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.

Jan 30, en route Coimbatore to Mysore. Super Delux Bus.

The bus: AC deluxe bus, video coach.

The route: Out of Tamil Nadu through the mountains onto a plateau of Karnataka.

Who: Me and about a dozen others.

MYSORE! Shouts a man who looks like he should be on CHIPS. The police always look like it, and apparently delux bus drivers take it seriously as well. He has a well-groomed moustache, an imposing pot belly, aviators, and all the power. He ushers me on.

It’s cookin in the mid-day heat for the next half hour as the AC doesn’t start until he turns on the bus. A few mosquitos meander. A group of four medical school students are giggling in sarees, reading on internet tablets, and carrying cardboard boxes of “medicines” which are in glass and can’t be stowed under the bus. They stand in the aisle deciding where to put them. I say goodbye to my bag as my seat number is chalked on and it’s pushed deep into the cavity beneath the huge white bus. In after it comes a few bales of hay, unidentified paper parcels loaded off the back of a bicycle, and no other suitcases. Everything but suitcases. I wonder if this was a bad idea. They can call it deluxe, but you just never know what you’re going to get. Well, at least the seat reclines. I look for the lever to see the letters PUSH barely visible beneath a caking of oily snack mix crumbs. I cover one finger with the tail of my scarf and try to somehow push without actually touching the food waste. I wish to have a photo of that moment. A Delux moment.

Assured I would be seated with ladies, I end up beside a nice local man with really bad brown poly pants. He presses his head into my leg as he leans down to plug his mobile phone into the charger on the floor beneath my window seat. Now, I can tell this guy isn’t trying anything (I’ve had it happen enough to know the difference now). In the states, a man would surely ask before groping into the dark beneath my legs for a charger. But it’s the personal space thing- it’s different here. There’s always a bunch of legs in the way of everything and we all just make due. Regardless, I switch my seat to any empty pair telling him he can enjoy the charger this way.

As I prepare to sink into a book and pretend I’m not alone on an Indian bus again, the Video Coach begins to earn its name. Blasting into a lame fight scene, the movie begins. Its deafening, and I put in my Ipod. Interesting enough, this is a 5 hour bus ride and the movie doesn’t end until we are almost there. It’s a Hindi epic romance. Not epic in the historical sense, but in usual man and woman dancing around the issue for 3 hours kind of epic. At some point in the ride, my romantic side takes over and I find myself craning to see the screen and waiting for them to GET IT ON already. After 3 hours, he realizes she loves him and chases her to the airport in a jeep. He crashes, gets out of the flaming vehicle and begins to run. He tells the story to a forgiving attendant who lets him board the plane, and he is walking up her aisle and…the DVD skips and blacks out. There are a few moans on the bus, then silence. We sit in traffic on a bridge, which makes me nervous. Its dark and I can’t see down.

To go between the two cities, we must go through a large wildlife preserve and over a mountain pass. At the bottom of the mountain, there is a small Ganesh murti with a priest in white dhoti. We stop the bus and I assume it’s a pee break for the men, or chai for the driver. CHIPS gets down and stands before the priest. I watch the saree girls to see if anyone is going to go for a pee in the bushes. I haven’t had a sip of water for almost 4 hours. None of the ladies budge. I hear a brass bell ringing and the priest boards the bus for Aarti. He is carrying the sacred flame for getting the blessings of Ganesha, and the basmaa, holy ash for putting on the forehead. Everyone on the bus symbolically touches the flame, then the heart, and puts the ash.

