Day off

I've never been so thankful for a day off in my life, mostly because my back is having some weird issues, most of which I believe is energetic (and also happened on my last trip), just working through the opening of the nadis, but someone else mentioned he believes its my fascia all twisted up. Either way, I was very happy this morning to sleep in and have no set schedule for the day. My day off of work at home doesn't typically coincide with my day off from my yoga practice, so often on the day I'm not practicing I'm still teaching at the park and a private lesson or two, or a workshop, so it's nice here to have a full day off where I only need do what I choose to do.

Typical day off for an Ashtangi means a castor oil bath, rubbing the body down with castor oil, allowing it to soak in and relax the muscles, pull "heat" out of the body (and if you're a pitta dosha this is a complete must, and yes, it does work) and to just make you feel a little high lol, much more relaxed than normal and very content. So that's what I did after some pranayama and chanting to begin with.

Then I walked up to Khushi for lunch where I thought I'd hang out and read for a bit, but it wasn't the place for me this morning, so back home I am to write this before settling in to read and head back out a bit later for lunch at Anima Madhva Bhavan, my favorite place to eat here. On the way home I stopped at the Green House, a house a few up from the shala and from Sharath's new home, owned by Pavithra, a lovely Jain man who practices with us and knows a lot about Ayurvedic health and has the best incense and statues and malas and such.

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With the back issues for the past two days my practice was hard, moreso during the led class yesterday than the day before where I was able to go at my own pace and stretch it out slowly. Led is a much faster pace than it is allowing right now though, and Sharath even helped me a couple times when he realized that I was struggling. But as I said earlier, I believe its more energetic than anything. In my Sanskrit level 2 class Lakshmish is also doing half the class on translating the Hatha Yoga Pradapika and the first few sentences he talked a lot about the opening of the energy channels on either side or in the middle of the base of the spine, exactly where my trouble is and it just resonated, so I'm sticking with that story. My friend who diagnosed it as my fascia wants to work on it, and I will let him, I'm not about it being a physical thing as well, but then again I don't believe they are mutually exclusive, energy forms matter, matter is just molecules moving at a slower rate of vibration...

Speaking of vibration, there was a lovely kirtan at the Blue House last night, another place up the road from the shala owned an ex-pat British (I believe) lady who hosts such things and does massage trainings and has philosophy talks and such. My friend hadn't been to one before and said that some resonated with her and some didn't, so I told her the different words in Sanskrit hold different vibrations (the lady who led the kirtan talked a bit about it as well, only called them frequencies) and the ones closest to where you are vibrating at the time always are the ones you're drawn to join in on.

Funny thing how you come here and you start to think about the different gods and their meanings, when traditionally you're not a Hindu. But I think the idea of the gods goes much beyond Hinduism. To me each god represents a different aspect of ourselves. Shiva (my personal favorite) is the destroyer, destroying the things no longer serving you so as to make space for new things to come in. Lakshmi, of abundance and prosperity, not just financially but all things. I was going to list some more, but there are so many and each has so many aspects within the their main purpose, so I'll leave it at that and just say that to me they are all aspects of our inner being, or even our mind, that we can access and use to not allow us to be stuck in one place without growth or movement of energy. And sometimes if that access is hard to come by maybe chanting the names that brings up the energy you need is the best way to do it!

I may write more later, but it is my day off and there's a lot going on in there (my mind) it just all hasn't formulated into cohesive sentences just yet, so off to read and relax for a while before eventually heading out to have a coconut and then to my lunch with a friend and who knows what else the day will bring.

Love you, take care!