Familiarity

It wasn’t the sound of a child’s scream that sent me running from my bathroom to the balcony, that’s as common as the Indian mourning retching, it was the yells of a man.  The intensity, the ferociousness and the magnitude of his words were pierced intermittently with the cries of a child, mind you, but his voice overtook the sounds that filled the morning air.  I didn’t hear the morning caws of the crows, I didn’t hear the ocean, all I heard was his yelling.  Looking to my left, I peered over to see my next-door neighbor come out her cottage, a similar place where we had just shared, just moments before, a brief “good morning,” our first ever since she and her boyfriend arrived days ago.  This is the first morning I’ve seen in days as I emerge from a bout of the typical India induced food poisoning.  Now, instead of a friendly gesture we look at each other in disbelief and worry, giving each other the “I don’t know what the fuck is going on” shoulder shrug w/ a furrow between our brows and a mutual silent fear to add any more noise to the ruckus in the place below us.  The door to the room is wide open and I see the lower calves and feet of a man but no more.  I glace to the stairwell approaching the entryways and the guest house cleaning boy is waiting, hidden behind the corner, afraid to continue his morning duties because he has to pass through the air of their commotion.  A few people gather on the balconies of the adjacent building to see what is happening.  A concerned looking aged woman cranes her neck in attempts to steal my perspective and then walks to the opposite end to see if there is anything she can see from the balcony that belongs to the bellows.  She returns, glances at me as if there is nothing to report and I return the same.

Soon after a little girl scuttles out of the room with that familiar little leg shuffle with her mother behind, clasping her had, who is remaining very quiet.  She speaks a few words to the daughter but not many as she rinses out dirty dish containers over the railing into the communal garbage dump.  The mother goes back inside and the little girl, who can’t be more than 6 or 7 years old still cries.  I check on my neighbor and her eyes are fixed on the scene, standing with her hands clasped against the railing like she’s waiting for something, maybe waiting to see the same thing I am, waiting to see what the hell a grown man that yells at such decibels looks like.  The mini crowd of a few still gathers on the neighboring balconies, not with a voyeuristic eye but one of helpless interruption.  What can you do when you don’t understand the language penetrating every bit of air around you but can feel down to your marrow the intention?  A few moments later I see the same masculine feet and legs but only for a moment as the mother emerges from the door with the fixings to go to the beach.  As she gathers her daughter and slips on her shoes I look at my neighbor again, her eyes transfixed, and I look back as the door closes behind the two ladies and hear the “clunk” of the door lock behind them. 

 

My blood courses with a long forgotten sensation as I stare at the closed door and the faceless man behind it.  My neighbor made her way to the corner of the balcony and sits in the lounge chair, eyes fixated at the door, half in focus, half in a daze, her face painted with sorrow, anguish, remembrance and a sense of pained familiarity.  I sit down and wait to see if this man is like my dad, who I haven’t talked to in over 2 years or seen in 14, not due to my lack of trying, to see if he’ll sit and simmer in his own festering darkness or if he’ll emerge and show his face.  Time passes and the door doesn’t open, much like the look on the face of my neighbor doesn’t change.  She and I may be strangers but in this moment, we have a familiarity that goes back deeper than we’d care to remember and all we’ve ever said to each other is, “good morning.”

Moments later, she leaves.  We never even exchanged names.

Relaxed Stability & April 10L/O

The universe isn’t always the most discrete with the messages it’s trying to deliver to you, in fact, sometimes it’s downright violent! I mean, obviously our world is getting highly overpopulated by the resource grubby humans that don’t seem to want to slow down on the procreation so natural disasters are, so far, gradually taking care of business.  My friend Claudio and I actually were discussing the balance of the earth and who’s going to win the race to “take care” of human population, since we are inept at doing so ourselves, mother nature, in the form of violent catastrophes, or THE MAN, in the form of a mass plague that will eradicate populations around the world.  I’m not gunna lie, my vote is for mother nature and even if I’m in her wake, whatever, each day of life is as good as I make it.  Claudio voted for THE MAN and actually, LA dude, in a completely different discussion yesterday thought it would be THE MAN too since it’s man’s nature to destroy itself.  These, ladies and gentlemen, are the typical conversations I find myself in whilst living abroad.  WORLD ANNIHALATION!!! MAUAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!  Nah, we talk about sex too. J