Im thinking what a pious bus this is and never seen bus-puja before, when we start up into the mountains and I see why. The sign says: hairpin turn 1/27. It’s pretty much the tightest turn I can remember seeing, and going up steep. The bus feels like its in water, swaying and inching along. We are in too high a gear and the bus halts, rolls back. Behind us is a line of 3 or 4 lorries giving plenty of clearance. CHIPS shifts gears, gives it some gas, and we roll back again. For a minute I’m not so sure and then the bus catches up and we start up and a..r..o…u…n…d. That’s when I see the sign. 1/27, hmm wonder what that means. Next turn comes and the sign says 2/27. And yes, its true, we do it 27 times. I think we make for the clouds in our magic bus. The landscape is sprawling hills and jungle forests, a few monkeys to be seen. I know there are elephants, and maybe tigers out there. The sun sets around 21/27 and I’m thankful for the light. Though I must say, I really wasn’t afraid for our bus- because of the Puja. I knew CHIPS had God on his side, and so did we.

Then of course there’s the going down part, where I would fear for the smaller vehicles in our path as we speed along, down and out of the magic and into the villages and rice fields again. We pass a procession of bullock carts carrying reeds of some sort, ladies with water urns, hundreds of Provisions stores selling the same coconut cookies, packaged biscuits, and soft drinks.

Bathroom break after crossing the pass:

In line at the road side dhaba with the ladies. An older lady in a Mysore silk saree goes in and comes right back out and stands back in line for the other stall. I look at her questioningly and think (duh) I’ll go see for myself cause man do I have to pee. Lights are dim and it takes a minute to distinguish the huge yellow logs floating in the squatter. I pour a bucket to flush it; water begins to rise. I run out and the lady in the silk laughs with me. “Bad,” she says. She comes out of the other stall and I raise my eyebrows. “Go sloooowly,” she says. Wouldn’t be it great to slip and land one hand in the squatter? Thank goodness for the leftover handiwipes from the Yatris. I wrap one on my hand like a mitten and do my business. I have learned to hitch the whole thing up and tuck it under my bra, the kirta tails, front and back, the passport holder, the scarf, the woolen shawl. Double check all hanging parts successfully tucked. Squat while holding pants legs and crotch off wet ground.

Worst bathroom so far, I would say. This trip, anyways.

The irony is that I have my dinner on the bus just after. I ravage both hands with a fresh wipe first, preparing to eat the chapattis and dahl packed from the kitchen at Vaidyagrama. In the midst of it all, I find myself chowing down and watching Hindi romance! Maybe I’m a good traveler after all this time. I think I might blob some dahl onto the push lever of the seat as an “I Was Here.”

The Mysore bus stand burns like a torch in the night. Bright as a Walmart, crisp, modern. I step down beside a gutter of damp trash, retrieve my suitcase, and roll it over whatever is there on the darkened ground to make it to the “information” booth. I don’t see any info, but I eventually see my friend who has come to escort me home. There’s nothing like familiar faces. Upon seeing one, there is always a sense of how much water went under the bridge. Who am I today that I wasn’t when last we met? Can I describe any of what just happened? Do I need to?

Some shenanigans when the key is not there and I take the luggage back down 4 flights. But in the end, at midnight, Im in the bed which has no bedding, under my shawl with a Tshirt for a pillow case. And, like always, when I got there I forgot to clean off the wheels of the suitcase! Just roll that baby on in and hope for the best.

Jan 29- Keeping it Real at Coimbatore

Vaidygrama means group of doctors. There’s about 6 doctors on the campus at all times. The campus is probably half an acre, four “blocks” of double rooms connected by a covered walkway. We are discouraged from walking out from under the covering- its best not to expose yourself during treatment. The 5 senses and the tissues of the body are required to rest. Its not often in this world that any of us rest the sense for even a few hours, never mind a few weeks. The effect this can have is huge. Firstly, the thoughts of the mind become very clear, because there is no distraction. Secondly, the source of neuroses as the mind itself becomes clear because there is nothing else here to trigger it. There’s very little social interaction (though you can go looking for it by sitting on the bench on the walkway to see if someone will come by and talk to you. Beware, a doctor might send you back to your room.)

Speaking of which, its time to go now! More later…

January 17-30, Vaidygrama, an Ayurvedic campus outside the city of Coimbatore.

