Feb 27- Things that are Grossing Me Out Right Now

My sink that doesn’t drain well, so there is always a quarter inch of wet stuff. It also doesn’t have a U-shaped drain underneath, and Im on the top floor so my little studio regularly gets the off-gas from the building drainage. Which, in India, is a lot. My first few nights, the stench actually woke me in the night. And now, like everything, Im used to it.

My consistently dirty fingernails. Black feet.

Tea-stained teeth.

Fermented foods. The kind that are fermented on purpose before eating.

Feeling full of poop.

Pimples.

The hotter it gets, the shorter gets the fuse. Something disgusting could just make me want to KICK SOME ASS. I don’t care whose! Interesting how in the states my reaction would be to flee, and here it is to fight. Is it the weather? Survival instincts?

Do I smell and I’ve become used to this as well? Everything smells like Indian food, and I’m sure that includes my armpits.

Rat turds.

Did I mention, speaking of gross, the day after writing a post where I used the Mouse-Death-Behind-Refridgerator in jest, what did I find? Huh? A live one. Rat-friend woke me in the night rustling through my TRASH. I turned on the light and saw its tail sticking out of the trash bin. Threw a metal plate over it. Rat ran, don’t know where.

3AM: After trying to sleep through the rustling, we find Kate, yoga enthusiast, standing on her metal trunk with Indian broom in hand (the kind that fall apart as you use them). Should the rat run across the floor she will be spared the embarrassing, but inevitable scream were it to cross her feet. Should this be a rat riddled with contagion, this is also best. Luckily, Kate helped Peter from Istanbul oust a rat 2 yrs ago from this very flat, and she KNOWS WHERE IT HANGS OUT. There is a bin thingy behind the fridge, in the inner workings of it. The rat waits there.

Déjà vu, I swear it’s the same rat. Beady eye staring out at me from the tray thingy. Oooh, them’s a fightin glance. I ain’t scared. I take all clothing items off the floor, scattering rat turds. I arrange the trunk to catch the rat and send it towards the open door (Peter’s idea). Trash can outside. All shoes cleared from doorway. I poke the broom at the tray with gusto and the rat scrambles!!! Where??? Shit. Like a flash of lightning, gone to its next hiding place.

3:30AM: We can still find Kate searching the crannies of the room, broom in hand. Standing on trunk. Hmm. Sweeping up turds and removing from the room by sliding them onto a piece of paper and shaking off the rooftop (the lack of dust pans here is maddening). A sprinkle of Lysol and a wet rag. Antiseptic handwash.

She gets back in the bed, sure to hear the rustling from behind the fridge. But miracle, she falls asleep and the rat (bless its beady eyes) hasn’t been back.

7:30AM Nice yoga practice.

Add THAT to your yoga vacation blog!

Feb 25- Video Footage of the Goddess is Prohibited

Hiked up Chamundi Hill, 1000 steps to the goddess temple, holding up the saree. Chamundi is another name for Durga, which is another name for Parvati, Shiva’s partner. Durga is the destroyer of demons and rides a tiger, carrying many swords in her many arms. Going to the temple without Robert Moses, especially bringing a few others who haven’t been to temple before, felt like a rite of passage. I knew on this Yatra I had passed into a new relationship with temple-going, and Hindu worship, and yesterday I could feel it.

There is a certain brightness in the eyes that comes after darshan (making eye contact with the image of the goddess at temple). It reminds me of how my eyes feel after I’ve had caffeine or sugar. The energy and excitement of the local people crowding around to catch a glimpse, to make their prayers and offerings, is becoming contagious for me now, after all theses years. It used to be that I was so concerned with feeling out of place that I was too distracted to think of something like God. Over this decade of travel here, and especially twice with Namarupa Yatra, I am finding something meaningful in the act of darshan, something that transforms. I use a mantra as I wait in the line, inside the metal gates that route us along and towards the inner sanctum, just like the gates that wind us along at amusement parks, waiting for our chance to hop on a popular roller coaster. The mantra keeps me focused if I am pushed or crushed, stared at.

The Indian people must be wondering what boons I get from being among their Gods and Goddesses. I assume they must feel quite proud to see westerners who travel so far to touch their Gods. I remember this, reminding myself I am a welcome child of the universe, even here among so much that is foreign. The mantra cuts through the same broken record that has played for ten years as I go to temples. Cuts right through to the heart of it: this is about my Self, God (something more powerful than me), and all the other humans seeking the same thing in this smelly, damp line up.

