waterslides and themeparks, crab cakes and hockey games

Hello all you beautiful folks out there!
\i haven't been writing because frankly, I haven't thought that Kamloops in October was really all that exotic and exciting for anyone and you know I would never ever want to bore you.
That being said... there's a couple things to say....

The Sojourn to New York was something else. I loved the city itself. Truly. I love NY. It was a whirlwind 31 hr tour of NY though, of which I slept only about 4 hours. Really, the city never sleeps.
Massachusetts was cool. New England. Had some clam chowder and crab cakes. Stuck my toe in the Atlantic ocean. Warm. Marvelled at the Americaness of everything and mulled over how I hadn't noticed such stark cultural differences before between Canada and the States during previous visits. Is it just me? am i getting older or something? or are Canada and the States less similar to one another than they seemed to be in the 70's and 80's? (of course, the perspective of an eight year old travelling in the U.S. is slightly skewed towards waterslides and themeparks, oh well). Ya, so it was a good trip. Happy to be back home here though.

It is true that I am setting my sights on the Indian sub-continent again for the autumn of 2010. I really miss the writing that is involved with blogging. I look forward to another adventure so that I may take you all with me and we may explore the shores and hills of far away lands again. I would write about my time here in Kamloops but since many of you are already wowed daily by your own personal adventures in this beautiful Canada, none of it is news to you. Not as strange or weird as a herd of elephants ridden over the bridge in Delhi or snake charmers knocking on your front gate. Enough of you are having your own adventures with Canadian wildlife I hear (dad!), with the bears, deer, and coyotes that are getting all up-close and friendly with you and your dog in your neck of the woods.

Canada has a unique brand of wild-ness and adventure that I wouldn't trade for anywhere. Its just that we get de-sensitized to it, it is just normal Canadian life, day to day to us, isn't it? But it IS adventure, if we look at it that way. Just imagine this: to some people on the other side of the world, OUR way of life here is exotic to THEM!

I was at the hockey game the other day. Now here is a distinctly Canadian affair... and this is why I love going to hockey games. I grew up on hockey, just like most Canadians. The hockey anthem was like a lullaby to my childhood days, you could hear its excited melody building to its climax all the way down the hallway from the t.v. to my bedroom where I was supposed to be fast asleep. I would creep out of bed and peak into the livingroom and upon being reprimanded for it being past my bedtime I would plead innocently to stay up. This was my excuse: "but this is my favourite song. Really!".
To be in attendance at a live hockey game is the quintessential Canadian experience. If I were recommending a cultural experience not to be missed for a visitor to Canada, it would be taking in a game, just for the spectacle, the festivity, the fights! What other sport (besides fighting), is fighting an actual valid recognized part of the sport itself? Not to mention the athletic marvel of being able to skate with such precision and speed WHILE handling a very small puck with a curved stick. Amazing! I admit I am a bit of an amateur hockey spectator. My ignorance must have been obvious when, during the game last week as I was asking a million interested questions about the game, my friend Missy turned to me and said "you don't watch alot of hockey, do you?"

Oh, and so the snow bum contest is going along swimmingly, or snowboardingly, whatever the case may be. There are some really great entries, great videos submitted and I wish everyone the best of luck. I can't say enough thank you's to those of you who wrote in your comments. wow. thanks. You guys are amazing. Truly.

And my yoga classes are underway at Let's Move Studio here in Kamloops, BC (http://www.letsmovestudio.com/)
if you are in Kamloops drop in for a class, all levels, first class is free of course
Tuesday nights at 6:45
and Wednesday at 10am
don't be shy!

Lastly, I just wanted to say....

Dream seeker, story keeper
Soul weeper, subtle teacher

Spirit dancer, song believer
Life creator, vision peeker

Plate breaker, kitchen sweeper
Camp flagger, river leaper

Chance taker, silent preacher
Fun flavour, rythm shaker

Love talker, omen watcher
Take me higher, hawk flyer.

snow bum canada

So hello everyone.
Hope you all had a fabulous summer.
Here's the latest hijinx I've been up to:
I have entered this contest called "snow bum canada" where the prize is 3 months stay up at Sun Peaks, season's pass and a few other yummy perks as well, in exchange for being a sort of on hill media rep for the months of january, february, and march. I just submitted my entry and my youtube video is posted as well, you can check it out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c_YgC-jRNQ
i'm super stoked!
You can also go to http://www.snowbumcanada.com/entries to support me or leave a comment about my entry because they will consider that feedback in their decision making process. And if you've ever been riding with me, make sure to mention what a highly skilled snowboarder I am.

pretty fun. I just entered for fun so we'll see what happens ya?

So the last thing they wanted me to do to is to somehow convey my skiing or snowboarding ability through the computer. And since I don't have a video or even a photo of me ripping it up up there in the mountains (and i refuse to cheat with someone else's shredding video or pic), I thought I'd write them a sampling of my writing... about where I like to take my board in the snow.
so here it is:

How to communicate my snowboarding ability….hmmmm. Well, if given the choice, I would ride powder (Sun Peaks Champagne Special), steep and as untouched as humanly possible, of course. I like trees where there are no tracks; call me crazy. I like to catch a little air, but I’m not all that kamikaze about it. I can ride down a black diamond with some semblance of style and a smile on my face, as long as it is not covered in ice, then it’s not so pretty to watch. Moguls aren’t my idea of a good time. But my favourite thing is those bottomless days when you are leaning so far back; all you can see is bluebird sky in between the face shots. That’s what we live for. Isn’t it? So you kind of get the idea of my ability I hope.

When I used to live up at Sun Peaks, I used to get a kick out of playing unofficial tour guide to visitors unfamiliar with the mountain. It was so interesting to meet people and then be able to share a bit of my home mountain with them and give them tips on the good runs (I know, the locals are gonna lynch me for this. Don’t worry, I never give up the secret, secret spots). I even remember skiing at Sun Peaks before, when it was little Tod Mountain.

I have great blogging skills, I think I have decent writing skills (man I hope those four years of university didn’t go to waste), and I’m great with people and love to be outside on the mountain in the fresh air. I can type fast and my computer skills are excellent.

As you can see from my video, I could do this job standing on my head.

new york

oh god,! its new york!!!

i can't believe i'm here.

its larger than life.

bigger than t.v. or movies.

new york is STEAMY! hot and humid.

it truly is the city that doesn't sleep.

i am impressed by new york. it is exactly like in the movies or t.v. but LARGER than life.

i bought a hop on hop off tour bus pass for the day to get around fast and easy and see as much as i can in one day. its probably the most touristy thing i've ever done in my life.

the hostel is good.

the trip here was constant glitches.

from the bus out of kamloops breaking down, we had to turn around and go back to kamloops, 3 hours delayed.

flight out of vancouver was one hour delayed and the flight out of dallas to new york was 4 hours delayed!!! put my into new york at 1am . one lucky stroke: i hooked up with an aussie couple who shared a 40 dollar taxi to manhattan with me. phew!

but when i got to the hostel, they only had my booking for the second night, not the first night.

turned out well though because she put me in a 2 bed room all by myself. for the same price.

just rolling with the punches.

new yorkers are tremendously friendly so far,

times square is where i am staying.

amazing!!

gottta go see stuff.

a New York minute

Just a little update.

I'm home in Kamloops now. Life is good. Lots of camping and summer fun.

Next stop is.... New York, New York. I know it's crazy and it seems like I travel all the time but I don't. I just had the money put aside to take the yoga therapy certification program that I wanted and I thought "what am I waiting for? do it now, before I slowly fritter the money away on other things. No time like the present, yadda, yadda".

So I fly to New York to go to Kripalu which is in Massachusettes actually. The training is one month intensive and residential and then I will be a certified yoga therapist. Tadaah!! Very pleased.

I will spend one day in New York City for requisite sightseeing and then hop a bus to the Kripalu Centre. Never thought I would go to New York.

I fly August 21, one month tomorrow.

Hope everyone's summer is filled with sun and fun and good living.

peace to all

July 2009 update

Happy summer everybody!
The sun is shining and people are smiling.

Stay tuned for another foray into India.
Next proposed trip: fall/winter 2010.
..........The motherland is calling.........

Home

Well I'm back. Its almost been a week since i got up at 4am and boarded the train for Delhi.
Back in Canada, I haven't really left my house much yet except to walk the dog. I'm still marvelling at the miracles of modern technology. It's all very space-age and shiney. I am making my way into it slowly to ease the decompression process.
It is exciting and there is so much to explore. The air smells amazing and fresh here. The air is so different. The air smells new and freshly washed. The air in India is like the air is infused with the ancientness of the country and all the souls that lived and died there for 9,000 years. Here it just smells like spring trees and rivers.
I did ride the bike to the grocery store yesterday. That was a thrill. The simple things are so new. So I am savouring their novelty like I am a child who has ridden her bike to the store for the first time in her life. That is a bit how it feels.... yet at the same time, it is oddly familiar, like I went there in a dream once before.
The grocery store was stocked FULL of so many things. So Many Things. It was amazing.
If I have bought any groceries in India it was from a grizzled old man stooped next to a cart that maybe held a selection of about 12 different items: eggplants, zucchini, cilantro, tomotos, cucumbers, ginger, potatos, okra... and perhaps, if he had really branched out, he has a few fruits on there too: apples, oranges, bananas, guavas or mangos.
Then I would have to find the little notch in the wall place that sold the dried fruits, nuts, beans and rice. Here they would also sell candles and matches and laundry soap if you needed it. But everything is behind the counter, so you shop by pointing and miming out the items you need. Also by saying the English word to go with it, hoping that somehow the connection will be made. And usually it is. Sometimes it is not and then, not knowing if it is your inconvenient and uncouth lack of Hindi skills that has caught you up or simply that he does not carry that particular item, you ramble on down the street looking for the next store to inquire within. This is shopping in India. Often times they won't have the item and they will tell you "come back tomorrow ma'am, tomorrow" and they will somehow magically procur said item by buying it from somewhere else nearby (instead of just sending you to that place directly). Always the middle-man looking to make a rupee.