I went a little ahead of myself and I’m really being selfish with bringing this up because I’m talking about my OWN universal catastrophes.   If you pay attention to yourself, you’ll start to notice little things too and that universe could just be your body telling you something and if you fail to listen, it MAKES you listen.  Like when I was dysentery for a week, I knew my body needed a rest, I knew I needed to simmer down in either my ashtanga class or my evening hatha class but did I?  NooOoOoOoooo… so instead, my body made me explode out of both ends for a week and left me so weak and skeletor, I needed to ease back into my routine once I could stand up straight.  That is old news though.

I’m still in Arambol, I haven’t left Arambol and I’ve planned countless times to leave Arambol.  About a month ago, I was minorly stressed about what to do with my life once Balu’s classes finished on the 31^st of March and I had until May 15 to be in Australia.  I did say “minorly” stressed right, because that’s not really anything to stress about, I know this. I knew a Vipassana needed to go into that month and a half somewhere but I didn’t know which country I wanted to go to.  Thailand was pulling me but I only get a month visa on arrival and you have to do border runs and when doing those, you’re only left with 15 days before you have to do another one.  For those who don’t know what vipassana is, it’s a 10 day, complete noble silence (no talking, no eye contact, no physical contact, no gestures), 12 hours a day of meditation, you eat only 2 times a day, last meal being at 11:30am, you wake at 4am and you go to sleep at 9:30pm.  The LAST thing you want to do after getting out, whilst in your bliss of higher consciousness, is a run to the border to renew a visa.  You barely want to even talk to anyone when you’re free.  Malaysia has 3 month visas but it’s supposed to be as hot, if not hotter and more humid than India AND Thailand and if you have seen me workout, you have seen me sweat… just breathing is enough to make me sweat in this heat so Malaysia was tabled.  There was one option that I thought about but immediately brushed aside – how about I stay in Arambol and just RELAX and DO NOTHING but read, my own yoga, lay on the beach and swim in the Arabian?  “HA!!” I thought to myself.  “Stay somewhere where there is NO purpose.  No yoga classes, no aerial, no friends, shops closing, no… ANYTHING.  Yeah right!  I don’t DO that!”  To my credit, I have done just that, the relaxing, do nothing vacation, once in my life and it was last February when a few of my ladies and I went to maui.  I didn’t want to drive on the Hana Highway, I didn’t want to do ANYTHING but lay out and read and maybe a little SUP.  This was also after I had just finished 3 months of hard manual labor in Lesotho and 2 weeks of serious gallivanting around Europe so I was pooped!  I have a hard time just BEING, which plagues a majority of the western world.  We always have to be working on something, doing something, talking to someone, running from one thing to the next, setting up our schedules, looking at our schedules, looking at our schedules while we’re already doing something, and we’re often times half talking to the person sitting in front of us while half talking to someone else on our phone.  It’s always go go go go go.  The busyness here isn’t like at home but I’d still leave yoga to throw a fruit, muesli and curd down the chop to run home to get into beach wear to run to meet alba at the beach before it got to hot… you know… it’s very hectic here!  I wanted to leave Arambol the week I got here and contemplating staying longer just to avoid the visa run in Thailand seemed ludicrous!  You may be wondering, “why not go somewhere else in India?”  Goa, while it’s getting hotter, is not AS hot as the entire rest of the southern part of Goa.  The only place to escape the heat is to head north, which I wanted to do but every train in India to anywhere is currently booked 2 months out and airfare to the north was just as much as airfare to Thailand AND I’m flying from Thailand to Perth because it’s cheaper SO, cost, is what was limiting that option.  In the end, I made up my mind and was going to head to Thailand immediately after Balu’s classes were over and then do a visa run the day before Vipassana.  Done!  Good plan!

