Just a snippet over 1/3 of the way through and I've hit stride again today, first meditating on a ledge above the foothills village of Neelkanth, then later in yoga and meditation classes on the roof of Omkaeananda Dioeshwar Mander ashram, five stories above the east bank of the Ganga, just across the footbridge from our hotel.
Neelkanth Village is a 45 minute white knuckled lurch up a dirt road just wide enough for one and one-half jeeps. Someone's painted white swatches on protruding rocks on the in-your-face up-hill side, whilst the downside cliff plunges 100 and more feet down the other side. We postulate you wouldn't drive in India if your horn's broke - here on the pretzel twist switch backs they're just as important as in Delhi's school-of-fish traffic crush. Announcing "here I am," the horn's played more than not.
Every couple of hundred feet, there's a wash-out, or fresh concrete attempting to rebuild last month's washout, which require the bus to creep inch by inch across crumbly pebbles and mud sliding into the valley, to more solid footing. Then there are the cows and the donkeys bearing saddle sacks of sand to mix concrete in the ever pervasive constructuon below. The journey's the journey.
Views that define spectacular pop from around each twist. The switch-back drapes like silk ribbon around and around and up, up, up one mountain after another. "The bear went over the mountain, and what do you think (s)he saw? He saw another mountain, he saw another mountain, he saw another mountin, and what do you think he did?" Around one more bend, here's the Hindu arche gate to the village.
I thought Juxman hugged the hillside! This place is like putty stuck to crevices between the rocks. The pavement winds amongst tiny shops and temples, deeper into and up the mountainside. Only the main temple holds its own space, with a modest courtyard 3/4 way round at the base of a steep staircase to the dark chamber where the high priest puts ash on our foreheads and jewel-clothed women bless us with sing-song chanting as we come out.
The aspect of God here is blue and reminiscent of Neptune - conch shell pressed to lips, trident firmly gripped, he kneels facing the river. I do hope we are able to visit the Hindu information center back in Delhi - there are so many icons in so many forms, I'd like to understand.
Follow the path up, still higher, above the village. But not too far - there are wild elephants and panthers to deal with. We settle on a plataue above the near-most roofline, face the mountains and settle in. What emerges is chi-king connecting heaven and earth. These mountains are that. The depths of their roots reach clear to the molten center of the earth, whilst the peaks, still rising, pierce the thin air towards heaven. Today gifts me with yet another meditation reference I will hold for all time.
Gayle recommends yoga on the roof of Mander Ashram, just across the footbridge. For 2 hours we literally salute the setting sun, then repair to the inside deck for another 2 hours of meditation. Swami's energy is so sweet. My every chakra vibrates with lam, vam, rrrrram, yam, ham, ohm. Ah.
Swami really gets into it, goes half hour overtime, then invites us to stay for dinner. "Temple food is not like restaurant. This will feed your body and soul." Indeed.
Showing posts with label yoga. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yoga. Show all posts
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Saturday 28 January. Time to simply BE
Characteristic of many emerging countries, there's a resourcefulness and resilience that belies western sensibilities. I first noticed it at one of the shrines, when I realized that young men were recollecting the flowers placed on the tombs along with plastic bags disgarded at the door by the piglrims and repackaging them for the next wave of visitors. Empty water bottles are gold, used for everything from selling Gangas water to carry for puja, to one man's ingenious system of piping 'drinking' water from a public faucet across the stone sink into a 40 gallon jug on the ground, three liter sized bottles cut and formed to a temporary water duct. Fabrics are repurposed from sari to quilt to pillow cover or window shading as sections wear thin. And this morning it took three explanations for me to understand that "no, I cannot give you or even sell you a 'go cup' for your unfinished coffee," because the boss reconciled cups with register receipts.
Mornings there's an American migration down the trail to a 'real' coffee shop. It's nice to sit in the shop window looking across the road to the river before returning to the hotel for provided breakfast: oatmeal, vegetable paddies, onion pakora and jellied toast with the omnipresent masala chai. If you oversleep it's gulp and run or sip and take half back with you. So OK, I bought a second cup to go in cardboard and will bring the empty paper back with me for tomorrow's fix.