Oh, and my first day back I had to drive our mechanic back to his shop in the van. That was fun. Driving. Just like riding a bike apparently. Didn't even think about it.
I didn't drive while I was in India, that would have been just plain stupid.
Driving in India is clearly a skill you develop from birth, in your blood, as a citizen of that country, and not a skill that can be acquired this late in one's life, IF one wants to continue living, this life.

It IS nice not to have internet that is crashing now, every third of fourth email, or that is fatally subject to frequent power cuts. No, it is nice to clickity-clack away with full confidence in the fact that the last 30 minutes of "work" is not going to be sucked into cyberspace.... blank screen in front of you. It's a nice feeling.
I will probably go through a week or two here of everything being a novelty and then there will be a period of homesick and nostalgia for life in India for awhile, and then life will pretty much go back to "normal".
I am not done with India yet, and she is not done with me.
As I parted with the people whose warmth and hospitality cradled me for 8 months, I heard myself responding to their asking "when are you coming back?" with the words "next year, next year!". Words out of my mouth without me even thinking about them. So I guess I better get saving.

What miracle is this?

I really had nothing going for me.... a song and a prayer... and believe me, I did pray, very hard, for a few days now.
A small miracle has occured. The gods have granted me one way passage, India to Vancouver.
I just got off the phone. I couldn't believe the words I heard: "we are booking your seat for this evenings flight and cancelling the May 18th". Could this be true? Am I hearing this correctly? I must have called the airline 20 times in the past two weeks. I was getting used to hearing "extremely full ma'am", "flight is yet unconfirmed" "you are still on the waitlist (on the highest priority)" "please call back next week, tomorrow, tonight at 6".
But by some minor/major miracle, today he said yes. Today, 7 hours before departure, they said yes! So i gotta go, i gotta get outta here. I'm printing my ticket and i'm gone.
bye, bye Delhi,
bye, bye India,
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your love and generosity and gentleness.
I'll be back.....

Delhi denizens

My doorman says it is 44 degrees. So i had to come out and see what 44 degrees feels like.

Surprisingly it's not that hot feeling. Kamloops at 36, i swear, feels hotter than this. It must have something to do with the ozone layer over Canada being thinner than here, or something, cause this is just weird.

So I'm at an internet place down the street now. Where internet costs a proper 30 rupees again. Of course my hotel charges double for the convenience of not having to step foot outside the door.

Aaaah, the adventures of travelling.

I have just handed off my passport, with some intense discussion, to the owner of the internet travel agent place so they can make a photocopy. Standard procedure. And I laugh as I do it. I have run into this before. They keep a strict account of who exactly goes online and when, due to a string of internet crimes (!!??). Apparently the police can come around at any time and want to see their records. I argue that we can just write down my information in the book, we don't need to copy it. (This whole thing made worse by the fact that he doesn't have a photocopier in-house but has to hand my passport to some lackey who goes around the corner to copy it!

Now said internet guy is singing to me. Aaaaah Delhi.

I told him my husband is back at the hotel. This after he commented on how nice my Indian suit is, but not without expressing his true disapproval and sincere consternation over the state of my footwear (ratty old sneakers). "Indian slippers MUCH better!", I am told, by the dark-skinned singing fashionista. I'll keep his recommendations in mind next time I get dressed to go somewhere. ya right.

Aaah, see, travelling brings an endless stream of crazy things to write about in the span of only 5 minutes. 3 weeks in an ashram could not stir up this many outrageous events.

And the boy just returned to me my passport. That's nice. Hopefully there is not a copy of it somewhere being printed up as we speak.

To be fair, he did offer me the requisite hospitality cup of chai while I write, before he stretched out on the bench and went to sleep.

I figured I'd get out and stretch my legs, explore my neighborhood, see what I could see of delhi. It is enough to make me realize i'm not missing much by cuddling up in my room. More rickshaws, peddle bikes, mopeds and sleepy cows.

I'm not much of the sightseer type.

I did get my stern face on though when I arrived in Delhi. I have been snowed already once by taxi drivers at the New Delhi Train Station. Today I was taking not any guff. They tried, different angles, different drivers.... i just kept walking. Even once I had decided on a driver and agreed to a reasonable deal (reasonable being that I paid too much but it was not outrageously too much, enough to appease my driver and enough to appease me), I still had another enterprising individual approach as we were getting ready to pull out of the taxi stand. His shpeel was asking if I had a booking at the hotel I was going to and wouldn't I like to stop at another place (ie: his friend's hotel), to call and make sure i HAD a reservation, at which point they would falsely tell me that my hotel did not have record of my booking and that i had better take a room with them instead. I have heard of this scam before. I had a hard time understanding what he was saying at first (that is one of their techniques: induce total confusion in their victim thereby getting you to agree to something you have no idea what exactly) but once I realized, a firm "no!", looking him square in the eye, was enough to make him disappear from whence he came.

This city requires my toughest skin, my meanest walk, and my ugliest scowl.

Welcome to Delhi

Welcome to Delhi.
Where the internet costs 60 rupees per hour instead of 30 and the taxi driver will try to charge you 300 rupees for a 50 rupee trip.
I have landed in the comfortable Ajanta Hotel.
Civilization feels weird.
Resting here until I either board a plane to Canada (requiring a small miracle) or board a bus to Dharamsala, in the mountains, the place where the Dalai Lama lives. I figure it will be a cooler locale in which to wait out my May 18th ticket in case this waitlist fiasco doesn't go through.
Today the Cathay Pacific clerk told me on the phone that they have the delhi to hong kong leg available, but the hong kong to vancouver leg is "extremely full ma'am". Never been called "ma'am" so much in all my life as i have in India. She wants me to call back again this evening in case the small miracle occurs.
And i rest in my room, a comfortable affair, waiting for the next move.

cooked

Finally.

India has worn me down.

It's my fault really.

With imminent departure on the horizon I made the mistake of allowing myself to daydream about things like hot tubs and washing machines, showers that don't involve a bucket and scoop, bedrooms that don't fill with mosquitoes at dawn and dusk, perhaps even avocados and whole wheat toast with butter and jam.

And now that i've allowed myself the luxury of daydreaming about these things, the absence of them has become suddenly, glaringly annoying. This coupled with the heat is making me very antsy.

Yes, this country is beginning to spit me out. It's done with me.

I marvel that the things I once found quaint and charming now seem, after my work here for the time being is done, simply inconvenient and backwards.

Tomorrow I will arrive at New Delhi train station, from where i will either A) grab a taxi for the airport and catch a flight to vancouver or B)(and the least favoured option if you haven't already guessed) get a room and try to figure out where to go from there... an air conditioned room.

Perhaps I will go to Dharamsala in the mountains where the heat doesn't chase you around relentlessly until you are drained and unable to think a coherent thought.

I've been indulging in daydreams of international travel, specifically international travel that lands me back on Vancouver soil, too much so that now i'm restless.

I was on a waitlist to fly home April 30. I'm still on the wait list, but with 36 hours to go before the flight departs, i doubt if anything is going to happen with that now. They sound so optomistic when i call, it gives you false hopes. So we're still waiting. I have a confirmed flight for the 3rd week of May so I will have to wait until then.

I have decided to leave the ashram. I need a little freedom and autonomy for awhile. Get out, see some stuff.

Send cool thoughts please,

loving you all,

ang

blowing dust??

hello everyone,

well, i haven't written cause there's been no news.

i am in the same place, its still hot and each day looks almost identical to the last.

I will probably be heading home in the next month or so. I am ready and happy to go home.

I just looked at the weather forecast for Delhi, where i have to travel to when i fly out. Currently, at 1:30 pm April 28th it is 40 degrees and blowing dust. That is the official weathernetwork.com assessment of delhi's weather at the moment. wow.

on the plus side, the humidity is only 14% so i guess its a dry heat.

the forecast for the next week there is sun everyday, averaging 42 degrees, lows of 29! hahaha.

imagine.

i'm glad i'm not there.

mornings are refreshingly cool here now, even if the afternoons are bit of an endurance contest.

i miss everyone so much and look forward to seeing you.

love always,

ang

trains, planes and rickshaws

We had jackfruit for lunch. (Jackfruit is a fruit if it is really ripe and cooked as a vegetable if it is green. When it is ripe it is sweet and stinky and the texture of banana.... when it is made as a vegetable it looks strangely like tuna fish out of the can, quite the surprise on your plate in a vegetarian town, but very tasty).
Jackfruit for lunch.
Fireflies in the fields at night
White egrets by day
Wide open starry skies in the evening
A great cacophany of birds erupts in the forest by the Ganga
Chapati dough under my fingernails...( my chapatis are actually coming along nicely, it takes practice)
aah, I'm back at Santosh Puri ashram. Santosh means contentment and that says it all.
One lives much closer to the earth here. Closer to nature.
The garden is big.
I can still see the ladder going up into the tree where Indra, the cook, climbed up to find the biggest jackfruits for our lunch.
The wind blows hot. Hot hot summer wind.
The nights are deliciously cool. A contrast to Rishikesh where the heat never really fades, even in the deepest part of morning.

Morning conch is blown at 4:30am instead of 5:30am at Anand Prakash. I like this.
I was getting a little lazy, sleeping in until 5:45. I blamed it on the heat.
Here my room is right in front of the dhuni (ceremonial) fire. Morning chants start at 5. The conch thing happens right outside my window. It's a sweet sound to wake up to.
Perhaps everything is easier to appreciate knowing this is the last leg of the tour. Until next time i come to India.
After this its one rickshaw ride, one day train, one airconditioned taxi and 2 airplanes back to canada.

more wingeing

A Girl came from Vancouver today. She said it was 10 degrees there.

Sigh,

i can only dream about such temperatures. wow.

i think its lucky if it goes down below 30 degrees here overnight, it doesn't feel like it does.