About 2/3 through March I awoke one morning and whilst brushing my teeth, had a crazy tickle in the back of my throat and coughed, causing an immense pain to shoot through my ribs.  I didn’t think much of it so managed through a few days until the day after Alba left and that day it hurt to even breathe.  2 visits to a doctor and it was confirmed that I had a muscle spasm originating at my spine that would shoot searing pains through my angry intercostals and ANYTHING I did hurt, excluding laying supine and NOT MOVING.  Breathing hurt, walking on uneven surfaces hurt, opening my door hurt, showering hurt, sitting up straight hurt, the process of going from sitting to laying hurt, EVERYTHING hurt and for 2-3 days sometimes so bad that anytime I moved my eyes would well with tears.  I feared the littlest of coughs and I was deathly afraid to sneeze.  After doing tons of research and talking to the doctors this lovely lil injury, which seems to be yet another little ache that is residual from my head-on collision a year ago, takes WEEKS to heal!  It was settled, if I want this to heal as quickly as possible so I can get back to my yoga groove, I’m parkin my ass, literally!  Plus, I can’t even open my door, let alone carry a 30lb bag across country borders.

I resolved I was going to read, a lot, and do things I’ve wanted to do since I got here but somehow never got around to.  I picked up my pranayama books and started reading and I made a vow, since I could actually manage deep breathing while supine, I was going to make myself a full time nose breather!!  Big hairy audacious goals I have, right?  I already had a handle on it, for the most part, during the day but those unconscious hours are just so hard to tackle because, you’re unconscious.  Supposedly once you make it a permanent habit during the day, your body adjusts so at night, no more snoring, no more dry, choked coughs and good bye to middle of the night accidental protein snacks.  I’m 2 weeks down and from what I can see, it’s working! 

I couldn’t help but laugh at the situation, seriously doped up on muscle relaxers, while how just weeks prior I didn’t think it was possible for me to just chill being here with nothing to do but relax.  I don’t think a person can get any more relaxed than bed rest!  I mean, had I done this on my own free volition I would’ve enjoyed maybe a run on the beach before the sun came up, my own yoga practice, walking up the hill every night at sunset, finding cool places to go during the day, laying on the beach to work on my non-existent tan but instead, I’ve had to totally adjust my way of thinking and life while, essentially, stuck here.  Aside from the pain, which FINALLY after a week and a half of LITERAL bed rest has very slowly and gradually started to subside, it’s been really wonderful.  I’ve finished reading every pranayama book I have and I’m currently creating a 3-5 day workshop (I knew my time at Verizon was good for SOMETHING… training development…but of something I LOVE!), I’ve finished 3 other books, started 3 others, I’ve taken up a consistent morning pranayama practice, I decided, since I’m sedentary, now is the perfect time to tackle my sugar addiction and most importantly, I’ve rested.  I had to remind myself, “it’s OK to just BE!” I’ve had to be patient with myself and the situation which I cannot change and make the best of it and I have to be honest, it’s been kind of fun trying to see just what one CAN do when all they can do is lay in bed without moving. 

When I leave Arambol, I would have stayed here 4 months.  I’ve stayed in my guest house longer than any other guest in its history, which isn’t surprising because the people who come here, knowing they will stay 2+ months, pick much quieter areas.  The last time I stayed in one place for 4 months, without going anywhere was when I was in JUNIOR HIGH!!! That was NINETEEN YEARS AGO!  I remember when Michelle and I dated she said, “you’re ALWAYS going somewhere, you’re too busy to date!” I thought she was being ridiculous, which she WAS, but now that I think of it, I am always somewhere else besides where I live.  If it’s not leaving Seattle to go to Oregon to see my family, or east to see more family, or to one corner of the country for a regatta, it’s going to only god knows where for a concert fest, or to other countries to gallivant or volunteer, or countless other cities for festivals or shows.  I.do.NOT.stay.put!  You can cover Seattle, by car, from one end to the other in about 30-45 min (think West Seattle to Wedgewood/North Seattle).  Arambol, on the other hand, you can go from one end to the other in 20 minutes WALKING!  It’s been nice finding new things to do while I’ve been here and enjoying this little town as much as possible.  I made myself available and open to any and all opportunities that wanted to present themselves and I’ve been flooded with them since I arrived, after I removed my head from my own ass, of course (see Dying and Flying... Maybe Not in that Order blog entry).  I’m not sure if this is the start of a new phase in my life where stability and grounding will become important or if it’s just a crazy fluke but it’s definitely a far cry from what I’ve done historically.  It makes me wonder if I’ll ever be one of those people who can just be content and happy staying in one place for an extended period of time.  I mean, I know the heading for my birth date was “Excited Instability” in my former lady friend’s astrology book but there’s a chance I could change, right?  I know billions of people do it across the globe, why can’t I? That all said, I do have a ticket and I am leaving…

XXXoX

Dirty, sweaty, bitten and bruised

P.S.  I kinda want to come back to Arambol next season too.  Sssssssshhhh… don’t tell anyone!

