end of week 2 YIPEE!

Hello!

Yes, I am still hear. here.

sort of, all here.

I need to be concise right now as there is much studying that needs to be done for our "midterm" exam tomorrow. Today, being Sunday, my day off, I was going to dedicate the whole day to studying but already it is noon and I have to have lunch still.

I popped out of the ashram to buy a t-shirt. I am running out of clothes sometime near the end of the week and can't find time to do all my laundry we are so busy. So I come "downtown" (down the hill and across the river, not really downtown, per se, but the closest thing to it that I'm going to get for awhile) and I pick out a t-shirt and a pair of pants after much deliberation and negotiation and waiting for the actual store owner to return to his store. When I go to pay the man, lo and behold, I have forgotten to "replenish" my wallet with rupees and find there is NO cash inside, at all. And here I am trying to be all efficient and timely so I can hit the books asap. So I have to run all the way back up the hill, get the money and come all the way back down. And of course, its India, so there are people that stop you and talk to you all along the way, some friends, some acquaintances, some strangers. It takes forever. So now its past noon, i haven't had lunch yet, and I still wanted to write some words to you lovely people. It has been so long.

Phew!! I am out of breath just typing that.

It just goes to show that the more you hurry, the longer it takes.

So, I have been missing my Indian friends and daily interactions, conversations and musings as I have no time during the week to go out and mix and mingle. I am now surrounded in the ashram by people who are just like me, for the most part, day in and day out, the rest of the women in the course. Canadian women in their 30's mostly. Big cultural difference between that and India. And these women haven't gotten "Indianized" at all in the two weeks that they've been here because they've been sheltered in the ashram. I notice for me, even, coming out into the streets now after not coming out really for two weeks, I am smelling everything anew. My nose is really sensitive again to all the smells and stinks in the street, as I, too, have been sheltered in the ashram for the past two weeks. And this ashram is not India. This one is IN India, technically, but it is so squeaky clean and smelling lovely and breezy and appealing to Western sensibilities. I call it my five star hotel. And the street, in contrast, is all smelly and filthy and noisy and chaotic and beautiful and ugly and alive, all at the same time. And I love it.

Anyhow.

Sorry, my thoughts are all over the place, and disjointed. The past two weeks have been so stimulating and left brain. Very intellectual and cerebral. Not so much intuitive feeling, which is what I have mostly been developing up until this course started. I guess it's good. I guess you need both to be really effective in the world. I guess it is good practice in going back and forth from the deep meditative states back into the extroverted linear interactions. I am hoping to integrate these two even more as I go. Because I find that when I am using my brain to take notes and comprehend anatomy, for example, and asking questions and conversating about it.... it makes it really challenging then to drop into a meditation or to access my intuition (right brain) right after that. And the opposite also is happening: that if I go into a really deep meditative state in the morning with our yoga class and meditation and the silence before 9am, then I am very very reluctant to let that go, to break that spell and begin talking again and using my intellectual part of my brain. But the course requires you to go back and forth between the two continuously, so I guess I am developing my ability to do that, which will probably be very useful in the "real" world. I dislike that term "real" world. It's ALL the real world.

We have finished two weeks now and two more remain. It is going quickly. This morning I taught my first practicum class with a partner. We peer teach and then get feedback, so it is very useful. Amazing how nervous a person can get teaching their peers. why is that i wonder?

Hmm, this is very interesting. From using my left brain so much, my writing is different. It seems more 2+2=4. You know? Like, this happened, then that happened, very linear. I don't feel like I'm really expressing from the heart, it's just really black and white basic writing. I feel the happiest writing when I have alot of time to daydream and let my creative contemplative side of my brain work. Now I understand why people go into retreat or sabbatical to write books. That quiet empty time is perfect for letting things bubble to the surface to be written down. Reducing the new impressions so the old ones can bubble forth.

These are just some of the observations I am making.

We are learning alot. It is very informative. I haven't had to have this much discipline since I was in university. There is alot of work and very little time.

That being said, I am enjoying it tremendously and am super happy just to be here, finally and having the opportunity to learn what I am so hungry to learn. It is very gratifying. Jasmine, she is my partner in the practicum classes, she is from Germany but of Afghani background. she did a good job of making our class laugh. She is wonderful. Me, I thought i just put everyone to sleep. It is very challenging to teach a beginners class to a bunch of advanced students. I kept thinking "oh, they're bored, they can't wait for the class to be finished, etc. etc." but i was surprised when the feedback all came and everyone really enjoyed the class. Its so hard to tell what people are thinking while you are doing it. You can't tell if they are liking it or hating it. And even when they tell you they liked it, you wonder if they are just saying that to be nice. There were alot of points in my mind that I would do differently or improve, and they did give some constructive criticisms, along with the teacher's, but mostly they seemed really genuinely to think it was very good.

So we have two more classes like that so we can improve on them and gain our confidence.

Wow, its just so much work. I cannot say this enough. It's good, its just.... I haven't been in a situation that requires so much focussed energy for such a prolongued of time. Usually in my life I have alot of time for reflection and contemplation. Maybe too much. So this could be good for me, being so structured and so busy and learning how to manage your time efficiently. Your life is not your own.

anyhow.

Update on my Bengali family: The son just got married and I went to the wedding reception at their house. I was late because they didn't tell me exactly what time to come but apparently they fed like 200 people!!!!! all out of their kitchen, if you can believe it. wow. and that night was their wedding night, "golden night" he called it, the first night that they are allowed to spend together. amazing. they have been married officially for like 36 hours but the time since the ceremony has been so filled with family and more ceremonies and rituals and visits to temple that they aren't officially allowed to sleep together until then. And they are virtual strangers, having only met once or twice before. I know this seems unbelievable from our cultural perspective, and it does to me too when I put myself in my own cultural shoes, but now that I have been here for awhile and spent so much time with the family and talked to alot of people, it makes complete sense to me now, complete sense. Funny how your perspective can change. Our perspective is totally socialized. Determined by our culture of origin.

So the women of the family decorate the wedding bed, cover it with fresh flowers (can you imagine?) wow. They showed me pictures. It was beautiful and amazing. The whole room is decorated with fresh flowers and scents for the first night. and get this: its MY room! Its the room that they always give me in the guesthouse when I come to stay there, the upstairs corner room overlooking the valley. So that made me laugh.

It was really good to see them again and the mother seems to be recovering well from losing her husband only a few weeks back.

Let's see... what else?

um, I think I pretty much covered everything. Just that everything is going great and its alot of work to do and information to absorb. But i'm happy. Very happy.

Back feels good. The proper yoga we have been doing seems to be strengthening it and healing it.

Ya, so i'll write again, hopefully when i get my poetic brain back again.

lots of love to all.