Of course no one has thermometres around these parts ( not like in canada where SOME people have TWO!!) so i don't really know.

but someone went to Delhi, the capital, today, to pick up the girl from vancouver and the temp was 45 there they said . That's FORTY FIVE DEGREES!!.

All this leaves me asking........

what have i gotten myself into?!

tricky river Ganga

That river Ganga sure has a sense of humour.
This morning I went down the hill to sell a book at the bookstore. I went nice and early so I could get back before the heat got too unbearable (what do you do when you are stuck at the bottom of the hill at 2:30 and you have a 15 minute hike straight up in full sunlight ahead of you? sit down in the shade and drink lassis until the sun goes down. haha) .
No, anyway, my story.... After I left the bookstore I went to the beach to say hello to the river. So i was crouched down on a rock in the river with my shoes off, dangling my toes a bit. While I was there i dug something out of my bag but thought nothing of it.
Then I climbed all the way back up the hill, already it was getting quite hot. When I got home I went to give the manager some money for something, and my wallet was gone. Ah well, I dug through everything. Gone. So it was either the bookstore or the river rock. I thought the greatest probability was that it fell out at the river when i dug something else out of my bag. So I went there first.
The river has tricky ways of getting you to get in her. My toes were not enough apparently. I pulled off my shoes and waded in. The water was quite deep around the rock where i had been sitting. I waded in chest deep, feeling around with my toes in the sand under this silly rock. Nothing. It wasn't there. Or if it was, it was carried downstream and gone.
The water was icey and lovely to get into on such a hot day. I was happy to be in her cool waters. Then I climbed out, tied up my shoelaces and headed to the bookstore, dripping wet. This is not an uncommon sight in Rishikesh. You often see visitors dripping wet from their dip in the holy Ganga. In this weather, hot and dry, you are dry in no time. and in fact, i was, by the time i finally got home at 11:30.
The bookstore did have my wallet, which was a relief. And all the money inside (about 4 days worth living expenses, 40 dollars). What a bunch of sweethearts.
Leaving the store i didn't forget to make good on my promise that i made to gods on my way to the bookstore. I promised that if my wallet was found, that i would give 100 rupees to each of the beggars at the bridge when I went by. So i did that and trudged back up the hill to home.

So i got a bit too much sun exposure today. Feeling a little woozy.
Going to go home now and rest.

girls on bikes

Today my teacher's niece, Barkha, took me by scooter into the city to see her house, visit her mom and have lunch. Barkha is only 17 years old but wise beyond her years. And a darn good driver, I might add. We hopped on the moped after breakfast, before the heat started to build, and zipped up the gravel hill to the main road that leads into town. 2 girls on a bike.
Her house is nice. The rent per month is only $100 dollars Canadian plus utilities. You get two big rooms, a kitchen, a nice big new bathroom, and an open air sitting area. What a deal. We sipped chai and snacked on homemade potato chips and mango slices. We leafed through family photos and played board games with her little brother Siddarth and her little sister Chetana. Then we ate lunch on the floor, traditional Indian style. It was delicious! Then we had a nap on her mother's bed and waited for the satellite t.v. man to show up and hook up their dish. After he did it, we watched slapstick Indian comedies and laughed ourselves silly. aaaah, television. and slapstick is that rare form of comedy that crosses all language barriers.
Then Barkha and I re-embarked the moped for home. The air was so hot in the afternoon, i thought i WAS on a motorcycle in the Arizona desert in July. There was much cattle in the streets on the way back, cows AND horses, big ones, small ones, ponies, babies. So many cows and horses today. It was a unique experience to be weaving in between cows and horses on a scooter. Never did that before.
Thank you Barkha, for a fun day.

uninterrupted power days and cool nights

Well,

I spent the afternoon reading and napping in my room. Between lunch and dinner. Incredibly lazy, could have gone to a yoga class at 4 (the one i was teaching before) but it was just so hot, i couldn't get up the go.

Today and all of yesterday were landmark days in that we had uninterrupted power ALL DAY! That means.... fan in my room is operating through the hottest part of the day, both days. Still, it is only circulating the super hot air around a little, the air is moving but it is not cooled in any way shape or form. Its a lot like driving your motorcycle through the Arizona desert in July.... it doesn't matter how fast you go, the air does not cool off. (and don't try wrapping yourself in wet towels either, it only gives you heat stroke, right mom?). And while we're on the subject, if you have to sleep in the desert, make sure you are up off the ground and away from the scorpions and snakes. Take an airconditioned van is my recommendation, although the motorcycle method IS exciting.

I've been walking the streets of Rishikesh tonight, revelling in the respite from the relentless April sun and soaking up the atmosphere of the place i've called home for the last 8 months. I may only be here another day or two so i'm a bit sentimental about leaving, really taking a good look around and trying to imprint every sight and smell into my experience. I have a strong feeling I will return here, so I am not too upset about leaving. The place is beginning to fill up, as well, with revellers who spent the winter at the beach resort of Goa, partying. Not that I have anything against partiers, I used to be one. My protest is that often I find that they come to Rishikesh, a holy city, a city of pilgrimmage and they fail to respect the customs and norms here. Its embarrassing, to me, as a westerner, that these foreigners behave so... barbarically. but what can i do. It's life.

The next place I will go is a bit down river, back to my old ashram at Santosh Puri where I was during the coldest months of the winter. When the cold wet fog that hung over the river and its banks sometimes never burned off, even at the sun's highest point. Then I was freezing. Now it is ironic that i am going back there now during the hottest time of the year. How to survive extremes in India...

I feel complete. I feel I've done everything I needed to do here. I am content.

cows in India

I have to write about cows in India.
There are two kinds of cows in India. There are cows that are "kept" , tied up to something by humans, and cows that are free to roam and fend for themselves. These are the ones that you can commonly catch in the market eating plastic bags with some tasty morsel that was smeared on the inside, or nibbling paper posters off of concrete walls, or munching cardboard boxes (what do you think the nutritional value of a cardboard box is?)
There is a cow in our neighborhood. She is white. In the 8 months that I have been coming and going from this neighborhood, she has been here. She is one of the wandering cows, fending for herself. She is a doe eyed, long eyelashed beauty with two short horns portruding from her forehead. I have seen this particular cow, on more than one occasion, stand at the gate of some house or hotel and moo, begging for scraps. Just like the wandering ascetics of India used to do, the holy men, go house to house and receive donations of food from householders. She does the same thing, and she hangs around exclusively in this neigbourhood. It is the most uncanny thing.
Today I noticed she seems to be looking a bit on the thin side. I stopped and chatted to her and petted her, explaining I was sorry I had no food to give her. She seemed understanding.

Cows, as you probably all know, are holy or sacred to the Hindus. Why is this? you wonder.
I will have to trace it back into the history and mythology of the religion. There is some history of cowherding. I believe the god Shiva was a cowherd and it is thought to be the most noble of tasks to take care of the cows. Cowherding or cow caretaking, is a divine task. And foods taken from the cow: milk, yogurt, butter, etc, are considered of the utmost nutritional value. So she is treated with great respect.

India values different virtues than we do in the west. Whereas we value ambition and strength and possessing material wealth, the Indians value things like patience, forbearance and the ability to gracefully accept conditions as they are. They also value generosity and humility it seems.
The cow is revered for its patient and forebearing nature. The cow is not aggressive, the cow does not throw a tantrum when you have no food to give it, she patiently accepts the situation and waits for a more profitable one to present itself. She is in no hurry. Whatever befalls her, good or bad, she bears it without protest, without opinion. She seems equanimous.

I am having the opinion that cows are different in India. Perhaps because they are considered sacred and revered. Cows are different in India than they are in Nepal even, where you can get a nice juicy steak served up in no time at any restaurant. Cows in India have a different nature, a different quality, a different look on their face.
People don't consider eating meat here because they believe that we are all one and that we are reincarnated. They believe in not taking the life of another creature. They don't believe they have the right to take the life of another. Of course this is a great contradiction because you hear of murders here in this country, every day, just as you hear of murders in all the other countries everyday. But they do believe that they are not separate from the animals, and that all of creation is one creation and by causing suffering (death) to another, they are essentially causing suffereing to themselves, as we are not separate. It is a very different outlook, isn't it.
That they don't even consider eating flesh. They are as aghaust at the idea of eating flesh as if I proposed to you that you could eat human flesh when hungry. The same disgust would arise in them. Its fascinating to see the different perspectives.
So then, the cow exists peacefully amongst the hustle and bustle of the town. They hold up traffic as if they know how important they are. They sleep in the middle of bridges and intersections and traffic finds its way around. Calmly, patiently, she soaks up the sun and waits for her next meal.
In India it is considered auspicious to feed something or someone else besides yourself. To offer food not only to god, as thanks, but also to any dog, monkey or especially cow or stranger that is in the vacinity before taking food for yourself, is considered proper conduct. It is tradition.
These things leave me deep in thought about my life.

chai and glass slippers

Each day in northern India grows more hot and unrelenting.]
After lunch I have taken to hiding out in the downstairs yoga hall where it is cool. My room has become a trap for the heat and becomes uninhabitable from the hours of about 11 to 5.

My usual neighborhood internet place is closed. The guy who runs it probably overdid it on whiskey and Tibetan momos (dumplings) last night (his favourite) and that’s why he isn’t opening shop by 9:30 in the morning. So I had to stroll a bit further afield to find a connection to the outside world. This just means that I’m going to really bake on the walk back.

This internet place just offered me chai (tea). Typically I haven’t been drinking caffeine, but its early yet I have time to wear it off before sleeping. And the typical Indian chai as served and offered by friendly storeowners from their friendly neighborhood chai stall, is always the perfect blend of spices and sugar, served in just a thimble sized glass, so it hardly counts as anything at all but just a nip of tea. And offered as a symbol of friendship and just plain good business, it is very hard to say no.
Harmless and enjoyable.