 P.P.S. Oh yeah... my April 10Likes/Opportunities below

10 Likes

• Incredibly easy going and adaptable
• When my body says to rest, I rest
• Willing to try just about anything
• Immense self awareness
• Don’t take things personally
• Amazing at entertaining myself
• Take time for me when I need it
• Better understanding that people do what they feel is right for them and to not judge
• LOVE TO READ AND LEARN!!
• The heart… is OPENING and god damn it’s HUGE!

10 Opportunities

• Take time to have patience and not get frustrated
• Seek to find the balance between being present in my surroundings and present outside my surroundings
• Make better use of my days or consciously determine I just need to relax
• Continue to work on improving my self-discipline with my sugar addiction
• NEED to figure out and maintain a daily/weekly budget
• Learn to simmer my anxiety about my frustrations with my own country
• Write more
• More consistency in my pranayama and meditation practice
• Take more pictures
• I REALLY need to wax my legs!

Dying and flying... maybe not in that order

There was a moment, I’m not exactly sure when it happened but it did.  I haven’t posted much of anything since I’ve been gone but if you look back 2 blog entries you’ll see what seemed to be my seething abhor for Goa, specifically Arambol, which is the small town I’ve been living the past 2 months.  I couldn’t wait to get away and to get out but there was a moment, once Jade, Yaniv and Clive left, where I started to LOVE this place.  It’s not because they left that I loved it, don’t mistake that comment but what happened was my friends, meaning my security, comfort, sounding boards were no longer here and I had 3 weeks left in a place that I couldn’t stand and I needed to figure out how to not be miserable.  I already knew how stupid it was to even say or think that I hated my time here so one day I just made the decision to not hate it!  I stopped seeing Goa for what it wasn’t, I stopped seeing Vijay, my yoga teacher for the TTC, for what he wasn’t, I stopped trying to make both something they weren’t and I instead started seeing them for what they were.  I’d like to think I did this on my own but I’ll admit, I did meet a sweet, ridiculously gorgeous Italian, Alba, who asked me at dinner why I wasn’t going to stay longer in Arambol and I said, “I hate it!  It’s gross and it’s just a bunch of smoking, drinking, psytrance loving party freaks.”  She was confused and said, “but why?  You have the beach, it’s sunny, there are good places to eat, good yoga, you have everything you need.”  That moment was the beginning of my transition and not because of the smoking hot Italian but because I really needed to make a shift and I knew that.  You know that phrase that goes something like, “if you criticize you should look at yourself first”?  Well, I would always be disheartened when speaking to my now former lady because every situation she was in was negative to her and I was a big proponent of switching the mind to look at the positive and she just was so resistant and here I was doing the same fucking thing.  Arambol isn’t a horrible place to be, I was making it horrible, and granted Vijay is quite an awful, discriminating, morally fucked up teacher but like with all teachers, you take what you can learn and you leave what you don’t like.  Sometimes the lessons you learn from the people who come into your life is not what you want to emulate but what you NEVER want to emulate but still, that lesson is beyond valuable and it forces you to keep yourself in check and grow...differently. 