It’s a metaphor for life, surely. All of us in it together, forgetting we are in it together. It’s impossible in India to forget we are in it together! The consciousness here is collective, personal space must include a general orbit of other people’s heat, smells, sounds, and intentions. When we come together at temple, the intention is same: to catch sight of the Gods and receive their blessing. Our bodies are crushed together and hurried along. One must reach through a matrix of other arms to touch the sacred flame for Aarti. One must crane the neck and lean in over the railing, arching for even a momentary connection with the eyes of that stone or brass statue. There is no quiet, penetrating gaze. It’s a momentary blast, a shot to the heart and –oh! Someone is pushing me along from behind, the priest is waving me along. Put a few rupees on the platter, remember the mantra, move along and only feel what has just transpired.

It is, like so many things here, about the surrender.

Feb 16, A Day in the Life

5AM wake up and head to the shala, listen to Lalita Sahasranama on Ipod. Tired feelings, unable to sleep due to afore mentioned ear-trauma.

7:30 home finished, take rest on floor and pass out for one hr.

Sightings: the usual crows and one falcon on the rooftop. Chipmunks in the coconut palms.

9:30 Soak yoga clothes soak in plastic wash bucket, head to Drs Corner for Chai.

Sightings: Yoga students trash bag ravaged by local dog. Ladies sanitary products on street. Japanese ladies buying papayas. Ganesh buying veggies for his wife’s cooking class. We discuss seeing eachother tonight at Kirtan. He plays Tabla. The chai man is painting the roof of the stall red. He is quite happy when I say, “Red color! Nice.”

“Red color,” he says with a huge smile and points up. He makes best chai and begs me to pay with small change. You know this, anywhere in India, small change is always at a premium. The westerner who pays for chai with a 500rs note should just stay home.

Purchases on the corner this morning:

o One small notebook for Sanskrit homework. I have been using my journal, which should I leave it somewhere could prove embarrassing.

o Unhomogenized regular milk in a 500ml plastic bag (Regular milk is 3% fat and not homogenized unless you buy that kind which tastes like crap and turns to toxicity inside us. One can request, and I do this for occasions: Special More Fat Milk at 4.5% fattyness. At home I believe whole milk is 5% right? So what pray-tell happened to that o.5%? Stuck to the side of the bag? Skimmed off the top for the Gods, more likely. And when the Gods are done receiving the subtle essence of the offering, of course one can drink this. They don’t sell cream or half-and-half. It wouldn’t be right anyways as the tea and coffee are made with grounds boiled in pure milk. It’s always a latte in India!! Hooray!

o One papaya “for today” which means ripe. One kilo chickoos my absolute favorite fruit (aka sapote, it grew on Maui). Two daikon radish.

10:00 Cara B declines my chai invite. Here is our text dialogue:

“Chai. Chai. Chai. Drs Corner.

Toast. Toast. Toast. At Santosha, taste of home.

You are only here one month. You are not eligible for toast. Meet me tonight at the shala 5 regular time.”

10:15 Rinse and hang the yoga clothes on the rooftop line. The cool part of the day is finished.

Sightings: Girl orphans across the way sweeping the street. What are the boys doing? They’d better be doing chores.

Vegetable cart man pushing up the hill while calling out his wares. Cilantro, tomato, onions.

10:30 Blog with you all until my chai wears off and I let the day unfold. Planning a trip to “Stand Up.” Stand Up is a restaurant called Sri Durga Bhavan which is wonderfully famous with locals and students alike. There are a few high top tables where we all crowd around with our metal plates and eat standing up. Very unlady like. This is my first trip where I go unaccompanied. I am finally getting and accepting that western women are no longer expected to cleave to certain local customs. They don’t mind me at the stand up, and they don’t leer. They just watch me eat my idly and check out if I have nice shoes and gold. I have a modest amount of gold, you’ve seen it on my face and ears in Boston. My shoes are local plastic flip-flops, bright blue with pink flowers. Nothing to see here. I take Idly Sambhar, two steamed rice cakes floating in spicy tomato soup.

Toast- humph. Taste of home after 2 weeks? Those girls are going to get a dinner to remember tonight.

3:30 Sanskrit, Bhagavad Gita, and Hatha Yoga Pradipika class.

5:00 I will take team Boston to the Greenleaf for Neer Dosa, which is only served on Fridays. Dahi Puri which is only served after 5. And a number of other local chats. Perhaps you can read about this part of today’s Mysore Life in Cara’s food blog.