Its been several days, perhaps a week, since I stopped teaching yoga at the ashram. I am still staying there, but have relinquished all teaching duties. Its very quiet, there are few people staying there. The atmosphere gets distinctly quieter as the weather heats up. I still do my morning yoga practice on my own, before the sun gets up and gets going. I take my meals there and help out in the office sometimes, help the girls with their English sometimes. And they dress me up in saris and gold and parade me around the ashram and mata ji, the mother of my teacher, sits me down and braids my hair for me. Sometimes I get Rajni to give me a massage. She makes good money doing it.

Lately I’ve been shopping. Shopping in preparation for my departure. I will be returning with exactly double what I left with. Shopping is fun when it is for other people and not yourself. The storeowners are happy and triumphant to finally sell me something after months and months of me walking by, perhaps chatting, but buying nothing.

Providing you with tea is one of the pleasures and courtesies that shopowners seem to enjoy. To be able to show their hospitality in just this small way.

I am still marveling at the fact that I do not get sick in India. As the season changed it seemed everyone was getting sick. Something water borne or food borne, that lasts for days and is hard to kick. And still I remain faithfully healthful. Knock on my head (wood)….

Aah, here is my chai.
Well,
This is all there is to say for now. The days melt by like they do in the summertime.
I put some pictures up yesterday that we took wearing our saris. I don’t know how Indian women work in the fields wearing such a thing. I could barely get up the stairs without tripping on my face. But the garment makes you feel so beautiful and elegant, when you wear it, like you should be heading to a grande ball somewhere in glass slippers.

chai and glass slippers

Each day in northern India grows more hot and unrelenting.]
After lunch I have taken to hiding out in the downstairs yoga hall where it is cool. My room has become a trap for the heat and becomes uninhabitable from the hours of about 11 to 5.

My usual neighborhood internet place is closed. The guy who runs it probably overdid it on whiskey and Tibetan momos (dumplings) last night (his favourite) and that’s why he isn’t opening shop by 9:30 in the morning. So I had to stroll a bit further afield to find a connection to the outside world. This just means that I’m going to really bake on the walk back.

This internet place just offered me chai (tea). Typically I haven’t been drinking caffeine, but its early yet I have time to wear it off before sleeping. And the typical Indian chai as served and offered by friendly storeowners from their friendly neighborhood chai stall, is always the perfect blend of spices and sugar, served in just a thimble sized glass, so it hardly counts as anything at all but just a nip of tea. And offered as a symbol of friendship and just plain good business, it is very hard to say no.
Harmless and enjoyable.

Its been several days, perhaps a week, since I stopped teaching yoga at the ashram. I am still staying there, but have relinquished all teaching duties. Its very quiet, there are few people staying there. The atmosphere gets distinctly quieter as the weather heats up. I still do my morning yoga practice on my own, before the sun gets up and gets going. I take my meals there and help out in the office sometimes, help the girls with their English sometimes. And they dress me up in saris and gold and parade me around the ashram and mata ji, the mother of my teacher, sits me down and braids my hair for me. Sometimes I get Rajni to give me a massage. She makes good money doing it.

Lately I’ve been shopping. Shopping in preparation for my departure. I will be returning with exactly double what I left with. Shopping is fun when it is for other people and not yourself. The storeowners are happy and triumphant to finally sell me something after months and months of me walking by, perhaps chatting, but buying nothing.

Providing you with tea is one of the pleasures and courtesies that shopowners seem to enjoy. To be able to show their hospitality in just this small way.

I am still marveling at the fact that I do not get sick in India. As the season changed it seemed everyone was getting sick. Something water borne or food borne, that lasts for days and is hard to kick. And still I remain faithfully healthful. Knock on my head (wood)….

Aah, here is my chai.
Well,
This is all there is to say for now. The days melt by like they do in the summertime.
I put some pictures up yesterday that we took wearing our saris. I don’t know how Indian women work in the fields wearing such a thing. I could barely get up the stairs without tripping on my face. But the garment makes you feel so beautiful and elegant, when you wear it, like you should be heading to a grande ball somewhere in glass slippers.

hot weather

oh, its hot!
if its hot now... what will May be like? what will June be like? I was warned that April, May, June are the hottest months of the year, (and then the rains come in July)
I am told 45 degrees plus. Am i thinking clearly that i think i can endure these conditions? Being Canadian and all.... i must think realistically... pragmatically.
Already it is getting so that i can do absolutely nothing in the afternoons but wait for the sun to go down. I read or write or play my flute and try not too sleep too much. (Though it is recommended be every sensible Indian)
And all I can think about is how lovely the springtime is in Vancouver and Kamloops..... we'll just see how long i last here before i break.

homesickness

Just came through quite the case of homesickness.... the biggest case since back in September when i had the malaria scare.

My friend Kasper and I were ruminating today.... since he has left holland and given up his apartment and his fancy job and everything to come to the Himalayas, with no imminent sign of returning.........we were wondering: can one get homesick when one has no home? we decided that yes, you would still get homesick for your homeland, if you got homesick at all.

I do, i DO get homesick. as much as i ache to travel and move around the world when i stay in one spot too long, i equally ache to return to that spot after awhile. its natural. I'm surprised it took this long actually. To feel this.

I think its a tiny bit ludicrous to feel homesick. It's a bit irrational i say, when you think of how badly I wanted to come to India. .... and now i'm here

I guess I've done well.... it has been 8 months afterall, that i've been here without feeling homesick, and i DO have a wonderful set of friends and family at home to be homesick for, and a beautiful city to miss, beautiful lavender hills at sunset and snowy mountains in winter. So i guess its not totally non-sensical, by any means. I have enjoyed my time here to the fullest possible for sure, and it is a good sign that i am beginning to feel ready to come home, a good sign.

I meet quite a few people from Europe and the West and even Japan who just quit there jobs and said "enough of this crazy treadmill, i'm going to India to see what else there is out there". I guess with the economy how it is, there is no better time to throw up one's hands. But its alot of people giving it all up to hit the road, or the mountains, whatever the case may be.

It's really heating up, the weather. How will I make it till june? by hiding out from the hours of 10am to 5pm, that's how. a significant chunk of the day. But i will get up earlier for my meditations, ruminations and yogaiations, ablutions etc. (what ARE ablutions anyways?) The evenings are so gorgeous and starry.

i will stay one more week, until the 20th i think, in rishikesh, and then i will pack up all my belongings and begin to head closer to delhi. one step closer to flying home. There i will stay the remainder of april and all of may, in an ayurvedic medicine course there, near haridwar, at my other ashram. Man i can't stop thinking about how hot its going to be, man,..... 45+ degrees, here we come! Summer in Kamloops is gonna feel like a walk in the park in comparison

i taught my last class at Anand Prakash today. I have been so delighted with teaching but i am astounded at how much energy it takes. How much energy it takes to do it well. And i can tell when it works, when the class is good, because in the end, its like the bodies are dead, they don't want to come out of corpse pose, really, they stay till the last possible second and then when we all chant together to close the session, our voices are perfectly all harmonized together. today was a particular case of that and it was beautiful. it was only 7 people. 3 had never ever even practiced yoga before! it was their very first class. But by the end they were all chanting perfectly like champions in complete unison and harmony with the rest. This hardly ever happens. Often there are a couple notes of discord, the sound is not quite right, its a little off, or whatever, and that is normal. Even in my teacher's classes, the final chanting doesn't always come together so beautifully, especially with new students or unfamiliar people, but sometimes it just does come together in the most magical beautiful way, and the sound, as it resonates, brings tears to my eyes, of all these souls, these strangers from different countries, russia, japan, holland, belgium, canada, all unified in voice. It is beautiful. for a moment, we are one.

So i have a love affair with teaching, but i also find it an enormous stress, because i find i am so attached to the positive outcome. I crave so badly for it to be a good class everytime. ... i want it to be perfect every time, that i way stress myself out about it. i am way too intense and put too much pressure on myself. It is a large responsibility, requiring so much energy output to do it right. I am relieved about it today, to have a break. To have taught the last class for now. I taught two weeks and it was a great experience. Now I feel like I need to build my energy up even more, so i am not depleting myself so much.

But i was so proud of them, even the beginners, balancing poses today like advanced students. it was amazing. Teaching is such a dynamic sport.

well, what else.

homesickness,

daddaadada.

that's it, i'm drawing a blank.

oh, if anyone wants to put their order in for Indian clothes, handicrafts or goods, they better do it now, because the shopping begins next week.

lots of love always,

ang

ginger beer and puffy crisps

ok so i'm sitting here at Shiva's internet cafe, drinking a schweppes ginger beer (treat, treat, treat) and eating something new i'd try.... don't know if you could even consider it food, really, although i am ingesting it. \they are called "Fun Flips" .... i thought they were potato chips but they are some puffy snacky thing, a bit like pork rinds in canada, which i think are disgusting, so these are like vegetarian flavoured pork rinds. \the flavour name is "tango". i don't know what the heck that is.

anyhow, i was looking over my last couple of posts, and laughing. because i apologized for not writing that often, but i realized i had been writing, quite regularily lately, i just hadn't been WRITING writing, if you know what i mean. never in the headspace to spin a tale even about the most mundane things. But as i sit here with my ginger beer, i can't help but smile at myself, at this scene, drinking ginger beer, (which is deliciously cold, by the way) and eating strange indian chip snacky things and looking at a roll of toilet paper that i just purchased that's sitting in front of me, i can't help but be amused at the scene. About the guilty pleasure of snack foods and sugary carbonated drinks as i strive to further purify my mind and body.

I feel that I am starting to relax now, now that i finished the teacher training i set out here to do, after wrapping up a two week stint of teaching everyday.... i am starting to relax. I was so tense that my back wouldn't hold out and on and on... i've been tense about so many things during this trip and life is like that. I mean, i don't think we do it by nature, or that its natural, but i think that mostly we live in this state of constant tension like "when this thing happens, then everything will be good" or "once i have this thing in place, then i can relax", like a new job, or a certain kind of training, or a relationship or a new car... all these things that we strive for that keep us out of the moment. ...that keep us from enjoying the ginger beer and view of the toilet paper in front of us.