My TTC didn’t get any better but where I could, I made every effort to distance myself from Vijay as much as possible and sometimes the fucking god awful teachers he hired to teach us various parts of the curriculum.  His anatomy teacher kept calling capillaries, veins and arteries “pipes”… PIPES!  What the fuck are pipes?!  When the “Doctor” told me that if you just look at a muscle and wish for it to be stronger it will be, I walked out of class, went to my room, opened my laptop and opened one of the 7 FULL Anatomy and Physiology text books Jade and I had scored in what I like to call our “Yoga Resource JACKPOT.”  Dr. Ganesh was the only light we had in that entire course, well and when Prabu, his head assistant, came back from gallivanting around India with his then girlfriend, I had a little bit of sanity among the insanity that is bipolar Vijay.  I don’t say that as to just be calling names, as those who know me well know I have no reason do to that, but I really think he is.  Prabu is probably the sweetest Indian man I’ve ever met and each night, he, Dominic, my new German climbing, ashtangie, stone sculpting, pilgrim of a man, would meet at “the yoga wall” and talk for an hour, plus, before dominic and I would go get dinner somewhere, usually the Rice Bowl (NOMNOMNOM VEG HAKKA NOODLE IN MY MOUTH HOLE!). 

What I took away from the training was knowing I want to be a teacher that is the opposite of Vijay.  I want to always be present, aware, focused on my students, well, this all granted I do end up teaching somewhere, someday.  I don’t want to ever discriminate anyone based on gender, age or ability and I never want to show a preference for those students naturally bendy students or ones who have had their own ridiculously beautiful practice for over a decade.  This was rather insightful because as a personal trainer, I always thought I’d want to work with those athletes who are already awesome to make them more awesome but one of my favorite times in class was when one of Alba’s friends, an older woman who didn’t speak of lick of English and who obviously had never set foot on a yoga mat before in her life, came to our evening Hatha class.  I was doing my own practice right in front of her, Alba behind her and when we were in Triangle pose, I glanced over and saw none of “my boys,” as I loving call Vijay’s 3 assistants (with Prabu, is Praba and Siva), knew what the fuck to do with her completely and totally misaligned body by way of corrections.  It’s already been made painfully clear to me after this month that Vijay has NO idea how to take a completely novice Western body and teach them yoga, so she was ignored.  Granted, this woman may not take up yoga as her new lifetime hobby, but I’ll be damned if she’s going to get hurt and it would be unfortunate if she never set foot on a mat again because she was left frustrated not knowing what to do and no one bothered to help her.  I stopped my own practice, made eye contact, positioned myself so she could see exactly what we were doing and did my practice at her level so she could mimic me and spent the rest of the time correcting her.  You don’t need to speak the language to do basic posturing, I learned that after teaching little kids in the flat rock danga in Lesotho how to do sun salutations after they spent 2 hours watching me do my own practice and I caught them out of the corner of my eye trying to emulate my movements.  The woman was so happy I helped and she had Alba ask me, “so you’ll be here every day yes?!”  I smiled and said I would but that next day, they didn’t come but was also the day I ended up dysentery for a week and was laid flat for 3 of those days, unable to keep anything in my body for longer than 10-20 minutes and unable to be anything but horizontal.

I learned SO much about myself from the experience with Vijay and one of the students from this last round, Aquila, and I said that as awful as the training had been, we’d recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about themselves than they ever thought imaginable.  I learned I am VERY susceptible to other people’s energy and negative emotions, conversely, I get exceptionally amped around those who are happy and positive. Since this revelation I’ve been doing tons of work to make sure I remain as even keeled as possible around others and keep balanced in myself and this will be something I have to be aware of for a long time to come.  I learned that while my self-discipline absolutely SUCKS for restraining myself on sugar binges and having a consistent meditating practice, it’s on point when it comes to self study and I’ve learned more about the sutras and anatomy in general and anatomy concepts specific to yoga in the past 2 months than I’ve ever learned before.  I make a point to keep my studies and reading balanced between pleasure (just finished Nelson Mandela’s autobiography and holy hell, it was a phenomenal read!), the sutras and the science behind yoga and the body.  I also have the self-discipline in my own asana practice and have no problem making my way to the other side of the rooftop shala across the street to do my own 2+ hour self practice, which I LOVE doing.  If/when I move back to Seattle, I’m going to need to make one part of my place specific for yoga and only yoga so I can continue a self practice… unless Anne Phyfe will let me use one of the 8 Limbs studios for self practice during non class hours… heh J

