Whither February?

I last blogged Jan 31st? Ooops.
Been a little busy with the whole teaching thing. With the teaching-plus-maintaining-yogic-lifestyle bit.
Funny thing about the ashram. Much as I hated to leave, wanted to stay forever, and am considering a lengthier stint as staff...the experience there made me appreciate India, and Kodaikanal, more.
A lot more. So much more, I just might put in another year here. It's been Princeton>Paris>Halifax>Kodai these last four years....and I'm tired. Time to try a "2nd year" someplace; this place ain't so bad.

So what's been going on in not-so-bad Kodai since January?
I'm now living in a gorgeous apartment, much closer to main campus, town center, and friends. It's got dark hardwood floors, 15 foot ceilings and a tin roof that bakes the place during the day (at night we've got to huddle under many many covers). I have a lovely roommate from Germany. A gigantic bedroom, one-third partitioned off by rich jeweltone sari curtains. Voila, a separate space for yoga asanas and meditation (daily, so far!) Windows everywhere, and sunlight streaming in from dawn onwards. A kitchen! A gas stove, big fridge, plenty of cupboard space for groceries and nifty new cookware. A real shower, with adequate hot water supply, and pressure! And pretty gardens out the windows and all over this compound.

All these things were missing from the old digs at Bruton dorm. Living space makes such a difference to quality of life.


So I've been cooking a lot. Meals are provided in the school cafeteria for volunteers...but the often overspiced and greasy school food has a mildly negative effect on my digestive system. Tolerable, certainly (I ate it all 1st semester). But so much better to cook! A pleasure, and better for the body. Veg chili, stir fries, gingery mung dal and rice, toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches, moroccan-style chickpea tomato stew, plain old wholesome vegetable soup with a loaf of freshest wholegrain bread from Pastry Corner, slathered in butter, or with a slice of local cheese. Vanilla custard with fruit salad...oatmeal and spiced chai for breakfast...rice pudding...
Tonight I used the pressure cooker for the first time. After reading every word of the instruction manual, and sending a brief prayer out to the universe that I not blow myself--and dinner--up. Pshaw, it was so easy! Just a little hissing noise...no worries at all. White bean, cabbage, and potato stew for tomorrow; we're having people over to eat and then project Slumdog Millionaire onto the living room wall.

Pictured: Last week was spirit week at the elementary. For superhero day, a student (Y) dressed up as ME! (Best day ever ;) I didnt have a camera...but I did get a picture of my costume the foolowing day, hat day. Y always wears a toque (ahem, "Beanie" for non-Canucks) so it was the perfect chance to get her back! This is me giving some Y attitude before heading out on hat day. Also...produce on the kitchen counter;

So that's life right now in Kodai. Pleasure in mundane little things.
I'll be posting next about school: adventures-in-papier mache.

One Long Day

This is the third of several posts about my experience of the yoga teacher training course at a Sivananda ashram near Madurai. If you haven't yet, please scroll down and read the previous two posts...or for the whole story as it unfolded, you might go back to late November.

What's it like to spend a day at the ashram? It's a long day. What's it like to spend 28 days there? Perhaps just the same; already in memory the entire time hovers as one very long, blissful day.

Metaphysical anomaly?
Potential explanations?

(1) The whole thing was a dream, and as a dream melts in the moments after waking, the 28 days are now fading fast. Just one long, odd day left.

(2) Swamiji once pointed out in vedanta lecture how expressions like "passing time," "spending time," and "wasting time" are comforting but misleading. In fact, time wastes us. Spends us. Passes us. At the ashram we practiced mindfulness: total awareness of the present moment, present action, present breath. There's no time in the present. Total presence, total mindfulness, was a bit of a lofty goal of course (i.e., having achieved complete presence, absolute purity of mind, I am now writing to you from samadhi...I am writing to you? We are writing to us...I am writing to I...I am writing...I am....I...I...I...). Right. So there's no time in the present. Therefore, if we were more mindful, occasionally fully present, during those 28 days....then there was NO TIME for part of those 28 days....which means that the 28 days could seem at once shorter (subtract the no-time presents) and longer (endless. Timeless. No time in the present, the present without time).