6:00 Go say good-bye to George, Jean and their daughter Isabel who are quite gladly heading home to Ashtanga Boston in Cambridge after a long 4 months here.

6:30 Kirtan on the rooftop a block over with Annie Pace.

Feb 15 On Freedom, Beauty, and the Mouse-Death Smell

You know, sometimes I contemplate these posts and it sounds like ooh and aah over the yoga glories. Days go by and we talk about, read about, and write about, and wait for the next…Yoga.

So, I’ll tell you a secret of mine. I can’t believe I’m disclosing this, what is so sacred. I do hope somehow in the sharing we both, yous and I, are enriched.

In the past year I realized I don’t need to do the asana anymore. It was an accident, this realization. Circumstances conspired to keep me out of the yoga for a 6 week period. The first 2 weeks were excruciating. Then I just let it all go, the only way to heal this injury (which was not yoga related, FYI) is to let it heal and do a little physical therapy. I ended up enjoying all the free time I had without doing practice, and the rolling around the floor that constituted my therapeutic scheme. And after 6 weeks, I took practice again. Somehow in that first month of taking differing amounts of practice as I felt out what was appropriate, I realized a freedom I hadn’t known for 12 years.

Asana is a choice, not a necessity.

Now, this assumes that I am not adding much stress to my body that needs to be removed by yoga. Diet and lifestyle must be quite advanced along the yoga ladder for asana not to be important. But what I realized was this:

The Yoga is in me. Deep in my tissues, lodged there like seeds under snow. This body is so trained in the practice now, a consistent, systematic practice that taught my body’s systems how to function in effective ways. It’s like learning a language, surely some review is needed from time to time to keep the chops on, but its right there just waiting to speak again.

The other aspects of Yoga become more important, and should take precedence. It no longer feels appropriate to pig out on asana when energy is needed in other places. Like facing some old conflict, helping others learn this yoga system, or manifesting that elusive quality which I believe should be a hallmark of any yoga teacher- peaceful. Whatever it takes to keep this quality coming is the priority these days.

But I will say this- asana is still my favorite part. Why? Not for the progress of it as much anymore, not only for the ways it transforms me, but for the beauty of it. Moving and breathing is downright gorgeous. For the comfort of it, to be moving my healthy body through a dance it has been making so many years, like a marriage. I like to wear red and hot pink while I practice. I like to be in a very still environment. Everything around begins to whisper of the spirit of Prana. The air is filled with tiny birds and pockets of light. Everything smells like life. There is nothing interesting to LOOK AT. The eyes recede, the ears are listening from the inside. Quiet quiet and nothing matters. God is here.

. . .

Well, that ended up another I love yoga its so special post. I just can’t help myself. Let me just remind though, I still tend to pig out on asana, there is a lot of nutrition there. The transformation coming is no joke, and the work of it is not gorgeous most of the time. Its smelly, achey, and damp. Like digging down dirty to put the foundation before the nice white house goes up.

If you could have seen and smelled the alien that was flushed from my ear after 3 days pain this morning you would wonder who that was talking about birds and pockets of light. I’ll spare you the description but it was surely a mammoth ball of wax (right? Gulp. Dude it smelled like mouse-death-behind-refridgerator.) Certainly some channel is opening there and it’s not fun or pretty. I’m just glad there’s some container to be working in here, and others going through their own alien births. And foremost, a teacher to hold it together.

Ciao for now, and after fevers and mouse-death smell, I am, as much as the next, wondering what tomorrow will bring here at Camp Mysore.

Feb 12 “Yoga Fever”

As I laid in the bed for 12 hours with a sweatsuit on and all the windows closed, I kept wondering: What IS this? If there is a fever, systemic body aches, and no diarrhea, chances are it could be “yoga fever”. I’ve had it before. I felt a bit cool, like I could easily break out in goosebumps, but my skin was hot to the touch, except for the hands and feet. It was when I felt my sacrum and how hot it was last night that I began to suspect Yoga Fever.

It began after the breakfast. Lead Intermediate class was full-on, my first one of the trip. Those of us who were left standing at the end (people stop when they get to the point in the second series where they are presently working appropriately- same as primary series) were taken through the first 4 poses of third series. It was fun and very hard work. I often feel a bit wacky after the Sunday class. Sharath holds us longer in the postures, we move at a steady pace, and we all end working way harder. I end up trying to decide between going home to lay down and eating food. I ran into Erin Cooney who just arrived and we went for breakfast.