Today I prefer to be alone - not easy with so many warm and friendly companions, new and old, eager to share adventure and experience. After breakfast I did a balance for a fellow journeyer, then set off at a liesurely pace for my coveted Ayurvedic massage appointment. I'm really picky about who I allow to work on me, so apprehension followed me in the door of the tiny reception area of Baba Center on the hill. A tiny sprite of an Indian woman leads me through a curtain into a dimly lit and richly fragrant room and bids me strip and lie down on the floor mat. By the end of the hour I'm a convert. With hands, elbows and feet she expertly massages my whole body with specific oils for various areas from the top of my head (ecstatic) to the very tip of each little toe (pop!). A good dose of accupressure and tai massage completes complete relaxation of every twinge and complaint.
Rounding the bend back towards the German cafe I pick up another yoga pant and t-shirt - this one embroidered with the flower of life. Then I spot it. A 'real' back-packing back pack for US$55 that in the states would run in the hundreds. I'll need a second bag to check coming home to carry my hoard of pashmina gifts and hand-made paper journals. This bag's a find in a couple of days of 'finds.'
I write to you now from a German Bakery (the best of several here) on the east bank of Luxman, northern edge. There's a music and drum ritual going on across the river, visitors and expats come and go throughout the afternoon. The sun shines across my lap as I spill forth these memories for you, the peace of the day wrippled by the occasional beep of a scooter horn or hierarchical squabble of monkeys on the bridge below. There's so much to see and do, but today is a day to BE so I'll sit here awhile longer, until it's time to climb the hill for sunset yoga on the roof once more.
Mornings there's an American migration down the trail to a 'real' coffee shop. It's nice to sit in the shop window looking across the road to the river before returning to the hotel for provided breakfast: oatmeal, vegetable paddies, onion pakora and jellied toast with the omnipresent masala chai. If you oversleep it's gulp and run or sip and take half back with you. So OK, I bought a second cup to go in cardboard and will bring the empty paper back with me for tomorrow's fix.
Today I prefer to be alone - not easy with so many warm and friendly companions, new and old, eager to share adventure and experience. After breakfast I did a balance for a fellow journeyer, then set off at a liesurely pace for my coveted Ayurvedic massage appointment. I'm really picky about who I allow to work on me, so apprehension followed me in the door of the tiny reception area of Baba Center on the hill. A tiny sprite of an Indian woman leads me through a curtain into a dimly lit and richly fragrant room and bids me strip and lie down on the floor mat. By the end of the hour I'm a convert. With hands, elbows and feet she expertly massages my whole body with specific oils for various areas from the top of my head (ecstatic) to the very tip of each little toe (pop!). A good dose of accupressure and tai massage completes complete relaxation of every twinge and complaint.
Rounding the bend back towards the German cafe I pick up another yoga pant and t-shirt - this one embroidered with the flower of life. Then I spot it. A 'real' back-packing back pack for US$55 that in the states would run in the hundreds. I'll need a second bag to check coming home to carry my hoard of pashmina gifts and hand-made paper journals. This bag's a find in a couple of days of 'finds.'
I write to you now from a German Bakery (the best of several here) on the east bank of Luxman, northern edge. There's a music and drum ritual going on across the river, visitors and expats come and go throughout the afternoon. The sun shines across my lap as I spill forth these memories for you, the peace of the day wrippled by the occasional beep of a scooter horn or hierarchical squabble of monkeys on the bridge below. There's so much to see and do, but today is a day to BE so I'll sit here awhile longer, until it's time to climb the hill for sunset yoga on the roof once more.
Thursday 26 January - Walkabout/ Shopabout Rishikesh
There's a subterranean energy flow here that's not so much beneath the ground as it is buried under mountains of commercialism. Although we did see at least one Ayurvedic Massage center that looked like a Walnut Street salon - from its squeaky clean, minimalist lobbie sporting shelves of mass-production products, to its ad-agency brochure, This shoppe is an anomally here. And certainly not where I'll have my massage. The rest of Luxman is a specific form commercialism in the way of market-stall clutter. Cluttercialism.
It may be an undercurrent, but it can't be denied, that powerful coursing of energy that's not just the surge of the Ganga a mere100 feet away. It's the energy of hundreds of years of thousands of devotees who've left millions of gold-dust footprints on this path.
At 70 and sunny, this day is a perfect invitation for a casual meandering stroll. These sort-of-paved roads encourage mindful walking, with only occasional bicycles and jeeps to be dodged while countless Rishis flow by like vapor trails on a parallel dimension. That's it. That's the feeling. You can feel the convergence of layers of reality here. It's not like the vortexes we experienced at the darghas in Delhi, Agra and Ajmere (Cathedral Rock and the Bell Dome, Sedona). Here, the entire canyon buzzes with the interchange of protons from one level to another to another and back again, faster than the nano-nano blink of an eye, a holographic vibration rather than a movement, a shimmer of effervescence weaving the layers together.
