I keep thinking I'll write a retrospective of this year, as many do near the end of each year, but it's really not me. I sat down and tried three times now. I start, I feel great like there's momentum and then boom, i couldn't care less and delete the post. I have to feel inspired to write, I'm not one of those people who can force it. If I do you will know, it won't be at all what my writing is usually like.
So I decided today to write the year as the heading but to see what comes out. There is a lot floating around in my mind that would like to get out and yet I've been unable to write, it just won't come to the surface. Or it is at the surface and it won't formulate into anything coherent, I blame the weather here for it. I'm lacking terribly in inspiration as it's been grey, overcast, raining or snowing, and did I mention completely no sunlight? At all, for weeks on end now!
I have spent the past four winters in India and grown accustomed to what they call winter, which is not at all what most of the world calls winter lol. And it is glorious. It really is maybe the best weather Mysore can ever have during these months of the year, and I'm missing it. I used to deal with this type weather back in the Midwest also and it would always get to me, it's a big part of why I left there.
I began this year in Mysore as well, even though I was finished with my three months practicing with Sharath, had gotten authorised and was just staying that extra month until I left January 27th to teach yoga in Köln, Germany. I enjoyed that month because I was able to practice at home and still hang out with many friends who were there still practicing the rest of the day, or visit my temples and interact with my local friends. But when I arrived in Germany I found this same type of weather and had to fight the mood shifts for a couple months, after March it started to get more tolerable and the sun started showing itself and then I really enjoyed it.
Living in Germany for four months was an experience. I've never had any desire to visit Germany, I think mostly because I'd studied French in school and so the romance languages are easier to pick up for me, German is not so easy. But after creating a nice connection with most of the students there, and dated some, and made some other friends outside of the shala I really liked being here. Other than the person I was covering for ending our friendship and having issues with me and the way I handled some things I would say that it was a positive experience.
Then upon my return to India, which I now consider home, I was going to a whole new area that I'd always wanted to visit but never had. Varanasi, and it was a tough place to be for me. I imagine even in the nicest weather it would be tough to be there, but at that time it was generally 45-47 degrees each day and that is just too fucking hot for me, even though I do like the warmth. But I did have some interesting and quite amazing experiences there, one with Kali and the other in meeting and traveling with someone that I'd only ever talked to online and never met in person before. But most of the stuff I've written about already so I don't feel like any detail is needed here.
Other than to write about Muthu Swamy, or as his Facebook account calls him, Sammi. He'd been my teachers sisters student in Bangalore for some months and had reached out to me thinking since I'd been practicing much longer he could ask some things and we did have a great connection. So when I returned and went to Varanasi he met me there, as he'd left his job and was planning to become a yogi and was traveling around to different auspicious locations already.
Meeting him I immediately felt comfortable and like I'd just reunited with my brother, so we did fine living together. From Varanasi we went to Rishikesh, where he'd already been staying for three months in an ashram there, but I'd never been. The train ride from Varanasi to Haridwar was 19 hours, but ended up being 24 hours and was a chore, but I met some lovely people in the AC coach, Sammi got stuck in the Indian coach with no AC and didn't have as good a time as I did I think lol. But I also had a hard time with the sitting and the laying for so long. Then there was an hour ride to Rishikesh itself, and then another very long walk from where they drop you to the bridge and over it to the guest house we'd booked already. It was a chore to get there, much like everything in India tends to be but maybe because of this is why we love it so much more once we get past that part of it.
Rishikesh is an interesting place, I met many very lovely local people but there is so much commercialism around the "yoga" there that it makes me think a strong Mysore style Ashtanga program is needed to get people knowing the difference, but that's just me being judgmental! I liked it and had a great experience bathing in Ma Ganga each day, walking about the beach in the evening, seeing or hearing the aarti at dusk, eating the food, enjoying the sun and just being near the river. I was surprised how drawn I was, or I am, to that river. You hear stories but until you experience it you don't realise how powerful she is.
Then when we decided to finally get to Uttarkashi, again it was the biggest chore. We didn't think we wanted to stay in Rishikesh so long and I'd decided to go to Mysore for Guru Purnima which was July 9th, I talked Sammi into going as well since he'd never been and we bought flights through this app that sold them really cheap. The flights were from Dehradun to Bangalore and then I'd booked my usual cab from Ganesh in Gokulam to get there from the airport, but we had quite some time before that happened, and so we went to the jeep stand, not the bus stand but near to it (and yes they are separate things even though most locals will tell you they are not!), and had to wait until there were enough people to fill up a jeep who were all going to Uttarkashi, and we went. The jeep ride is 6 fucking hours, and Sammi and I were squished into one seat together, and we're both full grown men so it was not comfortable, but it was beautiful and the one stop we made for lunch was a gorgeous little place with good homemade food. Then to the town, and again the tough time we had getting to the room we'd already booked.
This is the worst part of India, the traveling, it's never easy for us Westerners because we're so spoiled with our airports and everything being very scheduled and organised and clean and much different. But again I think because of this part is why the arrival and settling in to a new place is so nice.
We were there and much stuff I could write about there but I think I'll take a break and go have lunch and maybe finish a bit later, so this will be part one...
No comments:
Post a Comment