A goat is bleating somewhere, a baby goat. The sound is drowned out as my ears are filled with green oil, plugged with cotton. I recede into the ringing of my ears, the confusing sensation of four hands covering me with oil. Now I am quietly pummeled with hot, herbed, rice-flour sacks. The number of hands and the confusion of it make me feel small. I am suddenly a baby, immobilized, senses blocked, trusting and helpless. I think of how lucky I am that my parents loved me and held me when I was small. Isn’t some part of us always small and needing to be held?

After the treatment, a Keralan girl a head shorter than me washes my body with a paste made of ground mung beans and a little water. Hot water is drawn from a large metal drum under the tap and poured over me from a stainless pitcher with a large, looping handle. This removes excess oil and makes a mess of my hair. For my time here, I begin constantly in a mung-dusted state. The weight of it begins to give me a headache and I opt for shampoo after 5 days. The towels are Khadi: hand-loomed cotton, loosely woven, and not at all plush. To remove the oil from the towels, they are boiled with soapnut powder.

Four days later it is red rice and hot milk in the sacks. The experience of heat and dry herbs is replaced by an unctuous starch-and-milk paste that makes puddles on the table a half-inch thick. I am being submerged in sweet soup. The sound of it is the most striking, and the sensation of cold that comes as I wait for the next round of hot milk to be rubbed over me. The girls dip the cheesecloth sacks into hot milk over and over again until the milk is gone- on my body or the table. “This for face,” she says, gently laying a layer over my cheeks and forehead. “Then you beauty.” My thought is: what I’m not beauty already? But I know she doesn’t mean that. My skin has been pretty wonderful here with nothing but the sesame oil and mung bean treatment.

Beauty is, like with the yoga, a side effect of the treatment, and a natural result of good health. These treatments are to stimulate, purify, and later nourish the tissue layers that lie just beneath the skin: lymph, blood and muscle. This particular process is gentle and rejuvenating, which seems to be the protocol for me.

My 2-week stay is short, compared to the 3-6 week requirement for complete treatment. Ayurveda is slow, specific, and very effective. The doctor said last night the process is complete when the paradigm of diet, lifestyle, and activity shifts in the mind. Speaking from experience, this can take some time and may well require more than one visit. As I’ve learned it, any small changes in habits are paradigm shifts. Being open and committed to the process helps.

I’ve stopped putting anything anywhere, or taking any supplements besides what they give me, which is a lot. A bitter, oily thing in the morning that makes me gag, herbal wine after each meal with hing in it, and another bitter tonic in the evening that makes me hungry. The weight of the 3-month medicine package when we leave is 12 kilos. I am opting to pick up as much of it as I can in Mysore, but still will have to carry an extra bag on the bus.

Today we are learning how to make ghee from yogurt. The qualities of this kind are lighter than ghee made from butter. They use it in most of the items on the afternoon lunch plate, which is usually a large serving of whole grain red rice, native to this area, and 5 small cups of soups and cooked vegetables. Nothing is raw, except a few cubes of papaya in the afternoon every other day. The food is great, like what I eat at home with more variety and some milk right from the cow. Between this and the lack of exercise, I may even gain a pound or two. We are discouraged from moving around too much as this causes the body’s energy to come away from cleansing and rejuvenation. I do short bits of yoga most days, because I know for me this helps to move the energies about and helps me to understand the process I am going through a little bit. I sure do get stagnant though, lying around all day. If they weren’t oiling and pummeling me, I might just sink as a permanent fixture into the soil.

The mind, however, dances around like always. The first few days it is busier than usual due to the lack of stimulation and the lack of information about what the heck is going on here. Someone is always poking in at my door with tea, medicine, treatment time, or some check in. I find this exhausting in the beginning until I realize there is a slight rhythm to it, give or take an hour. Knowing what to expect is such a part of our experience as Westerners. Many of you know, in India, there’s no such thing. Time is stretchable and events are governed by the cosmos, not by human schedules. I am doing my best to surrender to not being in control of my days, my food, or my health program.