Luxman Julla, where we are staying, is to Rishikesh kind of as Ardmore is to Center City, and our hotel is at the northern edge of this 'suburb.' This isn't Kansas... nor suburban Philadelphia. Every time we step from our door, we're adorned by the bindi painter, " No charge!" although I do end up buying one of his little kits of intensely colored pwderw and pot-metal decorative stamps for about a dollar. What a hoot, tho - just try to do this for yourself! As I go out again, with my own crude attempt smeared across my brow, he swoops at me, wipes my forehead clean and with a flurry of hands and powder, creates another masterpiece around my third eye. He is truly an artist.
Restaurants and ashrams line the rocky shore of the 2-block-wide 'town' sandwiched between the river and the steep climb of the foothills of the Himalayans. It's a fat kilometer to Ramjhoola bridge, where Kerry and I head, intent upon sampling Ashtanga kirtan and yoga across the river. For four hours we just sort of drift along like butterflies on the breeze of shopping nirvana, sampling the garden of Luxman Julla: pashminas, statuary, semi-precious jewels, diety paintings and yoga clothes; from Nepal, Tibet, and all regions of India. I'm bringing a fabulous singing bowl back to classes, and couldn't resist a handmade pair of lapis blue yoga pants for $6 and a t-shirt of flaming red embroidered with a turquoise Gynesh for just $4. Topped by a deep purple pashmina from Ajmere, and adorned by a rose wood and ohm-medallion bracelet (fifty cents) I'm a walking treasure chest of jeweltones! In one day I've used up my shopping mojo for the entire trip!
Another couple of kilometers south along the west-bank marketplace, Kerrie spots a sign for a Lonely Planet-recommended restaurant. The second story glassed-in porch affords views of the river and lunch is luxurious. From our window table we watch the comings and goings of the ferry-launch. All afternoon, the barge lets off passengers onto the landing below, like the spilling of an upended box of crayolla crayons across the flood-plain floor. Indian's color taste matches their zest for spicy food!
Flavor Restaurant: the onion pakoras are to sing for, and the Chinese fried rice very good as well. The best chai masala so far. Everything's made to order from scratch so it's long in coming, which suites us just fine. We sit and chat, and look, and graze, and hold silence, too. Ahhhh. Two hours later, when we head to the counter to pay our bill (several course lunch for the two of us for under $7), the owner says "I like your attitude around eating - you stay and talk and don't talk and look out over the river. You really taste the food... most people inhale and run!"
Shivanand ashram is lovely, the complex neatly climbs the west bank, hugging courtyards of benches, trees and bogenvalea dotted with Hindu style buildings. It's a sweet place to sit and talk with a yogini we meet. She's 90 if she's a day, narrow of word, wide of thought, and absolutely correct in advising us not to take the yoga class here. Wish we had listened to her. The teacher's Japanese, impossible to understand, rigid, arrogant and pushy, not really a teacher at all, more like a drill sargent. One-size-fits-all yoga. She shoves Kerrie's knee straight in headstand, slaps my hands away from my face because she doesn't like the bandu I'm using, and then tells Kerrie, in shoulder stand, (with no props!) to turn her head and look at her 'neighbor' (!) in order to get the leg position perfect (sort of an inverted eagle). We're both appalled. I made it clear she's not to touch me again, so she ignores me for the rest of the class and I'm able to use the time and space to do modified versions of the more aggressive postures she demands. The hour's not wasted, my aches and pains and bindings release enough to feel the difference.
Released and exhausted, we can't fathom the long walk ' home,' so it's a scooter back to the hotel's neighborhood for us tonight. Walking back across the Juxman suspension foot bridge, we pause often to drink in the view below - colored lights of ashrams reflecting in the rushing waters downstream dot the darkness of a new moon night.
On another patio overlooking the river, we dwell in grace at the close of a wonderful day. Supper is pizza: "No Madame, not American style, Italion style!" Is it the magic of this place, the ionic charge of such a majestic body or water, or for real? - this brick- oven onion, olive and tomatoe pie is better than most I've tasted!
It may be an undercurrent, but it can't be denied, that powerful coursing of energy that's not just the surge of the Ganga a mere100 feet away. It's the energy of hundreds of years of thousands of devotees who've left millions of gold-dust footprints on this path.