Ok, enough about all that yoga, even though that was the only reason I came to Goa to begin with.  This new found appreciation I gained for Arambol opened me up to some other experiences and allowed me to better enjoy the ones I was already having.  It also meant that as soon as Jan 29^th came and I was done with my TTC, I didn’t bolt the hell out of this place like I had originally intended.  Low and behold, I was extending my stay and for a duration I wasn’t totally aware of.  Walking home from dinner one night I saw a fresh flier taped to a palm tree on the walk back to my room that was for an aerial silks workshop.  I don’t know when this happened but I not so secretly want to be a circus freak and I’ve always been fascinated by aerial.  I couldn’t contain my excitement!  I snapped a pic of the contact information, got home, sat on it for about .0034 minutes and then shot them an email.  That next week an 8 day workshop was going to start for 2 ½ hours a day and it would span the course of 2 weeks.  I met with Arianna and Enrique, the lovely and adorable couple from Spain and Mexico, respectively, at the thali/coconut stand and they told me a bit about themselves, took me deep to the other side of Arambol to their backyard where they have a massive tree with 2 glorious silks suspended from the hefty, curved trunk.  That next Tuesday I met them and 4 other people for our first class.  It was love at first climb!  The week before, thanks to me getting a little over zealous in my yoga practice post dysentery week, I was nursing my old shoulder injury from rowing that flared up.  I wanted to be in prime shape for this workshop and on the day we started I was about 80% there.  Holy hell almighty this shit is not easy.  Not only is it not easy, I realized my least favorite exercise had to soon become my favorite, PULL UPS!  We managed, on our first day, to learn the basic climb, the angel, splits, the shoe, cocoon and I feel like we learned some more but I can’t think that far back right now.  It was amazing and the feeling I had leaving that first day was like the feeling I had the first time I slipped into a rowing shell at River Place on the Willamette River when I was 15 years old.  I was exhilarated and on such a high for the rest of the day it was bordering on insanely ridiculous.  I took myself out to lunch on the way home at this place called Magic Park which cuisine wise, takes me to Seattle with their local, vegan organic menu.  They have napping/meditation areas, a large expanse just to the side of the restaurant for dancers to practice, yogi and yogini’s to twist and jugglers to well, juggle. It’s super chill and so NOT india but remember, I’m not trying to make this place what it’s not anymore and enjoying what it is.  Aerial has humbled me in my strength to weight ratio and I’m missing my rowing muscles like crazy right now but I’ll get there.  Enrique actually coordinated, with his friend in Mumbai, to get us each our own set of silks if we wanted.  For the nice low price of $20 I know am the proud owner of shimmery, deep wine fabric that I can tie up wherever I find a worthy tree or support.  Aerial conditioning during my travels has been added as a “must do.” =) 

Another shining moment in life lessons was when I decided I was going to finally take pois lessons.  Sanne, one of the girls I met who came to yoga every day, had taken a 3 day workshop with this Indian dude named Sunny and after I was over taking Vijay’s horrific Hatha class in the evenings, I supplemented that time with Sunny.  I said before I left Seattle that I was going to be cliché and learn to spin fire on the beaches of Goa, but it turns out, it was more up the street and on the rooftop of an Auryvedic massage joint that I’d learn.  Pois is fun, it’s frustrating and I finished my 3 days and since I was going to be here longer, Sunny was going to be here longer, I asked him if I could keep coming.  The more I learned the more everything felt unnatural, until you get it, then you wonder how you never got it before.  On the 3^rd or 4^th day Sunny asked me, “soooo did Sanne tell you anything about me?”  I stopped spinning and gave him a funny look, which I had done a lot because he just solicits funny looks and shit talking banter.  “Um, she told me you teach pois and that after 3 classes she felt like she could actually do some stuff.  Is there something else I should know?!”

He gives me an odd look and asks, “so she didn’t tell you that I have... premonitions?” This is something I’ve found is actually pretty common in India, people claiming to have this additional insight whether it be a guru, which Sanjay’s by the way was SPOT ON, a shop owner or now, my pois teacher.  “So, I’m not sure how you would take it but if you want me to say anything I will, or I can just keep quiet.  People react differently or they think they want to know and then when I say something they really didn’t but I let you decide.”

I was game, it can’t hurt so I respond, “I don’t mind if you tell me.  Does this mean that you knew I was going to be taking lessons with you then?!”

