wheels and we didn't have to call her for help, she instinctively knew to come to you. Of course it helped that there were just four of us, but she was just so gentle and watchful and made sure she gave us the right cues at the right time. She spoke about how she identifies with the Japanese philosophy and angle of pottery and their appreciation for everything ancient and their disregard for the western concept of "brand new is good". An example she gave was, in Japan, the older and more used a tea cup is, the more value it has. Because it holds within it's memory years and years of flavours and emotions of teas and tea drinkers. Which is a lovely way to look at a teacup. And of course, the Japanese idea of being thorough and perfection in studying an art is something we all could learn from.
It was lovely working with clay, I had a few magical moments, from just the feel of watered clay spinning slowly in between my palms, to how a shape comes together. But the most important discovery was how everything, your own design and this plan you had for a bowl, or a cup or a plate or what not, depends on how well centered the clay is on the wheel. Very similar to how in the wheel of life, you can have all these major plans for life, love and everything else, but it's so easy to go astray if you're not grounded. There were times when I was working in a hurry or thoughtlessly or when the wheel was spinning too fast and the clay would wobble and pull me in all kinds of directions. Same with life, you could be doing great and one thing, one moment of un-centeredness could mess it all up. It's happened to me. One teeny-weeny thoughtless careless moment and I saw my life unravel thread by thread, fall apart piece by piece. And it took me loads of support and help to find that center and be stable again and rise again. Of course, the yoga analogy is as strong and as apt. You could be flexible, and strong in your arms and feet and legs, you could have opened up your hips and warmed up enough to get into a certain asana, but one second of distraction or letting go of that strong foundation and you can come crashing down, irrespective of the years of yoga practice you have.
We picked the colours we wanted for our respective pieces and hope that it will be ready before it's time to leave, or we'll figure some way to getting those to us. The studio is beautiful and there's all these interesting stuff that people have created, all this stuff you can do with clay - I would never have imagined! Hillary's enthusiasm to share what she has learnt and create a space where people could just walk in and work with clay is infectious, you feel her love for it. She has a lot of apprentices, who come and spend months with her and loads of folks who sign up to be a part of the studio and use the space to do their own thing. I really want to visit the gallery as well, but I know I'll end up spending a lot of money in there for what I'm sure is all going to be beautiful stuff.... but I also don't think I have the time! So much is happening!
Overall, It was a very lovely morning and I am so glad I decided to get up relatively early for an off-day and not be a lazy ass and signed myself up for this. Maybe I will now go spend some time at Thow Kwang Pottery Jungle in Singapore, have been meaning to go there for quite some time now. We then head out to grab a quick lunch at Cafe Vespa, which was lovely, thank you Hillary for the suggestion! And then we were ready for the second part of the day. Which was an overwhelming and intense experience. That's coming up in the next post.
To finish off this post, here's something I read online,
"Working with clay is a way to get our hands dirty and our minds clear. We were all mud-loving children once" ~ Majory Bankson in The Soulwork of Clay
नमस्ते
Even though the week did go by pretty fast, we all seemed like we needed the day off. Mentally we had a lot going on with philosophy, physically we had the toughest classes this week, there were some mornings when I literally couldn't move my body and my neck pain seemed negligible in front of the pain in my ribs, shoulders, thighs and what not! Emotionally, as well, we seemed drained. The ideal off-day for me would have been to just lay in my bed, every morning when I woke up last week, I promised myself " This Tuesday I will do NOTHING and just lay in bed." And come Tuesday, I was up and ready to leave the home stay at 8:00 AM.
There is this lovely lovely lady, Hillary, who practices with us in the mornings and she runs a ceramic center here in Ubud: Gaya Ceramics and 4 of us decided to do a pottery workshop with her. I've tried my hand at pottery now and then and failed miserably. Well failed is the wrong term to use. I haven't really pursued it on an ongoing basis or with any dedication to give myself the chance to learn. So I decided to give it a try again, something in me told me I had to do it, and Hillary is just so beautiful that we felt like we wanted to be around her all the time. And the reason it feels that way with her is because she is so grounded, so centered. That explains the title of this post.