Although I wasn’t really desiring eggs, this was one of the spots that serves them and I haven’t any animal protein in 6 weeks. I chose my meal through intellect, not intuition, and I suffered for it. After the meal the aches started everywhere and I had to leave the table. I didn’t feel like moving, but the pain made me restless. I burped up breakfast until 5PM, so it obviously wasn’t digesting. I finally made it home after conference and got in the bed at 6:30 unsure if I would make it to class in the morning and a little scared of what I was experiencing.

Am I going to wake up the night shitting water for the next 2 days?

Am I going to go into a delirium?

My back was so hot and my legs felt like they were trying to detach from my body. As I stayed in the bed, I meditated on what I was feeling, what I was thinking about what I was feeling. Again, suspecting this was not a cold or virus or bad food, but the Yoga Fever. “Well Kate,” goes the mental dialogue, “why do this yoga, why come here? You want transformation don’t you?”

“Yes. I do not want my same hang-ups. I want change.”

“Do you think you can choose how the change will come, what it will look like?”

I had just had a conversation earlier that day about how the Gita reminds us how karma and the nature of creation and destruction, good and bad, are beyond our intellectual understanding. Doing the right thing isn’t always how it seems. What looks like a flu bug may be something else. I surrendered to whatever this was and stopped trying to figure it out or be afraid of it. I instead welcomed it in as a harbinger of transformation.

“Hello change,” I repeated, “have your way with me. I trust you.” And I finally fell asleep. I woke in the night so many times and had some water and peed. 12 hours later I got up and began to move into the morning, seeing if the fever was gone. I felt a bit stiff, my belly a bit sensitive, but otherwise so much better.

Practice was hard, I got nauseous after Pincha Mayurasana and it didn’t go away. I meditated on maintaining my welcoming attitude. That’s the only way here, surrender to the process because you want the transformation.

So Yoga Fever is a fire of purification. As I sat in Badha Padmasana after practice, without thinking about anything in particular, a word flashed into my field: POISON. Like that, in caps. Mayurasana is the pose that removes all poisons from the body and that was the one that worked me today. This Yoga Fever was a detox reaction. Fever is heat in the blood, and perhaps some toxicity came out of the tissues and my body was moving it out of the blood layer.

At this point in the practice for me, its more about the nervous system and the mind. The goosebumps, the heat, the digestion, are all signs of a tonifying nervous system. We do it on purpose and then we go home and take rest. I continue to oil myself and try not to socialize so much or go walking about. Rest on all levels is the way to allow the purification to work on the deeper layers. Energy going outward into others things may stop the process, and with this, I have found, the nerves will pay for it later.

There is a karma here. If I am going to dredge up poisons safely, I must remove the addition of poisons in my life at this time: bad foods, bad words, bad associations. The texts of yoga and Ayurveda tell us what this looks like. The furthur I go with this yoga, the less acceptable are old vices. Bad habits must be removed for transformation to occur.

This yoga starts by changing the body, and everything else must get in line, or we can get hurt. Each series of Ashtanga yoga raises the bar to a deeper level of being that is purified. Ouch. But what’s the alternative? A. Choose a softer path, which I sometimes do. B. Fall off the wagon, which I sometimes do. But I always come back from both.

Still, with Surrender and Acceptance and Patience, all is coming. I really believe that, and in 13 years of practice I have seen it to be true. Those 3 qualities of mind are what I aspire to in all moments.

Feb 8 “Yelbows In”

Today I sat in Bhagavad Gita class and realized I left the stove going, brewing up one of those Ayurvedic decocotions. I had to run out of the class and up the streets, the 5 flights to my rooftop. I could smell the herbs from the stairs. Just in time, the mass of twigs still had enough water that nothing burned. Only my second day of intermediate in the shala and I’m already losing it! Today’s “pinnacle” backbend was already about as deep as I’ve ever come to. My friend Ursula was just saying yesterday, “it comes faster than you think it will.” Damn was she right. Sharath is telling the assistant to take my hands higher up my legs and telling me to keep my elbows in and I’m just trying to tell “YES.” It’s such a wondrous mind-trip, traveling through the intensity of it with trust. Inside the bend, I am not quite sure what is going on, but I do know I’m supposed to keep my elbows in and to balance on my legs while I wait for the center to come about, and then for it to be over! There is a beautiful thing about doing it once a day. You get one chance for all your moments in life and this practice is teaching me how to show up. We don’t beat around the bush, we don’t do all sorts of preparation (except all the days that came before this one), we just go for it. Surrender is imminent.

