Body, Mind, Spirit
This is a post I drafted on March 12, 2016. At that time, I was in Ramjhula, Rishikesh in India. Read on…
Its currently raining with thunder and lightening in Rishikesh! Its so nice to hear the sound of rain and the thunder. Very cooling and really settles the constant dust that is flying around everywhere.
Today is Saturday and the day began with the normal routine – waking up at 6am, clear the bowels (ha, but seriously), cold shower (yep, cold), then hot herbal tea with some natural honey, followed by nasal cleansing with the netty pot and then a shot of water with Neem Leaf power and Tumeric Powder. Life’s good, eh? Oh the healing powers of the nature.
After that, on o Yoga Hall 1, which is where I have Asana practice for 4 hours each day, plus meditation. Within 2 minutes, one of the teachers came in a said no Asana today, we are going on a nature walk. What a pleasant and welcoming surprise. My knee was feeling a bit sensitive due to falling last night while it was raining – I swear I actually have good balance. Trying to avoid the rain (aka water), I jumped to the floor from the third step in an unforeseen puddle and down I went. Got soaking wet, laughed a lot and came out alive. Swollen knee, whatever. Nothing broke and I’m good to go.
On to the nature walk we went – 2 hour walk up the mountain behind our ashram. We were instructed to keep it as a silent walk and so we did – although this proved to be tough for some. Naturally.
… This is where my attempted blog post stopped. I can’t recall what interrupted me or if it was time for bed. To keep it short and summarize the story from memory, I remember walking alone for a while on that walk. Admiring Rishikesh and the small villages from afar. I remember feeling submerged in nature, but surprised that I could still see garbage debris around us, on the sides of the trail… which the trail ended up turning into a concrete paved road.
Ultimately, we lost the leaders, our teachers’, as some of the group trailed behind. At one point three cows started climbing the hill that lead down to the River Ganges. They didn’t care – numb to human’s. Then a group of us decided to walk down towards Laxman Jhula – a small village a 20 minute walk north of Ram Jhula on the main road. To much of our surprise, there was a pack a monkey’s awaiting us to walk through. Or perhaps anticipating us walking through their territory. They are definitely not nice monkeys, although they look sweet. One smaller one actually ran up to my legs and started to grab – I freaked – naturally. Luckily, one of our teachers, Deepa’s, cousin Ravi was around (used to the little devils) and shoo’ed them away for us by banging sticks together. One of the elder monkey’s tried to resist running away, but in the end, did and we were all just fine.
We stopped for breakfast at a nice little cafe nearby, had some real peanut butter, which was a savory treat and then the group of us headed back to the ashram.
Our classes had begun, we missed the breakfast that was served for us and we were late for what turned out to be a movie day. We got comfy, sat and watch the yoga movie and took notes, as good students do. The movies ended and we had our usual 2 hour break in the day before more asana and meditation, followed by dinner and me writing a snippet of a blog I wouldn’t know I’d only post a year and a half later in October 2017.
Here we are. Its nice to reminisce about my time in India. Especially these early days in my training when my journey just began.
More to come… now its time for me to close my computer and head to a medical corporate company to teach them yoga in their office! Dreams do come true, you just have to put forth effort and be OK with taking risks.
What are your zendencies?
~ Namaste
J