Being Centered hence has to do with Hillary's workshop. I don't know if it's a yogi thing, but we do it all the time. We try and relate everything we see around in the world in yoga-terms. And Hillary did that today. And the four of us, Riddhi, Mie, Yoska got it immediately, we started nodding our heads ferociously in agreement. She said something to the effect of "pottery is about finding the center and holding that strong and building everything else around it". And everything we've learnt about yoga (and life) so far in this training, uses that same philosophy. As long as you have your foundation and your core strong, the rest will naturally follow and you'll continue to build your life around it. Isn't that such a beautiful thought. Someone once asked me, while talking to me about Hinduism, about how I pray and what a regular prayer consists of. And I said to him, "I begin by thanking the lord for the core of my life, and that always starts with my parents, and the people I love and the people who love me, and I request him to watch over them always" And that is how I've prayed, all these years. I use a few mantras here and there, and I do find solace in chanting them or even just saying them in my mind. But the core of my prayer, is about my core.
And so we all met at Kafe at 8:30 this very rainy (it was pouring like CRAZY) morning and Dewa (which is the name of every second person in Bali), our driver picked us up from there and drove us to Jalan Sayan. We spent 3 hours with Hillary from 9 - 12:00 pm and made three bowls (or less), of what seemed or resembled bowls, I guess. She is a lovely teacher and I could see so many similarities in the way she teaches and the way Emily teaches. And they are in fact doing a workshop together later this year that talks about your experience with clay and how the way you work it, has a lot to do about how aware you are about your body. The best part about Hillary was that she gave the four of us her undivided attention when we were at our own wheels and we didn't have to call her for help, she instinctively knew to come to you. Of course it helped that there were just four of us, but she was just so gentle and watchful and made sure she gave us the right cues at the right time. She spoke about how she identifies with the Japanese philosophy and angle of pottery and their appreciation for everything ancient and their disregard for the western concept of "brand new is good". An example she gave was, in Japan, the older and more used a tea cup is, the more value it has. Because it holds within it's memory years and years of flavours and emotions of teas and tea drinkers. Which is a lovely way to look at a teacup. And of course, the Japanese idea of being thorough and perfection in studying an art is something we all could learn from.
(Sourced from Gaya Ceramics)
It was lovely working with clay, I had a few magical moments, from just the feel of watered clay spinning slowly in between my palms, to how a shape comes together. But the most important discovery was how everything, your own design and this plan you had for a bowl, or a cup or a plate or what not, depends on how well centered the clay is on the wheel. Very similar to how in the wheel of life, you can have all these major plans for life, love and everything else, but it's so easy to go astray if you're not grounded. There were times when I was working in a hurry or thoughtlessly or when the wheel was spinning too fast and the clay would wobble and pull me in all kinds of directions. Same with life, you could be doing great and one thing, one moment of un-centeredness could mess it all up. It's happened to me. One teeny-weeny thoughtless careless moment and I saw my life unravel thread by thread, fall apart piece by piece. And it took me loads of support and help to find that center and be stable again and rise again. Of course, the yoga analogy is as strong and as apt. You could be flexible, and strong in your arms and feet and legs, you could have opened up your hips and warmed up enough to get into a certain asana, but one second of distraction or letting go of that strong foundation and you can come crashing down, irrespective of the years of yoga practice you have.
We picked the colours we wanted for our respective pieces and hope that it will be ready before it's time to leave, or we'll figure some way to getting those to us. The studio is beautiful and there's all these interesting stuff that people have created, all this stuff you can do with clay - I would never have imagined! Hillary's enthusiasm to share what she has learnt and create a space where people could just walk in and work with clay is infectious, you feel her love for it. She has a lot of apprentices, who come and spend months with her and loads of folks who sign up to be a part of the studio and use the space to do their own thing. I really want to visit the gallery as well, but I know I'll end up spending a lot of money in there for what I'm sure is all going to be beautiful stuff.... but I also don't think I have the time! So much is happening!
Overall, It was a very lovely morning and I am so glad I decided to get up relatively early for an off-day and not be a lazy ass and signed myself up for this. Maybe I will now go spend some time at Thow Kwang Pottery Jungle in Singapore, have been meaning to go there for quite some time now. We then head out to grab a quick lunch at Cafe Vespa, which was lovely, thank you Hillary for the suggestion! And then we were ready for the second part of the day. Which was an overwhelming and intense experience. That's coming up in the next post.
To finish off this post, here's something I read online,
"Working with clay is a way to get our hands dirty and our minds clear. We were all mud-loving children once" ~ Majory Bankson in The Soulwork of Clay
नमस्ते
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