At 70 and sunny, this day is a perfect invitation for a casual meandering stroll. These sort-of-paved roads encourage mindful walking, with only occasional bicycles and jeeps to be dodged while countless Rishis flow by like vapor trails on a parallel dimension. That's it. That's the feeling. You can feel the convergence of layers of reality here. It's not like the vortexes we experienced at the darghas in Delhi, Agra and Ajmere (Cathedral Rock and the Bell Dome, Sedona). Here, the entire canyon buzzes with the interchange of protons from one level to another to another and back again, faster than the nano-nano blink of an eye, a holographic vibration rather than a movement, a shimmer of effervescence weaving the layers together.
Luxman Julla, where we are staying, is to Rishikesh kind of as Ardmore is to Center City, and our hotel is at the northern edge of this 'suburb.' This isn't Kansas... nor suburban Philadelphia. Every time we step from our door, we're adorned by the bindi painter, " No charge!" although I do end up buying one of his little kits of intensely colored pwderw and pot-metal decorative stamps for about a dollar. What a hoot, tho - just try to do this for yourself! As I go out again, with my own crude attempt smeared across my brow, he swoops at me, wipes my forehead clean and with a flurry of hands and powder, creates another masterpiece around my third eye. He is truly an artist.
Restaurants and ashrams line the rocky shore of the 2-block-wide 'town' sandwiched between the river and the steep climb of the foothills of the Himalayans. It's a fat kilometer to Ramjhoola bridge, where Kerry and I head, intent upon sampling Ashtanga kirtan and yoga across the river. For four hours we just sort of drift along like butterflies on the breeze of shopping nirvana, sampling the garden of Luxman Julla: pashminas, statuary, semi-precious jewels, diety paintings and yoga clothes; from Nepal, Tibet, and all regions of India. I'm bringing a fabulous singing bowl back to classes, and couldn't resist a handmade pair of lapis blue yoga pants for $6 and a t-shirt of flaming red embroidered with a turquoise Gynesh for just $4. Topped by a deep purple pashmina from Ajmere, and adorned by a rose wood and ohm-medallion bracelet (fifty cents) I'm a walking treasure chest of jeweltones! In one day I've used up my shopping mojo for the entire trip!
Another couple of kilometers south along the west-bank marketplace, Kerrie spots a sign for a Lonely Planet-recommended restaurant. The second story glassed-in porch affords views of the river and lunch is luxurious. From our window table we watch the comings and goings of the ferry-launch. All afternoon, the barge lets off passengers onto the landing below, like the spilling of an upended box of crayolla crayons across the flood-plain floor. Indian's color taste matches their zest for spicy food!
Flavor Restaurant: the onion pakoras are to sing for, and the Chinese fried rice very good as well. The best chai masala so far. Everything's made to order from scratch so it's long in coming, which suites us just fine. We sit and chat, and look, and graze, and hold silence, too. Ahhhh. Two hours later, when we head to the counter to pay our bill (several course lunch for the two of us for under $7), the owner says "I like your attitude around eating - you stay and talk and don't talk and look out over the river. You really taste the food... most people inhale and run!"
Shivanand ashram is lovely, the complex neatly climbs the west bank, hugging courtyards of benches, trees and bogenvalea dotted with Hindu style buildings. It's a sweet place to sit and talk with a yogini we meet. She's 90 if she's a day, narrow of word, wide of thought, and absolutely correct in advising us not to take the yoga class here. Wish we had listened to her. The teacher's Japanese, impossible to understand, rigid, arrogant and pushy, not really a teacher at all, more like a drill sargent. One-size-fits-all yoga. She shoves Kerrie's knee straight in headstand, slaps my hands away from my face because she doesn't like the bandu I'm using, and then tells Kerrie, in shoulder stand, (with no props!) to turn her head and look at her 'neighbor' (!) in order to get the leg position perfect (sort of an inverted eagle). We're both appalled. I made it clear she's not to touch me again, so she ignores me for the rest of the class and I'm able to use the time and space to do modified versions of the more aggressive postures she demands. The hour's not wasted, my aches and pains and bindings release enough to feel the difference.
Released and exhausted, we can't fathom the long walk ' home,' so it's a scooter back to the hotel's neighborhood for us tonight. Walking back across the Juxman suspension foot bridge, we pause often to drink in the view below - colored lights of ashrams reflecting in the rushing waters downstream dot the darkness of a new moon night.
On another patio overlooking the river, we dwell in grace at the close of a wonderful day. Supper is pizza: "No Madame, not American style, Italion style!" Is it the magic of this place, the ionic charge of such a majestic body or water, or for real? - this brick- oven onion, olive and tomatoe pie is better than most I've tasted!
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