(3) The whole thing seems like one long day because every day was nearly the same. With a few exceptions, we did the exact same thing, day after day after very long day. When there is neat structure to time and space so that everything has purpose and little is "idle" or wasted; when everything is rhythmical....it all becomes the same. In the most delicious, un-monotonous way.

And the long day went like this:

5:30 Wake-up

Softest ascent from sleep with gentle, steady tolling bells. Fumbling in the dark for the mosquito net corner.Gather towel, toothbrush etc. from cupboard and walk the entire length of the women's dorm to the showers. Past quiet focussed action in each cell as 40 other women rise, change, gather things, make beds. Toilet. Cold shower to wash off sleep, wash off tamas. Back to the cell. Hang towels neatly. Dress in uniform: white cotton drawstring trousers, yellow TTC t-shirt. Make bed, fold pyjamas. Take bag of books, meditation shawl, mala beads. Out the door...

6:00-7:30 Morning Satsang
Half hour (plus or minus) japa meditation. Seated (or trying to sit) in rows on cushions on bamboo mats. 45 minutes chanting as the sky lightens: Jaya Ganesha, various bhajans. Om Traymabakan, Arati. Then, prasad: a handful of nuts or grains, a piece of fruit, or (joy!) rice pudding.

7:30-8:00
CHAI! One or maybe two steaming little metal cups of hot soul-charging spiced milky tea, with a spoonful of jaggery.
Sipped in the quiet early morning light. Another handful of leftover prasad. And quick change into clothes for asana class.

8:00-10:00 Morning Asana Class


We learned how to teach. Some practice, some listening to lecture and watching demos...and then 2 weeks of small-group teaching; 2 chances each to teach the Sivananda basic open class to your group.






10:00-10:30 Food
Ah, the food. I miss the food. Lacto-veg, low-fat, no onions, chilis, garlic, spice, low sugar, very low salt. Super-fresh, prepared and served with care and love, beautiful colour and texture and taste. Rice--or rice pancakes (dosa), or steamed fermented rice cakes (idly), or rice noodles. Between one and three vegetable stews or dals or curries (hearty mung bean dal. Ginger-potato-coconut stew. Pineapple curry.) Some raita, or raw beet salad, or cucumber tomato salad, or a handful of fresh green mung beans, just beginning to sprout. Mix it all up on the platter, drizzle with buttermilk. Crush over the top one hot, salty fried pappad (so unyogic. But provided nonetheless because we ate them with 100% appreciation). Pack a morsel together with the right hand, and....eat.

10:45-11:45 (or throughout the day) Karma Yoga
Weekly rotations through a variety of work duties around the ashram. Mine were: (1) sweeping, scrubbing, mopping, drying the dining hall floor after the 10:00 meal. (2) carrying, unrolling, re-rolling, and returning to storage the bamboo mats we sat on for satsang and lectures. Before and after every satsang and lecture.
(3) Bellringer! Every other day, ringing the bell 10 minutes before the next thing on the schedule. This one rocked, because I had karma yoga time free. But it kind of sucked because I had to watch the clock all day, and one of the best things about ashram life was timelessness. (4) Garbage. Emptying bins around the ashram and taking them to the compost or central bins.

Karma yoga is the best mirror. For ego, I-ness, my-ness. For the way in which everything we do--the smallest acts--have far-reaching, unknowable effects (and I'm talking in this lifetime). Things I learned from karma yoga:
-It is very very difficult to do something selflessly. Not to "do" something selfless, but to do something selflessly.
-When I judge others, I judge from ego. Who am I to know, to say, to judge?
-When someone gives direction or a suggestion about how to do something a better way...listen, try it, thank them. With humility. It probably is a better way.
-Monkeys like compost.

12:00-1:15 Lecture I
For ten days we had chanting
lecture. We chanted.And learned...some stuff about the chants? Not sure. Not very good lectures. Very hard to stay awake. For the next 2.5 weeks, we had Bhaghavad Gita lecture. Lovely! With a little old yogi from Delhi who praised us when we chanted well, gently called us back when we drifted off, sometimes held lecture under a great old mango tree in a corner of the ashram, and clearly knew his subject.

1:15-1:45
Chai part II. Usually much needed at this point, after dozing off in lecture.
Also, headstand workshop (pre-chai), for those of us who couldn't headstand at the start of the course.

