Peace, Yoga, and TP

I want you to know that as I sit and type, there is a chicken that is wandering in and out of the internet cafe. Awesome. :)

It has finally stopped raining, after almost a solid week of pretty consistent downpour. We are supposed to have missed the rainy monsoon season but someone told me that global warming is throwing all the timing off, and we seem to have caught the tail end of it. But yesterday afternoon and today have been dry, giving me a chance to wash the sheet from my bed, which is nice - several of us have found little bits on our bodies in the mornings, and sadly our mosquito nets over our beds are pretty effective so we think there must be bed bugs or fleas in the mattresses (and by mattress I mean tiny, thin bit of foam like a gym mat on my wooden cot - you can't stay in one position for very long or your bones start to ache). I am pretending that washing my sheet is going to make a difference but it may just be one more thing to endure until this is all over. I think if I gain nothing else during this experience, I will come home with an intense appreciation for the amenities in my life, my cozy home, great food, comfortable and clean bed, etc...

What else can I tell you about our accomodations? I am in a small, twin room with two cots and a table and some shelves built into the wall. The floor is dirty - not "you can sweep or wash it clean" dirty but "suck it up, it will always be dirty" dirty, so we are constantly tracking dirt in and out of our bathroom (one big wetroom) and our beds. The bathroom is its own little treat - because toilet paper isn't common in India, you have to buy it from the boutique if you want to use it, and the plumbing can't accomodate it so if you use TP you have to throw it in a bucket and empty it out periodically. It doesn't smell great... I tried it for a couple of days and then resigned myself to the indian method (if you don't know what that is, don't ask). Matt, you'll want to bring some more pocket tissues along with you when you come.

But as I settle into the routine and start to feel a sense of control over everything again, I find I am not as unhappy as I was in the beginning. I now know what I need to carry with me and when, when I will have a moment to sneak away and read, snack, or go to the toilet, what to expect of the classes and lectures, and that makes it easier. I have been feeling more optomistic about making it through my time here (although of course this morning I slept poorly and had trouble getting up and have a headache, so its back to square one). Now, when I think about the amount of time left here, it doesn't make me want to cry the way it did at first. The food continues to be a challenge - I could only eat 3 bites of the breakfast this morning before having to toss the rest away - but there are plenty of snacks around so I won't starve (in fact because of all the snacking I have been doing, I don't think I am losing any weight or anything).

And while much of the course work until now has been challenging (in that is has been so preachy that its hard to take as educational) we seem to be moving onto more solid ground. Our main lectures the past two days have been on anatomy and diet, which is more concrete and interesting to me that some of the other aspects we have covered. We have also begun learning the Bhagavad Gita, Hindu scripture, which is interesting from a historical standpoint, and of course the yoga - next week we start teaching each other, but we are gaining ground everyday. I can now hold my headstand for 20 measured breaths and bring my legs out and back together before coming down WITH control. This morning Eva (from Vienna, Austria) managed to come up into her first headstand on her own ever, and she cried... a measure of how exhausted we all are, but also our excitement at accomplishing our goals. And there are quirky little things too I am learning about... in the sivananda yoga tradition, they believe the mantra's we chant create a certain type of energy that spreads around (this is a simplified explanation - if you want the more intricate version I know a swami from Zimbabwe who can talk you through it for hours!), and there is one mantra in particular that spreads peace (On Namo Narrayanaya). So they chant it for peace but they also believe it creates the same energy when you write it down. So people sit and write the mantra over and over and over, and they collect the papers from anyone who wants to contribute by writing it, and they carry them all up into a cave in the Himalayas where they are kept together for posterity. I think that's kind of cool. I'll be writing a page to conrtibute to the collection before I leave and if anyone else wants to you can mail it to me (although judging by the speed of the mail so far, I may not ever get it) and I will turn it in for you... The address is

Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Dhanwantari Ashram
Neyyar Dam P.O.
Thiruvananthapuram Dist (Trivandrum)
Kerala 695 572
India

Okay, got to run back up the hill, or hire a rickshaw to take me...