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.

ways to blow off steam

Spent Sunday in nature. 5 of us took a silent walk. Walked in silence until arrival at the waterfall. It was a nice visit and a good 5 kilometre walk. Nice to be in nature again. Surrounded by natural splendor. Green, green, green. Then we came down the hill to the river and hung out there for awhile. So good to relax, soak up sun and get in water after being noses to the grindstone for 4 weeks. We all appreciated the day so much. Sitting on rocks, squishing our toes in the sand and just being human. The girls loved the waterfall. Some of them had never been in a waterfall before if you can believe that.

Not much else to report.

peace to all.

The proof is in the pudding

Howdy!
well, you've all been very patient with my not writing. I fear my negligence will cause readership to drop dramatically, so, if it's not too late.... here's the news and the latest pikatures....
I am just now starting to get my head around the fact that I am free again. No classes. The program ended friday.
The training was excellent. I have inherited many teaching tools. I am very grateful for all that the teachers did to help us along in our learning about anatomy, and ethics, philosophy and techniques. And it was fun to be so excited and enthusiastic about school.
It was so busy and intense, my head is still swirling from what happened.
So many classes, and so much note taking and test writing and essays and orals. yikes!!
They designed the course very well so that in addition to the paper and pens coursework and hands on teaching, you also really delve into personal development and bonding with the other women in the program ( no men in the program and the women ranged in age from 21 to 53).
I really felt the feeling that we are all not separate in this world, we are one. What I do to others, comes back to me, effects me, because they are a part of me, and me a part of them. Just as you are a part of me and I am a part of you. This is what i learned. It was not taught explicitly or directly, it was what I came to on my own from what I experienced.
Others suffer and struggle, others are sad, others feel as I do, we are all together in this experience of life. We all want the same things: peace, happiness, love, to feel fulfilled. We are part of one creation, not separate, not at all. This is a very powerful teaching.
So now I am a certified yoga teacher with the papers to prove it. Somehow this endows me with a confidence in myself, my ability to teach, and a sense that I have something to offer and share with the world if that knowledge is so requested. Even though I had this before, I didn't feel a confidence about it. So this is a big gift to me. A big gift.
Now I will spend a few weeks staying here at the ashram and just integrating, studying and practicing. I still have so much to learn.
The weather is getting nice now. Birds are singing.
The river is green.
The wind blows warmer and warmer everyday.
I am excited about the future and what it will bring.
Only about 3 months left of this trip. I can't believe it's nearing near the end. It seems like just yesterday I had 6 or 8 months left to stay here.
Now 3.
wow.
The plan is to stay here a month. Go to Dharamsala for a month or so (where the Dalai Llama lives), and then I want to take another Ayurveda course which is nearby here, for one month. I am becoming more and more intrigued by Ayurvedic medicine, ancient Indian naturopathy based on the idea that in order to be healthy, strong and disease-free we can re-align ourselves with nature and her rhythms and laws. Everything from diet to massage, daily routines and excercise, there are many little places in daily life where we can use ayurvedic principles to create balance within ourselves and harmony with our environment. If it means that we can all live more peacefully in our bodies, pain and discomfort free, with a mind that is calm and easy to concentrate, and we feel generous with others and relaxed, is this not your definition of Utopia? I think its mine.
Does it sound airy fairy? It might until you see it work. The proof is in the pudding.
I have to run. I am taking my friend Jasmine downtown by rickshaw to introduce her to my ayurvedic doctor and to pick up some herbs for myself.
enjoy the pictures and i'll be back soon
love