He laughed, “no, not like that but now that you’re here, I see things.  You’ve made one big mistake in your life and if you make it again, you may not survive.  Ok, now do forward butterfly.”

I give him the "you-tell-me-THAT-and-want-me-to-just-start-doing-forward-butterfly look" and reluctantly start to do forward butterfly.  While doing my forward butterfly I ask him, “so what was my big mistake?”

“That’s not for me to tell you but for you to figure out for yourself,” he replied.

“But I’ve made TOOOONS of mistakes in my life!” I exclaimed.

“Yeah yeah, we all have, but you’ve made one really BIG BIG BIIIIIIG ONE!”  I went back to trying to focus on my pois spinning but was, rightfully, a little thrown off and not at all thinking about my forward butterfly but what I've already done in my life that could kill me if I did it again.  I like to think I've reached a point where I'm ok with dying because let's be honest now, we are ALL going to die and each day that passes is one day closer to our end but if it's for something stupid, that's just dumb!  He had me doing some new trick thing where I take one pois behind my head at a time, alternating with each completed circle and I kept messing up. He looks at me and says, “before you make a mistake, come back to the front and balance the pois.”  Two more cycles and I fucked it up and they were all tangled again. “I told you to come back and balance before you made a mistake!” he yelled.  He liked to yell and swear under his breath when I fucked up.

I was unwinding my pois from each other and glared at him, like I tended to do, and said, “I didn’t know I was going to make a mistake!” He asked me, “why not?  I knew you were going to make a mistake.  Why didn’t you know?”  I thought on it for a little while and answered, “because I don’t think I’m quite here right now, I’m a little spacey thinking about HOW I'M GOING TO DIE.”

At that very moment, I knew exactly what BIIIIIG mistake he was talking about and that opened up the opportunity for us to have a lovely conversation on the rooftop, while he smoked his Beedies and I sipped my water when my lesson was done.  I tend to have really profound and wonderful discussions with people while traveling, usually yogis and yogini’s but this conversation with Sunny was unlike any other.  The things we discussed, the places our conversation went, the thoughts it triggered and what it continues to trigger, were all really incredible.  I was going to cover some highlights here but I’m thinking against that now and only because I think it’s best left as a discussion between friends than a conversation written down.  Pois to him isn’t just pois, it’s a metaphor for life and how people react, how they behave, how they make decisions, how they anticipate what’s coming, how they learn, etc.  I don’t know if he really has premonitions or if he’s like S.N. Goenka (the Vipassana teacher extraordinaire) and has just had SO many students over the years that he’s paid special attention to every aspect of them and allowed himself to be completely aware of all types.  I learned more from Sunny in the 2 weeks I was with him than I’ve learned from anyone else in that short span of time and I’d almost be tempted to come back to Goa next year to study with him some more.  I was hoping for a teacher in Vijay when I came to Goa but I found, instead, a silly man who apologizes incessantly from Pushkar who spins pois who became my teacher.

I met with Sanjay’s guru when I was in Rishikesh this past july and he told me a bunch of stuff that, when translated, seemed like they were things I didn’t already know but where actually all things that were presently happening and that I was aware of.  One thing he did say was, “you’re going through a hard time right now and in 6 months time, things will be better, they will start getting better in September but they will be better in 6 months.”  I took all this with a grain of salt but I have to say, once I made the conscious decision to change my attitude towards my present situation, my life completely transformed and I’ve been happier now than I’ve ever remembered.  About a week ago I remembered the words of the guru and did the math and low and behold, it was almost 6 months to the day that things became awesome.  I’m not too sure what the “improvement” was in September he was talking about because that span from October to December was rather hellacious but having that allowed me to be in the place I am now, fully open to accepting pure happiness into my life and experiences of all shapes.  It’s all been a lesson and it’s all been great, even if it didn’t feel great while the gross was happening but you know, that always changes.  Feelings and emotions are fleeting and constantly changing so focusing on the balance has been paramount in my shift and if there is anything I want to take away from this experience, it's finding that!  anicca... anicca... ANICCA mother fuckers!

Until later...

xxxxxx

Dirty