It has officially been a week here in Mysore now and I am finding that I have my bearings and can get around okay. I walk everywhere; it is such a treat!!!! I just try to be hyper-vigilant and avoid rabid dogs and monkeys, cows wandering the streets and the garbage, poop and spit that is everywhere.
The people here are wonderful. Nothing to worry about! The biggest concern is avoiding the motor-rickshaws and cars that drive on the left side of the road and honk to signal...they have the right of way so I have leapt out of danger a few times, not sure who is coming from where.
All of the many yogis are hyper-spiritual and purists, whereas I feel more like a realist... but it will soon come, I imagine. I am meeting many people from around the world who are becoming fantastic friends.
Shopping is unbelievable! India is sooooo cheap and I don't mean inexpensive. My lodging is $4 a night and my meals are about $3 for an all you can eat buffet. I am starting to get cheaper as I know how much things here cost in Rupees. I take my favourite clothes/ pictures of clothes/ designs to the tailor, they reproduce it in any fabric with any alterations. And it all costs a whopping $12. I even had a silk tunic made for $24 CDN. Good thing I packed light:) I will buy a silk sari and the tailor makes a king sized duvet and 2 pillows from it. I feel like I am starting to speak choppy English as I am always trying to break down the language barrier by simplifying my communication to the locals.
Yoga is inspiring. The moves that people can do are incredible. One-day-soon-come...To quote the famous yoga teacher here...I am not used to practicing with 60 people + in a room just inches apart. I am stopped at 'Maranichanasa D'...I 'bind' on one side, but not flexible enough to do the left.
VERY homesick/ heartsick and miss Damian like crazy. The kids too, however I know they are having a great time with summer holidays. Lexi's 13th birthday is on the 23rd of July!!!! Happy birthday gorgeous!!!! I sometimes have the impulse to drop this place and rush back home, but I am working through it! It is part of what needs to happen as I get deeper into yoga and myself. Good times....
"Mala" is Sanskrit for garland. "Pushpamala", vivid flower garlands, are sold on the streets of India. Boys with baskets on their heads, men on bikes, ladies sewing strings of jasmine at tables on the corners. People hang the fragrant garlands from their hair, doorways, cars and as religious offerings to the deities. "Japamala" is a beaded necklace for counting prayers. Yoga, is a garland of poses and breaths, strung together to "adorn our entire being with peace, health, radiance and ultimately self-knowledge." (~Yoga Mala, Pattahbi Jois.) I am here in Mysore, India to study yoga at the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute with Gurujii Pattahbi Jois and Shareth to go deeper into my practice.
Aesthetic to Ascetic
Definitions
- Aesthetic to Ascetic
- AESTHETIC...aes·thet·ic 1. pertaining to a sense of the beautiful or to the science of aesthetics. 2. having a sense of the beautiful; characterized by a love of beauty. 3. pertaining to, involving, or concerned with pure emotion and sensation as opposed to pure intellectuality. 4. a philosophical theory or idea of what is aesthetically valid at a given time and place: the clean lines, bare surfaces, and sense of space that bespeak the machine-age aesthetic. ASCETIC...as·cet·ic 1. a person who dedicates his or her life to a pursuit of contemplative ideals and practices extreme self-denial or self-mortification for religious reasons. 2. a person who leads an austerely simple life, esp. one who abstains from the normal pleasures of life or denies himself or herself material satisfaction. 3. a monk; hermit. 4. rigorously abstinent; austere: an ascetic existence. 5. exceedingly strict or severe in religious exercises or self-mortification.
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