Jan 2-17, the Namarupa Tamil Temple Yatra

There is so much more to filter through after the amazing whirlwind of this 16 days journey. For now, I share what came out first. Although first a shout out to the awesome group, especially the Kripalu Ayurveda students and friends, and Boston's own Arianna (who is a travel and sari rockstar). And soon I will post something about my current whereabouts, the Ayurveda Campus of Vaidygrama on the outskirts of Coimbatore.

Yatra…a sacred journey. That’s what the Tshirts Robert Moses made say. And he means it. The mission, should you choose to accept it (and you accepted it when you signed up and now you are on board): to visit as many temples and holy landmarks as possible in the state of Tamil Nadu in a 16 day period. We travel in a loose caravan of 4 buses, each holding 12-13 people. I am in the Quiet bus, as opposed to the Om Shakti bus full of women from NJ, VA, and others. They have a TV and lots of snacks. We have Ipods and books. The Japanese crew are in the Dragon bus (it actually has a dragon on the side) with their fearless leader Barry Silver of Brooklyn. Their driver is the sweetest, most bumbling, of men.

The mission: start south of Chennai and visit 7 sacred spots, ranging from the site of the Ramayana, to Sri Ramana Maharishi’s ashram, to the Nataraj Chariot festival in Chidambaram.

Ramana’s ashram is resplendent, as it was for me 12 years ago on my first visit to India where I saw a peacock with its resplendent tail up. The cave where he once sat immediately brings me a sense of rest, like I could stay forever. The place we stay, Sparsa, is one of my favorites yet, where I can sit and drink tea on the balcony in the dark, then see the sunrise as we practice yoga on the roof, among the palms. We had a number of amazing rooftop sunrise classes along the trail.

Chidambaram is my most powerful place, the temple of Nataraj, or dancing Shiva. We arrive on the last night of the Chariot festival where this huge, arcane-looking chariot is pulled by the crowd on thick ropes through the streets. The wheels are taller than me and the vehicle is turned by placing a wedge under the appropriate wheel at the appropriate time and pulling a few feet, then repeating the process until the corner is rounded. It takes a few hours to get Shiva through his annual walk around the block. The chariot is about 2 stories high and peopled by at least a dozen priests, and an array of offerings: full banana stalks, flower garlands, and of course, the Nataraj Murti. The crowd is in great spirits and happy to include us in the pulling of the rope, which is a good 8 inches in diameter. We stand around on either side of it, waiting for the drum roll that signals for the crowd to begin. You’d better be ready. My foot stays back under someone’s heel while the chariot and the rest of me moves ahead. After I get my foot reamed in the chariot pulling (there is still a weird bruise) we make our way to bed to prepare for tomorrow’s big Puja.

This temple is presided over by the 300-person family of Dikshitar. One must be born into it; they intermarry, and can be recognized by the side-bun hairdo. Robert has a relationship with one of these priests and has arranged a special Puja for our group. We leave the hotel at 4:30 and are in the temple until 11. It is one long Puja with all the trimmings, even a 7AM coffee break and finished with breakfast served from buckets. And no- nobody gets sick. Here they have a crystal lingam, which is bathed 6 times/day in milk, coconut water, and honey, then covered in flowers, then rice flour. A final rinse and it goes back under cover, the doors are closed until the next Puja. Gallons and gallons of milk cascade over the lingam about 2 inches square, out the spout to splatter my sari before the other devotees press in to drink handfuls of holy milk, or catch a water bottle full, in some cases. I am struck by the opulence (6 times a day!) and I can’t help but think of the hungry people on the street.

Somehow after the marathon day in the temple, I feel changed. I will never recite om namah shivaya in the same way again. It will always remind me of this place, of the ancient traditions still so much alive and the power inherent in this lineage.