Like my mom doing "warrior" yoga pose at the beach and feeling all uplifted and free and bringing her face down to fresh dog poop. i hope she doesn't mind me sharing that story.

I don't know what i am trying to get at here. I guess just that everything is exactly how it needs to be, and life is perfect, just as it is, even in the poop. Even when everything seems poopy, there is perfection.

Then that is when it is the hardest to remember this lesson, of course, at least it is for me.

philisophical rantings.

good news. i just bought a pen drive 2mb to download music onto to take home and i find out from my friend Ashok, the owner of Shiva internet cafe, that he doesn't charge to put music from the collection he has on his computer onto my pen drive, only if i download it from the internet! This is fabulous news as he has some excellent music and the music stores here all charge fat fees to put music on your mp3 or pen drive.

I can't believe i am eating these totally, artificial in every way, puffy snacks. They are going to give me a tummy ache.
and i can't stop eating them. That being said.... cold ginger beer never tasted so good.

hotmail hang ups

Having major hang ups with hotmail right now. so mom, i just wrote you an email but couldn't send it. have it saved though, so it didn't get dissolved into hyper-space this time. Perhaps, hotmail network is down. i don't know. i will send it later.

So i'm enjoying my new room they moved me into in the ashram. its east facing and so sunny and gorgeous in the morning with so many happy birds. one of the best views in the whole place. I appreciate their efforts to keep me there. It seems like they want to keep me forever, they keep joking.

I am going to teach my last class (these two weeks have gone by fast) tomorrow and then take a break for one week before i leave town to go to another ayurveda course at Santosh Puri ashram. I'm sure you guys are losing track of all the ashrams i keep jumping back and forth to and from. Really there are just these two, essentially, these main two that i have spend most my time.

This morning my teacher's mother (teacher is back in canada now) braided my hair for me. She is such a beautiful lady. She calls me daughter.

Nothing exciting is happening day to day, that's why i haven't been writing.

My back has had another little flare up from jumping into teaching so soon after it has healed (will i never learn?) it is a tiny flare up compared to before and the rest of my back, muscles and constitution is stronger than ever so it will come back quickly, (once again). Each flare up is less bad than the last and each recovery i reach a higher level of health and strength. so that is good. I know it flared up this time because of teaching everyday everyday, and when i am teaching, i am jumping around, into and out of poses to demonstrate quickly and not doing the entire balanced sequence, of course, because most of the time i am walking around the room assisting and watching people, but this imbalanced way of moving was too much too soon for my beautiful back, so i will have to just cool my jets and slowly, slowly , this transition will be made. It is such a lesson in not rushing the bodies ability to heal. Its like trying to push the river.

I teach like a monkey, i'm here, i'm there, i'm jumping up onto the stage to show something and then coming down really quick to go help someone i see needs adjusting. Its really funny, actually, teaching is so different from actually practicing yoga.

so that is pretty much all that is happening exciting for me. just the teaching thing. i feel so blessed to have had this opportunity.... next step will be more learning, and getting ready to head for home (shopping, giving old clothes away, etc.) I can't believe in two months i get to come home. Life is wonderful.

no turning back....

well, this teaching thing has really got me on my toes. It amazes me that i can be having a totally down/off day or whatever, and even be thinking "how am i going to get myself in the headspace to give so much energy to so many people and guide them all through yoga class?" but i get dressed and i braid my hair and i look in the mirror and smile. I pack up my book and my crystal, some incense, matches and a clock and toddle off to my yoga hall. I set everything up. I light a candle, i burn the incense, i say a prayer, i turn some music on, i get everything ready, do everything i have to do and then it just happens. Even if i don't have a very set out plan written down... half the time i end up forgetting what i was going to do and totally go off on a tangent but sometimes this works out for the best anyhow.

Take for today for example, i completely forgot that i was going to do a bunch of standing breathing exercises. As it turns out, at the end of class, one of the students came up to me and said that when he was doing some of our seated breathing exercises it was making him feel dizzy. This happens sometimes with people of certain constitutions. anyhow. i advised him of course to listen to his body first above all and if he feels any sensation to just stop and come down and rest. And LUCKY that i HAD forgot to do those standing breathing exercises or i could have had a fainter on my hands, from STANDING, no less! so someone is looking out for me up there. phew.

It is so important when i am teaching, to mix and mingle with the students so i can feel their energy and let my intuition guide me on what direction to go next, rather than sticking to a strict routine that i decided on before class and refuse to deviate from. Also the weather is warming up so i have to be a bit more gentle on everyone as they are doing warm yoga, not hot yoga, its not 36 degrees yet, but its warm.

What i am beginning to see now that i really enjoy is the students that have been with me everyday for a week now, learning to trust me, I can see them relaxing into it and they know what is coming next, what my teaching style is and i can feel them trusting me and following me wherever i am guiding them. This is amazing to witness. Because i know what that feels like from the other side, when you are the student and putting yourself in your teacher's hands, putting your body and your trust in their hands by following what they tell you. It's like a giant game of Simon says. Remember playing that game when you were a kid? "Simon says raise your left hand, Simon says bend your left knee" its pretty fun. ..... What do you do for a living? oh, i play simon says.

They moved me today. Boy do i have aLOT of stuff. I have accumulated over the months. They gave me a new room, with a better view, quieter, nicer, bigger, better in everyway, high ceilings, east facing, but it is hotter, that is the only problem. my old room was dingy and dark like a cave , but at least it was cool. Something that is becoming essential now with the weather turning.

I have developed this extreme lethargy in the afternoon hours from about 11 to 4 when i just feel like i can't lift a limb, all i want to do is doze. So that is what i am letting myself do. All the Indians do it, so it must be the thing to do. Then everyone comes alive again at night. except i am usually in bed by 9pm and up by 4am. I keep crazy hours. My body is on its own natural cycle and i'm just going with it.

Anyhow. enough, i'm sure you didn't sign in here to read all about my napping habits. sorry its so boring. I guess in conclusion, i will say that it is amazing that i can have a down or off day, pull myself together to put myself in front of a classroom of 20 and just do it, because it needs to happen, and then after, i feel so charged with energy, i feel like my sense of purpose in the world is being satisfied, and people's responses are so amazing. i feel so blessed. It's almost like i am growing into this new me, this me that is capable of so much, but the old me is fighting the new me and trying to drag me back, but its not working, the new me is winning. when teaching is so enriching and rewarding..... there's no turning back.

.......

I am getting ready to reverse the process I used to arrive here ....mentally and physically ......by rickshawing, bussing, and training back to delhi and then planing to vancouver with a nice relaxing lay over in hong kong airport for 11-ish hours. It feels like the undoing of a ball of yarn that I wound up back in August of 2008 when i left. The long layovers in airports i dont mind so much. I admit i kind of enjoy them, it gives you a little time to acclimatize and adjust and it makes the fact that you are flying half way around a planet, essentially travelling backwards in time, slightly less disorienting. Slightly. Besides, I love to browse in the shops (hardly ever buying anything) , and watch people and eat snacks, read books and write and mull . Mull over my life, mull over my existence, on this plain, before i get on that plane. Its a thing about airports, international airports, that is... an expansive feeling, that you could go anywhere, just anywhere at all, just pick a counter and hand over your credit card.

Today I guided a tour of 13 guests from the ashram up to the waterfall and we all took a nice swim after the hike. Very enjoyable. This waterfall is the one with a big pool that is about 12 feet deep in places and people had a really really good time. I was happy to see the joy and clarity on their faces. The joy and clarity that only nature can bring sometimes. Nature with her natural remedies for what ails the human heart and spirit.

After this I will go back and teach the afternoon class. The theme will be purification. I didn't plan it on purpose to coincide with the swim in the waterfall, but it IS coinciding, without my efforting it into existence. This is how most things work, isn't it?

I love the people who come to my class, with all my heart. Their willingness, their commitment, their show-up-ness. They are not experts, most of them are not even intermediate yoga practitioners, most are beginners or lower intermediate level practitioners and this is the most challenging place to be when you practice yoga. But you do it for yourself because it makes you feel better. It makes you feel better than you did before. and each day, after giving this gift to yourself, your feeling of wellbeing and wholeness increases and you are encouraged by seeing this small progress and you are encouraged to push on. It is so inspiring and I love to be of service to these people.

Not much else to report,

just a quick note, and a note of gratitude to all of you, loved ones, friends, family, again, for supporting me on this journey.

Love to everyone

whiter than white

I really love that my nearest internet place also happens to have the best music collection on its main computer so if i arrive and the owner is not already rockin' out to some super funky tunes, then he loves it when i turn on some of his music. So when i come here it's kind of like a disco, a little mini vacation from my austere and perfect ashram life of reading, flute playing, and all that. I get to come here for a little funk, when i am missing music. Real music, not devotional music. Don't get me wrong, I love the devotional chanting and all, but a change is always nice.

So anyhow, it MUST be peacock mating season. Every morning now for like 3 weeks its been sounding like there are about 50 hungry cats outside in the bushes near my window as the hills come alive with sound of calling peacocks. Its such a cool sound.

Today I helped send responses to inquiry emails at the ashram on their computer. We have a new manager, and he's in delhi right now, so the whole family is holding down the fort: Vishwa's brother, and mother and niece and a couple of others. Its wonderful on the weekends because all his nieces and nephews come and its a real family affair and mata-ji (his mom) stays there all week and the other day she braided my hair for me. she's always looking out for me, even though we each only speak like, 3 words in eachother's language. I like it when the whole family are all there. But when the manager is away, there is no one whose english is good enough to respond to inquiry emails that flood in from all over the place. So tonight we sat down and responded to them all. It was really fun. Figuring out what they want to say and me typing and translating. It was a real group effort . Indian style. It takes 4 people to do the job of one, but we have way more fun doing it, so work becomes play.

