Life taking shape

The Practical

It's been just over two weeks, and I am settling into a nice little routine here. Our living situation is great; we are renting a room from a family a 5-minute walk from the shala. They couldn't be nicer, it is fun and comfortable to be in a happy family environment, and it is helpful to have them as a resource in learning to navigate a new city and culture.

In addition to yoga, Sanskrit, and philosophy classes at the shala, I have started Indian classical dance classes. I am taking Odissi dance lessons from a teacher I met through Martina. I love it! It is a very intricate style of dance and I am learning all the pieces one at a time: foot positions, body position, head position, neck position, eye position, hand gestures... slowly starting to combine them and add movement. It is hard, a lot of things to concentrate on at once! It is so much fun to be playing with dance again. I didn't realize how much I missed it.

I have now ventured three times out of our cozy little Gokulam bubble into the more chaotic world of central Mysore. Once for a deep tissue massage at a place called the Three Sisters - there is one sister who cooks and the other two do things like massage you with their feet while holding on to ropes suspended from the ceiling. "Modest" doesn't begin to describe their accommodations, but it was good stuff. Then this weekend Impa (the daughter of our host family) and her friend took me shopping at a bazaar and did all my bargaining for me so I didn't have to pay Western prices for the beautiful clothes and shoes I got (see above, advantages of living with a family :). And today Claudia, Martina and I went for "the best dosas in Mysore" as recommended by Claudia's rickshaw driver, to an unassuming little restaurant on the other side of town. They were indeed delicious. (More details and photos from that adventure on Claudia's blog)

Have I mentioned that I love it here? I love the food and the clothes and the history and the art. I love how ancient it is, how vast and colorful and vibrant. I even love it for the things that are supposed to be bothersome: I love the noise and the crowds and the chaos. I love that the streets are like a petting zoo. I love the attitude toward life that you have to adopt when the water turns off for four days.

The Practice

Remember how I was talking about getting to be a spectator to some amazing practitioners? Thursday while I was waiting for a spot to open up I got to watch Kino practicing some fourth series postures. Wowza. Friday and Sunday were led classes. Saraswati led the class on Sunday, adorably attired in a blue and white housecoat. She is 70 years old and all of 5 feet tall, but she can still spend all morning helping gangly foreigners turn into various yoga pretzels. Pretty impressive.

Monday and today was more Mysore practice. I am having fun watching how the practice unfolds and matures here. I'm making a strong determination to work on strength and arm balances, which is something that still eludes me. It will be interesting to see what happens with that. I think I need to fall on my face at least once and just get it over with so I can move forward...

The Path

I have been thinking about the importance of ritual in spirituality and life in general. Ritual and tradition are such a big part of everyday life here. We Americans tend to pride ourselves on being independent of such trappings. But where we don't have rituals that have been honed and handed down over many generations, we tend to just absorb and compulsively repeat whatever patterns of behavior we pick up from our cultural influences, which are not usually very skillful. (Just look at the way we eat.)