2:00-3:45 Lecture II
Swamiji's enthralling, humourous, intoxicating lectures on Vedantic philosophy. Mind-blowing (literally?) Vedanta. I won't butcher it by attempting a summary. By far the most unexpected, pleasant part of the whole TTC. Trust what is elegant.

4:00-6:15 Afternoon Asana Class
Aka, BBC (Bone-Breaking Class). Whereas the morning class was about teaching, the afternoon was for our own practice. We'd settle onto the mats just before 4 with the deepest sense of relief. Minds still reeling from lecture, from the intense day, and now--4:00 class--we'd made it. Release. The homestretch, the good stretch. Just this 2 hours of body work, all downhill to bedtime. Deep deep stretching, and incredible energy throughout the hall, and focus (or laughter, if our giant-hearted teacher was in comedic mode). Always surprised at how deep I was in a posture. Easy depth. Depth in asanas, also savasana, deepest relaxation. Space and light and nothing else.

6:15-6:45 Food
Like the morning meal, but lighter. Fewer dishes, smaller portions,
usually no pulses (only rice and vegetables). With fruit. Ripe juicy pineapple spears. Fuzzy brown-sugar-bomb chicoos, a wedge of tart creamy guava, a handful of glistening ruby pomegranate seeds. This picture is of our Christmas Feast: banana leaves instead of metal trays; twice as many dishes, and pickle, and payasam.

6:45-8:00 Free Time
"Free" meant homework: daily lecture summaries, chant-copying, outlines of beginners' yoga classes. Also chatting, washing clothes, calling home. Excellent instructional videos were aired at this time--on anatomy, nutrition, the lives of Swami Sivananda and Swami Vishnu-Devananda, on the "healing properties of water." I only went to a few (that hour of free time was precious, and lecture summaries had to be finished).

8:00-9:45 Evening Satsang
About half an hour of japa meditation. An hour of chanting and readings. Closing prayers. Prasad.

10:00 Lights out.

New Friends; Disaster Class

Last night I had dinner at a new Keralite friend’s place. Channa masala (chickpeas in spicy tomato sauce), chapattis, carrot-coconut-coriander salad, and Bird’s custard (!!!) with pomegranate. I stopped by in the afternoon so that we could go shopping together—I’m looking for some salwar kameez and she offered to help sort through the overwhelming choice of pattern, colour, style, not to mention help with bargaining. T was prepping for dinner and I walked in to the loud hammering of coconut on cement floor. T is a tiny, tiny woman and wasn’t having much luck getting the coconut open sans axe. We took the coconut upstairs to a neighbour, who loaned an axe and some upper body strentgh—coconut in left hand; axe in the other, and THWACK—the axe came right down into the coconut, cracked it, and stopped just shy of the left thumb.




The rhythm of life here so far feels very much like University—minus the swimming. Most of the day is spent working on campus. Occasional jaunts outside the gates to shop or eat are usually in the company of diverse, warm 20-something staff members who hail from all over India and the world. I think I’ve spent more time socializing in the last three weeks than I did all of senior year at Princeton…which probably says more about my general nerdiness and antisociality than it does about life in Kody.

This morning was a total teaching disaster. I’ve got pre-K through grade 2 all together in the same art class, and haven’t figured out yet how to give multiple lessons at once. (Necessary to keep it age-appropriate. I can’t even figure out what is age-appropriate, let alone teach a 5-year age span at once. So far every lesson has vastly overestimated their basic vocabulary and skill levels. The 3-year-olds can’t draw stick figures, wash their hands, or really do anything without supervision; the 7- year-olds are ready for realistic drawing, theme studies and beyond…but still young enough to want constant attention and feedback). Let’s just say it ended with twenty sheets of lovely, hard-to-come-by extra-large sheets of paper gone to waste, a 30-point raise in my blood pressure, and paint all over half the kids. A winter jacket ruined. Why did she put her winter jacket back on OVER the smock when my back was turned? How did she manage to paint the ENTIRE sleeve and hem before noticing her arm was dragging on her neighbor’s painting? Why are these kids even wearing winter jackets in August in south India?!?!.

On the flip side, I was sitting behind some 4th and 5th graders at lunch and caught my name ("Miss Mac"). "Who?" Asked a 6th grader sitting with them, who I don't have this semester. "Miss Mac!" They said. "She's teaching lots of things. And she's our favourite."
So....it might be worth it. At least with the older ones :)