I had to get someone to teach me how to get my whites white. The morning yoga teacher, his name is Gaurav, he always shows up with his white clothes so brilliantly white they hurt your eyes and i KNOW they are not new so i had to ask him the secret. Because mine just keep getting greyer and greyer. So I had to have a man show me how to do laundry. That's gotta be a first. Turns out he has a secret powder he adds to his regular detergent. I can't find bleach anywhere in stores so this powder must have bleach in it or something, cause it works. like a charm. so now my whites can be whiter than white. yipee!

I finished this weeks' classes of teaching yoga. My first week. It went by very fast. Today was my day off, Sunday. and tomorrow we start in again. And the ashram is filling up in an amazing way. My teacher is back in Canada but people are arriving out of the woodwork. I thought it was going to get quieter and i was thinking I would end up teaching 2 or 3 people, but no, the classes are going to get bigger it looks like. wow. where are all these people coming from.?

Tomorrow I wanted to go to the waterfall, so I sort of organized an outing. We will all go together. It seems we are about 13 people going. lucky number 13.

The weather is getting so warm in the day. I don't know how i'm going to stand it in two months. Already i have to hide out from the hours of 12 to 4 in the afternoon. and i've been feeling unbelievably dopey and lazy during those times... i thought maybe something was wrong with me, but after asking around, my Indian friends assure me this is totally normal with the weather change like this and they encourage me to just relax and sleep like they do in the afternoons, so i think i may have to just do that. That's what i WANT to do, and i've been sort of fighting it, because between lunch and dinner, i do basically nothing, so it just seems like i'm eating and sleeping, eating and sleeping. At least my room is nice and cool. A nice place to hang out.

The streets are alive at night, so I guess everyone is siesta-ing in the day and coming out at night.

The food.

Funny thing with the food at the ashram. You know, it can get a little plain and boring after a few days, so last night i took myself out for palak paneer (my favourite dish of indian cheese and spinach) and a nice fresh salad. you know, because i thought maybe my low ernergy was due to not having any raw vegetables or greens in my diet lately. So i skipped dinner at the ashram to go out and do that.

and then today.... at lunchtime... at the ashram, they served palak paneer!!!! with the paneer homemade from the milk of our own cows!!! AND salad, fresh cucumber and radish, YUM! how did they know? that's what I want to know. I didn't speak a word of this to ANYONE about having gone out to a restaurant, the german bakery, and had palak paneer and salad, yet, somehow, mysteriously, this "coincidence". maybe they have spies at the restaurant where i went last night that told them that i came in for palak paneer and salad. because i've been here so long, people know me, and people talk. The community is pretty small and everyone seems to know everything. its really tight knit. so you never know , its possible, someone could have snitched on me. haha..... oh well, i like the result. The ashram palak paneer was a dozen times better than the restaurant one anyway. The food is prepared with such love.

I am very excited about all the new arrivees coming into the ashram.

i originally committed to stay until the middle of April but if the afternoon class continues to flourish the way it has been, i may be feeling to stay on til the end of April. But then I have to leave if i want to start my ayurveda course in may.

gosh, time, time, time.

well, i better sign off for now.

lots of love to all you lovers out there,

i love ya!

As the river flows

The landscape of the shoreline of the Ganga keeps changing, changing as the water levels go down. The river at low season is really different from when i first got here at the end of monsoon (which would be the equivalent of spring run off in Canada). So it makes it interesting to see the new rock formations and beaches that are now appearing. Sometimes when i stop to take the time to notice the change. It is so beautiful. i plan to spend more time at her shores soon.

Today my last friends from the ashram are leaving. everyone is finally moving on. People from the teaacher training had been leaving gradually over the past month and now the last few are gone today.

And now i find myself in a senior position, all of a sudden, at the ashram. I am the key player/teacher. How bizarre! The key non-Indian teacher, that is. Everyone else staying behind with me of the staff are all Indian and i love them like family. When new arrivals/guests come to the ashram, I am the person they are going to look to to know what to do and how to act and how everything runs around there. How did this happen? So organically. As i said, my teacher and his wife went back to Canada, so now things are very quiet.

But I am happy to teach even if I have only 3 students, or one student. It is all wonderful experience and blessed opportunity for me. Its just very astonishing to realize that i am playing such a key role of setting example, setting the mood, and holding the energy of the ashram.

I enjoy it.

I enjoy that I wake up at 4 or 4:30 everymorning with no alarm clock, just alert and excited to start the day. I shower, I pray, I practice and plan my lesson for the day, then I have breakfast in the dining hall. Its all very enjoyable. Then usually after breakfast I practice my flute.

The days, between noon and 4 are getting quite hot so one tends to lay low during this time. Mornings and evenings you can be more lively and go do internet or email or whatever without getting too wiped out by the heat.

2 more months and its going to be so unbelievably hot. I am going to really be wondering about my sanity come June when it is 45 degrees in delhi and 100% humidity. It will make it such a refreshing arrival in vancouver airport. I can't wait to go to the beach.

I kind of wish I had seen more of India, beaches, mountains, temples etc. while I was here, but i know that my sole purpose and focus was to do what I have done and so I don't regret it at all. I know i will be coming back to mother India and will have other opportunities to explore her wonders then.

well, i suppose that is all for my thoughts of this morning. No exciting tales to spin... just peace, peace, peace.

love ang

a teacher is born

Boy it's really heating up here on the Ganges, i tell ya./... in the daytime. I don't know what the temperature is but it is approaching "mad dogs and Englishmen" around 12-3 in the afternoons. woosh.

Classes are going good. i have now graduated from yoga student and trainee to teacher. Teacher of students, not teacher of teachers, of course. Although one student in my class was a teacher, of yoga and of regular school.

My teacher, the big kahuna, and his wife and their daughter have left for canada, (nice sanity in that, get out before this country turns into a cooker). So i arrived at their ashram before them and outstayed them, outlasted them, as i am still there and they are not.

I got up the guts to ask my teacher if i could teach the afternooon class and he said yes!

There are typically two classes daily at the ashram, morning at 6am and afternoon at 4pm. so i teach the 4pm class and am able to put my newly acquired skills into action right away, which is wonderful. Wouldn't want to wait too long and forget everything I learned.

I have to say it is the singly most hard, challenging, fulfilling, satisfying, gratifying thing i've done in my entire life. I really can't describe the feeling much more than to say that. The learning curve is so sharp.

But i have a bunch of bright eyed, bushy tailed students, young and old, about 13 to 10 right now, so that is a pretty large class to start out beginning teaching. Just jump in and sink or swim, its the only way.

Well, that is what is going on then.

So I get half price on the cost of my stay at the ashram so now i am living on dollars a day, like

$7. 50 or something ridiculous like that. I committed to two weeks but may stay and do it longer if the spirit so moves me.

So between that and practicing my flute... i really don't have anything else exciting going on.

I'm still coming home June 5th though, so don't worry that i'm settling in and never coming back. hahaha

love and kisses

ang

What would happen if you went through life, just going with what FEELS right?

I thought my flute teacher’s name was Rajkumari. I couldn’t figure out why people kept laughing at me whenever I told his name and that he is a man. Turns out, Rajkumari is a woman’s name and it means “princess”. aHA! That explains a lot. hahaha
So it was suggested to me that his name is probably RajKUMAN, NOT kumari….. so it got me to thinking…. “Have I been calling my flute teacher “princess” all day?” Poor guy, no wonder he looked so embarrassed.
I took a ramble up to my “oasis” today. Took some fotos along the way. Wanted to introduce my flute to my oasis. There are these most exquisite dragon butterflies or butter dragonflies there today. They are the most bizarre insects .. India seems to be full of them. Not BUGS, like central america, these bugs are benevolent. Even the mosquitos are polite and unintrusive when they bite you. Central American bugs are NASTY. or maybe i'm just in a different headspace now, but it doesn't seem like India, in this area anyhow, has that many creepy crawlies. not as many as i expected, anyhow. India's insects are like.... science fiction inspired insects. I once saw a giant beetle whose eyes were placed at the very tips of his long antennae!!

These dragon butterflies LOOK like 100% like dragon flies when they are at rest, sitting on the rocks watching me, but when they fly off, they fly like butterflies with small irridescent blue/green wings. Its the most uncanny and surprising thing!

(Funny word: "uncanny".... would its opposite be "canny"? and what would canny mean? I'm just joking, I'm just playing with words.

So ya, all bug talk aside, I purchased a flute! 2 in fact. 2 flutes. Inspired by my brother Jack who only asked me to bring him back a flute. I don't think it ever would have occured to me otherwise to buy myself a flute. so thanks Yak. It is made of bamboo and a riot to play. It's hard but i love it. The skills it requires are: patience and steadiness, I am discovering. Perfect!

There were wild langur monkeys GALORE up at the oasis. I say wild monkeys because they really scattered when I approached from a long ways away. These are not the one's that hang out at the bridge eating treats out of the palms of visiting businessmen. No, these ones are very wild and not interested in becoming buddies. They were eating some kind of white flower off the bushes at the oasis. The flowers tasted quite sweet, I tried it, it was yummy, but I didn't swallow.

videos....

don't forget to check you tube for new videos....
please remember... you gotta sort by the date added, after you search "gypseangie" and get to my videos, they don't automatically show the most recent ones first, i think it goes automatically by alphabetical, so if anyone knows how i can reset it permanently to show the most recent ones added at the top.... please, i'm ALL ears.

great day

Gosh, Rob, the camera takes SUCH good pictures. Its like a monkey could take good pictures with that camera. Thanks!

So we had a great day today.

I took two friends, who were feeling low, on an adventure and boy was it fun. There is an island in the Ganga and we decided we could cross over to it to our own private beach and swim around and relax there. We made it. It was a hoot. i crossed first since it was mostly my idea and i felt pretty confident that it could be done. Once I got to the other side, to the island, i was able to take pictures of the other two beautiful people.

Mostly the water was only chest deep, but the rocks were slippery underfoot and there were drop offs and giant holes, so we were wet, trying to hold our bags full of cameras and shoes up out of the water at least. It was a beautiful day. Nature is such a gift. i am just gloriously happy when i am in it.