We push the envelope here once we’ve been practicing for a while, as a rule. I was shaking like a leaf. Really. Bent. I stood outside at the coconut truck and kept quiet. Everyone did, and I felt we were all in a similar zone today. Just the sound of a machete chopping nuts and a few slurping straws. Walked straight back home and chilled out. Just moved through a few simple tasks like washing a spoon and filling the laundry bucket to keep a focus on this plane. But apparently, as the day went on, I drifted off into the place where I leave the stove on while I go off to class. I shot right through the gross to the subtle.

After class, I came home to cover myself in sesame oil and sit in the dark. This is where you find me now, preparing to go do it again tomorrow. It’s been a wonderful, high, day. I brought team Boston in to meet Sharath, 4 of us all together. It’s really nice to have a posse.

Wish me luck with the elbows tomorrow. OM

FEB 2, Mysore.

Welcome to Yoga Camp. Arriving here after the past month’s experiences feels like Club Med for ashtanga yogis. The small area of Gokulum must house over 300 foreigners, most of whom are here to study at the K Patthabi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute.

The schedule consists of daily practice, one’s start time can be anywhere from 4:30-10:30 depending on when you arrived in town. As you stay longer and others go home, you move earlier into the morning shifts. This is followed by “compulsory chanting” with a young Brahmin named Lakshmish who has been around for years teaching Sanskrit at the shala. Students can opt to join Sanskrit grammar and yoga sutras in the afternoons as well. Many are on a schedule where they come to the shala 3x/day. I’ll take only Sanskrit (again) and keep some time for sitting on my towel in the flat doing abhyanga (oil massage- Dr’s orders).

As always, Sharath and his mother Saraswati are holding it down. Sharath is now inviting authorized teachers to assist in 2-hour shifts. This makes me very happy because there is no way 2 teachers can comfortably handle so many students. Sharath is in good spirits, smiling and joking and helping everyone is his amazing way. I think so many years of focused time with his grandfather, and a sincere love for his own practices have made him an amazing steward for the 6 hour sweat-mass here in Mysore. It is an inspiring thing. I am so glad to see they like teaching, as Guruji did.

Me, I am quiet, I smile and give thanks and don’t ask for much. When I arrived, I said, “Sharath, very busy shala! It’s good you are having assistants now.”

“Yes,” he answered, “its good you have come.” I laughed and replied, “You are going to put me to work?”

I didn’t realize at the time that he has been calling randomly on us to help. I thought he was joking. My first thought is: I came here to just practice, no way am I working. Then I am in the room practicing the first 2 days, feeling my friends moving about the room, seeing them helping. Again, I have this sense of family. Since things have gotten so busy in the past 5 years and Sharath has taken over, I have seen him open up the family business to westerners due to a simple need for help. Now we westerners are in there helping each other. Sharath and Saraswati keep on eye on things and correct assistants when necessary, but most of them are already teaching somewhere else.

As I feel into the room with the family of teachers, I realize I too feel a desire to be of service. I want to help my friends do their yoga, give of my time I took to “focus on my practice.” It seems now a part of the full circle for me of practice-teach-practice so I am inspired to teach- teach so I am inspired to practice. The wheel turns seamlessly now, especially because I feel the community in the Back Bay in Boston behind me, and others I have met along the way in other locales. I know they are taking practice with Karen Brenemen and Cara Brostrom (who is here now), Shakti-women in their own right. Their energy, through the dark winter, pushes my wheel forward just as much as my travels here in India. Talk about global yoga.

I am most thankful for the inherent goodness of it here. At the heart of it, the family seems happy. Sharath’s wife brings in a mid-morning snack and the kids come to give kisses before going to school. Can you imagine walking into a sweat-mass of foreigners in crazy shorts in the morning on your way to school? No wonder Sharath is building a house away from the shala, where they currently live upstairs.

Faith in the practice is what keeps it all going. Things seem to change in life, but not in the Mysore room. Same time, we come in and take practice together, support each other, inspire beginners to change their lives as we have, welcome them in. This is what the family is all about. The yoga spirit moves us all along and we keep the wheel turning with our consistent, Divine effort.

Being here is like putting my wheel under an open dam. Spinning, spinning.