That's all to report. The pictures speak for themselves.

peacocks and fireflies and mornings in Rishikesh

Today is really windy. My ashram is up on a headland and this is why I like it. It gets so windy up there the way the wind coming blowing down the valley around that corner and hits us full force up there. It’s gorgeous.
Walking down the hill into the streets, life is coming alive. Yatra season is beginning. Pilgrimage season, and everything just gets busier and busier, after the so peaceful winter we had.
The weather is warming, winter is over and business is picking up.
The fleets of workhorses overtake me, trotting down the hill with their keeper pulling up the rear. Some of them with their front and back legs tied together to restrict the range of movement so that when the guy fills their loads too heavy, they don’t hyperextend their knees. I wonder if this is a problem exclusive to Rishikesh and other hilly areas where the work mules are packing unreasonably large loads of stones or sand up very steep and long inclines.
Everyone is dusting off their shops for they day.
Throwing water on the street in front of their establishments to calm the dust that tends to fly in the air during the day, and throwing water on the cows foraging out front to discourage them from getting too comfortable setting up camp in front of the shop and possibly pillaging a chapatti here or there. (Cows can be quite sneaky and ingenius in their methods of stealing cauliflowers off vegetable carts. Just like the monkeys are at snatching bags of buns from inattentive shopkeepers).
All of the streets of my neighborhood are alive in the morning readying for the daily activities. I love the ritual.
Devotional chants are being played from cd shops and chai is steaming from pots. Cows are being chased…I’m not sure if they are trying to be caught or shooed away, it is unclear.
On my way to find skype to try to call my mother, its 9am but no one has their act together yet. My usual place is a travel agency with an attached internet room. Some guy I’ve never seen there before… he’s alone, and he tells me to come back in one hour… which I can’t do. The second place I try can’t seem to get their internet connection working, so I have settled for just writing in a word document and will paste it into my blog at another time. I guess. This is India. What choice do I have? What to do? As they say here.

Somehow India hasn’t managed to get on my nerves, even after 7 months. I just seem to fall deeper and deeper in love with it.
Peacocks and fireflies. That is what I have been hearing and seeing lately. A peacock has a most peculiar call. Like a very loud and persistent cat, very early in the morning. I haven’t asked anyone but I assume it is mating season, as this is a sound I haven’t heard yet. It is really nice to be able to stay in one place for so long to watch the seasons come…. And go.
I recently took stock of my stock: I now have TWO towels, a rug in front of my bed, some dishes and about 3 times as much stuff as I left home with. These are clear signs that I am living here. No “traveler” could be called so with so much paraphernalia in tow.
I saw peacocks too. In the bushes about 2 weeks ago. It was pretty cool. They pretty much act like prairie chickens in Canada, except they’re peacocks.
And fireflies…..ooooh, how much do I LOVE fireflies. Walking at night beside wheatfields or rice patties and all these little floating green lights. Like magic. So delightful. That’s all that’s going on for now. I’ve completed this 13 day course I was in. I still go to meeting everyday for one hour cause its nice to hang out with the people, but otherwise….just enjoying life. Soaking it up since the time is going to go very quickly these next 2 months, I just know.
So much love to all and bye for now.
ang

Clouds

Today there are clouds.

in the sky.

have not seen clouds in so long.

They are pretty.

and cooling now that the weather is really heating up in the day. Its a relief.

Sorry, just daydreaming there....

just bought 3 limes. 3 limes, 6 rupees.

i am 10 days into a 13 day course. I'm all about the courses these days. There is so much going on. This course is good. Its called "Great Freedom Teachings" you can look it up on the internet if you want.

not super typative right now..... let's see if i can get inspired.

i'm just tired cause i've been in this intense class for about 10 days. I'm really nose to the grindstone , but super happy.

short note

Hello!
well i'm busy again with another course.
not as intense as the first, but pretty intense. Especially as i still have activities and practices and meals at the ashram which i am attending to.
so i am learning how to manage my time and be an adult for once.
it will pretty much be like this, busy, from now until i leave india in june. I have so many things to do before i go. want to do it all. and only 3months left is not much time!

i'll write again soon though.
peace!

my nostrils just lost a job

Boy the nights are getting beautiful. My nostrils no longer have the job of warming the air before it passes into my lungs as the temperature is just perfect. .... just one less thing to do.

This is the time of year mom and I will come back to India. It is beautiful now. The Ganga flows slow and lazy and green through Rishikesh. All the travellers who went south to Goa for the winter are filtering back, busying the streets that have been so quiet for 3 months. It is a lovely transition.

I really have nothing to report.

Just.... put up some pictures of holy festival. all the colours. as i thought i was so sneaky that morning sneaking out early to go to the internet cafe, on my way back, they got me. it was fun though, they were gentle with me and didn't "attack" me , per se, as i was a defenseless foreigner with no ammunition of my own. So it was all done in good spirit. I got back to the ashram to find out that they had had a full scale war of colours in the lot in front. all the neighbors, friends, family, staff, and westerners had a riot. ewll. that's pretty much it for me, i have nothing else to report for now.

we'll see you later.

colours

WEll, Holy festival came and went and I didn't make it home unscathed after yesterday's daring excursion to the internet cafe. But it was a gentle fun introduction to Holy. On my way home I encountered some teenaged girls, covered in powdered colour, faces totally smeared. I will post all the pictures from yesterday tonight when i get to an internet cafe where they let me download pics. Here they are being sticklers. Ya, it was fun. They sort of hesitated before getting me, sort of asking my permission before doing it. I had none to do it back to them, but that was ok. I got back to the ashram to find that there had been a full scale "war" in my absence where there was a big battle of colour in the front parking lot. Very sorry I missed it. The pictures they showed me looked like loads of fun.

I am actually feeling like watching a movie these days. bizarre. How cool would it be to go into a dark theatre and order buttered popcorn and file into a big room with a big screen with a bunch of strangers and watch a movie together. This reality seems so unreal right now.

Nothing else is going on really. i will get the pictures on asap. and there is a couple new videos on youtube to see or listen too. just remember when you search gypseangie on the youtube site, to select to sort videos by date added to get the most recent ones.

That's all,

ciao!

All about CHEESE

Happy HOLY!! That is the festival today. "Holy" is the festival of colour. It is to celebrate the colour of life and to remind ourselves that what life is. and to recharge ourselves after daily life challenges.
India has so many festivals.
I considered myself particularily brave hitting the streets this morning as I have been advised by several people that no one is safe in the street today. During Holy, everyone runs around with coloured powder and douses everyone they see with it. Sometimes they have liquid colour in water guns or super soakers!!! Can you imagine? Kids in Canada would love this! And you can do it. I mean, anyone is free game. If you are in the street, you are free game. OPEN SEASON!!!

So i feel so brave. I have snuck out early, right after breakfast, hopefully to beat the rush, to beat the kids to the street and hopefully get back before the melee begins. All the shops are closed (for obvious reasons, you don't want all your merchandise covered in colour and all the store fronts are open air, so vulnerable to attack or "shrapnel" or "spray")
Everyone partakes, but kids are the worst (read: most dangerous) of course. I wore dark coloured old clothes and covered my head and kept my eyes sharply peeled for any sign of danger, fully prepared to face the consequences of my excursion should I encounter an entourage of colour-toting rapscallions. My desire to write was THAT strong this morning, I couldn't not venture out. ha haah. ("ha" means "yes" in hindi, so ha ha means "ya, ya"). So you better all appreciate the risk I took to blog-on today.

Last night I did something really crazy! I ate cheddar cheese with pickles on rice crackers!!!! can you believe that?!! AND.....a ginger beer (like ginger ale but yummier). I finally broke down and went to the store that sells all kinds of things that only foreigners eat and i splurged. I spent around 15 dollars on treats and snacks that I haven't had in over 6 months. And boy was it fun. I just sat in my room and had a little hors' deuvres party with myself.

I have been so inundated with social interaction these days. people, people, people. I had my own room for a few days and then they gave me a new roommate the other day, a young "professional" from Los Angeles.... she didn't last a day. She stayed one night in my room and then apparently she was feeling so sick that she moved to a guesthouse where a friend was staying. Poor thing. But I was happy because I had my room back to myself.

I find I need that personal space to feel balanced. When there is people constantly everywhere, in the ashram, in the street, and there is nowhere you can go where you can be alone and uninterrupted..... i find, for me, it is a little bit harder to keep balance. Of course, you get used to it, sharing a room, and you learn to be alone even when you are with someone else. But personally, i really like the peace. In India, as i have said before, you are never alone, and people are always talking to you, singing to you, staring at you or interacting with you in one way or another whether you like it or not. So of course this is a challenge for my Canadian sensibilities. Canadians who have so much space, physically and emotionally.

So, although I was sorry that the L.A. girl was sick, I was glad to have my room back and I celebrated a little, the solitude, with cheddar cheese and ginger beer. haha. Cheddar, by the way, is a very rare commodity. Hard to find and expensive. The nice thing is that with the Indians being as ingenious as they are... once they discover there is a demand for such a thing, and that foreigners will pay, what is to them, a very pretty penny, then they waste no time in figuring out how to produce and make the cheese, producing a very high quality of cheese too, local, and delicious, without the chemicals and preservatives that mass produced cheeses in western supermarkets have. So its a win win situation, for me, the cheese craver, and for them, the ingenious cheese manufacturer. My cheese didn't even have a label on it, it was THAT grassroots. It was just in a plastic bag, sold by my grocer buddy "Kewal" along with his assurance that if i didn't like it, i could bring it back. wow. Thanks Kewal. And it was VERY good.

So instead of boring you with more tales of cheese I think I will go and work on more youtube videos..... (you don't know how much you, the cheese lover, take cheese for granted until you stay in a country like Japan or India).... Now "paneer", that's Indian cheese... that's another story.... I'll save that for later.

living life as an artform

Well,

I can't believe that after being here for 6 months that there are still surprises and "firsts". Today I smelled bleach fo the very first time in India. bleach!! and it was at my ayurvedic doctor's clinic, so that's a good sign, right? I have not smelled bleach anywhere, nary a bathroom or doctor's office up until today, no smell of cleaners..... none. I never knew they had bleach in india until today. they don't use it on their clothes either. toxic cleaners are something I just havent' seen here.

I also had lunch today in a truly Indian restaurant on my way back from the doctor (he is giving me herbs for my sluggish digestion, which, by the way, work like a charm). The restaurant is called "Rajisthani Sweets" and they have the best sweets in town, i can't go by there without buying a box to spoil people at the ashram with. Plus it is a full scale restaurant as well. By far the best food I've had yet in India, what I had today..... after 6 months, I had the best food I've had in india!

Ashram food is good, great, but healthy, never swimming in cream or butter or spiced quite enough (spicey food fires you up and makes it harder to settle into meditation). Then the restaurant got really busy and a young Indian married couple were seated with me at my table. I was the only foreigner in the place (my stomach of steel has made me bold in my choice of restaurants..... some places that foreigners would be leary of..... and still I have yet to experience what they call "Delhi belly". Am I jinxing myself by saying that? (I am knocking on my wooden head right now).

It was kind of a funny scene when the couple's food arrived. Both had ordered Masala Dosa which is like a big thin crepe or skinny pancake stuffed with vegetables or potatos, served with sauces and chutneys and soup. It's a very yummy dish from south india. So while I was digging into my own cornucopia of curries and tasties with my right hand (no utensils, Indian style), they were delicately devouring their dosas in a "civilized" way with knife and fork. A picture would have been worth a thousand words. I laughed so hard inside myself at the three of us. It would have been even funnier if they had ordered pasta or something and were eating it with a knife and fork whilst I ate curry and rice with my hands. aaaaaaah.

I am really amazed at myself right now because I'm sitting on an old bench at the market of Rishikesh, hectic, bustling downtown. A place that used to make my nervous system cringe and crawl after only 10 minutes. I was always in a mad dash to get in and get out before I lost my mind. The onslaught of honking, cars, cows, fumes, activity, people, noises, smells, general pandemonium..... You know it, I've spoken of it many times. But suddenly I feel so completely at ease and at home here amongst it. I couldn't feel calmer or more peaceful if I was laying in a meadow of purple flowers somewhere, staring up at a blue sky. How has this happened? How did I get to this place?

Even as i stood shoulder to shoulder with 20 people waiting to buy a box of sweets and people are budging and squeezing around me in true Indian style, it felt as comfortable to me and natural as swimming in a summer lake. All the chaos and cacophany just looks and feels normal and comforting. What is going on? What IS this transformation?

The people of India are so accepting and non-judgemental (or at least their judgements are in their head but on the outside they just let you be). Its as if they are my brothers and sisters. And my nervous system has changed. Really changed. If I can feel calm and relaxed under these conditions, there is no place I can't feel at ease. Its like that expression "if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere".

The people here seem to live life with such style and grace. Even the man making chai in the street pours milk and tosses spices and sugar in the pot like he is conducting an orchestra. Its as if they've made the living of life an artform.

hi

Ok, so, I went back into the hills again yesterday but this time I stuck to the main road instead of venturing off into no man's land. Still the main road dwindled into a gravel footpath anyhow but it lead me to the most idyllic little oasis, beside a wet creek this time, not a dry one. There were little palm trees and purple flowers and beautiful water, bubbling, babbling gently down. I'm heading back there today after lunch with my camera so I can show you this spot. I will go after lunch so I have more time to enjoy it without having to hurry back. I so like going alone because it is so peaceful and a nice place to reflect. "This is real India" is what i was thinking as i sat in the middle of the creek crouched on a small rock with my hands and feet dangling in the clear water. I contemplated bringing a friend with me from the ashram but somehow i feel that no one would really appreciate it as much as i would and it would only leave me disappointed that they are not as thrilled as i. On this path I passed a woman carrying things on her head, slowly making her way up the hill on her way.... to where? home? Life seems so nice up there. Paradise. I can picture myself living there. Why is it when life is more simple and when you live in the country and grow your food and cut your wood for fire, life seems more right? it just makes more sense. When I see people living this close to the land, it doesn't matter that they have nothing by our standards, that they are not materially rich. To me, it seems, they have everything. It is gorgeous up there.

Anyhow,

that is the plan for today. To head up there after lunch. Wanting to go to a lecture/talk today at a hotel near here. It starts in half an hour. Then after dinner I have an acupressure appointment with someone to work on my back. I am becoming more and more intrigued with acupressure. I am starting to even think "yoga therapy, ayurveda, and acupressure", great compliments. I know I need to got into alternative medicine in these kinds of ways. and i think with the direction that conventional medicine is heading these days.... that this is going to be a great field, burgeoning in fact. excited i am. Acupressure is also a great tool of diagnosing weak areas in the body. Then with yoga therapy, massage and ayurveda, we can treat it. Also pranic healing keeps popping up for me too. Prana is the life force energy. When one's prana is low, we become susceptible to disease and illness. Therefore maintaining strong life force energy is essential to have full health.

Just a few little things I am learning. Mostly this has come to my attention as it pertains to my own personal back issue. ( the saga goes on). I have noticed that when I am getting lots of prana into my body, through breath exercises or through transmission from an outside party or source, that my back feels wonderfully good. And when my energy is low and I am not breathing properly or feeling stressed, holding the breath or breathing very shallow, then the pain returns. It is really quite amazing. I have been following this, observing what makes it come, what makes it go.

Anyhow, just a quick note for now.

love to everyone.

exploration

Greetings,
It's Thursday afternoon and I am just relaxing today. I went for a really big hike yesterday. Not long, only 2 hours, but the trail I picked to explore was challenging. Not a trail so much as a dried up riverbed which turned into a dried up waterfall. It was very steep. I contemplated turning back half way because I only had 2 hours total to adventure before lunch was served at the ashram but there was a ridge up ahead that looked like it would be a great lookout over the other side and I just couldn't bring myself to turn around, so I pushed on. I wanted to make it up to that ridge.
When you walk straight out the back of the ashram up the hill it goes into some rural land and small farms and things. I love to walk up in there because there is a beautiful creek that runs through and no cars at all, just nature, and dogs, and children and then the further you go..... nothing: trees, rocks, the odd cow with a bell, grazing in the hills.
Needless to say, I came back spent, covered in burrs and dirty and satisfied. I was in pretty good shape going up. There wasn't much of a trail. I had to abandon the creekbed because as I said, it turned into a vertical wall of rocks which would have been a waterfall in wetter seasons. I ended up scrambling up a gravelly slope with tufts of grass on all four of my limbs because it was so steep. The harder it got, the more determined I became. It became this great challenge which I couldn't turn away from. I arrived at the top, thirsty with no water, only to find there was a perfectly maintained and well used road along the ridge! You could see over the other side into a hazy valley. Very cool. Also there was a power line, of all things. Just when I thought I had escaped into the middle of nowhere, boom, there is civilization in all its glory. I discovered that I just took the hard way to a place that is probably relatively easy to get to by other routes.
I enjoyed the pinnacle only for a brief moment; feeling the breeze caress my skin and cool me down. Thinking there must be a proper trail down from that point, other than the way I came up (and not wanting to follow the nice road, for surely it would take me to a point far, far from the ashram, thus dousing my lunch plans at the ashram completely), I strolled a ways farther along the ridge. I spotted a trail on some rocky shale and began to make my descent. Again it was steep, but I was confident.
Well, the trail didn't last long and I felt I was really getting short on time. No time to backtrack and look for something better. I had no watch so i was going entirely by my intuition for time and I know I had little of it.
This trail was even less defined and wild than the last one and soon ceased to be anything that could be called a trail at all. In places it was downright dangerous as I slid and lost my footing several times, grasping onto grass clumps to slow my descent. I found myself again in a small gully, a different one, that had once had water in it, but that was also now dry and long unused. It was so overgrown that I grew used to using my body as a scythe as I plowed through the overgrown bushes, more concerned for my footing, as unsure as each step was becoming. Often I was stepping into a mess of leaves and sticks and loose shale, not knowing if the foothold was going to hold. The thought of snakes (India, the land of cobras) was constantly in my mind and I just kept telling myself "this doesn't look like anyplace I would like to be if I were a snake, too dry, too.... whatever" making nice excuses to keep from terrifying myself. I got tangled up a few times in tree branches, both fallen ones and attached ones, tripping. It reminded me of getting tangled up with my snowboard on the ski hill in some ridiculous position from which I had to patiently extricate myself, no one there to pull me out.
I began to feel huge rushes of adrenalin as I felt the power and strength of my body go into survival mode. Getting down off this hill was my only goal. All other thoughts were banished from my mind and I enjoyed this one-pointedness of purposeness for the duration of the journey. My mind was calm and concentrated.
I clambered over log jambs and lowered myself by my hands with the strength of my arms from small trees growing at the top of dropoffs to the ground below, often jumping down, or finding hand holds in rock faces to maneuver myself down to the next safe spot. I was invigorated and alive and felt I could make no misstep. I was moving as fast as possible because I knew lunch was at 12 and I think it is so inconsiderate to be late and expect to be served separately from everyone else. The steep part finally gave way to the gentler, wider, more open dry creek rock bed which I flew down at top speed, leaping with sure footedness from boulder to boulder, so grateful for all the yoga training I have been doing, my muscles were strong and stable, my balance, reliable.
I felt such a rush of life when I emerged from that valley back onto the road. I felt like I had been gone for days on a vision quest and had faced wild animals and life threatening conditions.
I was filthy. I had worn white, not expecting this sort of adventure. I was covered in burs and spear grass, dirt.....I was a mess. When I arrived back home, beaming and bouncing, the staff just laughed at me, as if I was a child who had been out playing in the mud. They understood my glee. It was a good day.