Happy birthday Swamiji

first off- this keyboard sucks and ever time i try to capitalize an i it turns into an ai. so there will be no capitalization in this entry. thats india for you.

my first week of the yoga course is finished. i celebrated the saturday-ness of today by getting a glorious ayurvedic massage and eating hello to the queen for lunch. hello to the queen is a glorious dessert found in travelers cafes around india. it consists of crushed up graham crackers or cookies, vanilla ice cream, banana, and chocolate sauce. sometimes there is coconut on top. today the bananas were deep fried and there was a sprinkling of pomegranate seeds just to add a little color.
deeply deeply un yoga.
sooo good though.
so back to the beginning. last sunday i arrived at the parmarth niketan ashram in rishikesh. it was crazy. nuts even. there were brightly dressed religious pilgrims flooding the place and the whole registration was a bit sketch and disorganized but i was okay with it. you have to become accustomed to things not going the way you think/hope they will go in india. in the end it all worked out- i paid my donation, checked into my room and bought my all white outfit required for the yoga course.
along with my accommodation i get three square meals a day and unlimited filtered water, and its on the banks of the ganges with aarti -sacred fire- ceremonies nearly every night.
it also happens to be some holy week related to the ganges so there are loads of indian tourists and rishikesh is just booming with spirituality, and pushing, and cow shit, and chanting and old lady posses in matching saris. parmarth is especially full because the guru is in residence and the holy week AND its his birthday.
it was a bit of a shock and not really what you think an ashram would be like. there are people everywhere all the time. theres not really anywhere to meditate other than in your room or by the ganges. and its not that quiet. but this doesn't bother me. i had quiet and places to meditate and a strict schedule at vipassana. this is just a different experience that's all. unfortunately only me and one other couple felt this way and loads of people left the yoga course during the week for this reason or that. another one bites the dust i say. but i really wanted to do yoga every day and this is the way i can- twice a day even and so i hung in there through the madness of celebration and business, and now that it has calmed down a bit i'm grateful that i stayed. so next week it'll pretty much be me and one indian guy and the yoga teacher. so it will turn into semi private yoga classes- pretty pretty good.
im getting tons of time to read- i'm currently reading 'the god of small things'- which is awesome- thank you jen, 'vipassana meditation', 'teach yourself eastern philosophy', and the guide book section on hindu gods - again- i'll never get them straight i dont think.

at first i thought the week would drag on because the schedule isn't quite as packed as i would have thought. but its flown by as i look back so whatevah. morning yoga class begins at six am and Indu the yoga teacher recommends a cold shower before so i wake at five thirty every morning, douse my self in cold ass water and traipse over to the massive yoga hall. morning classes we do prana yama breathing exercises, yoga asanas and some crazy warm-ups. traveling for nine months has done horrible things to my body. my intestines, my skin, my waistline- bIGTIME, my flexibility, sleep patterns, eating habits,etc. and all of this has become insanely apparent this last week. not only am i totally out of shape, inflexible and the like. but i am eating like a crazy person, i dont know if its the yoga- aka - actual physical exercise or the fact that i finally stopped taking antibiotics and dont have diharrhea anymore or what but my appetite is back baby- and i cant do exclamation points either on this keyboard.
then after breakfast we have vedic chanting which seems like it wouldn't be too hard. but i sweat and struggle to master the four notes and try to keep up with the oms and karavavahi y aaaaa yaaaaaAAs but its tough workout- sweat pours down my back every day.
then there is an hour and a half to kill before lunch which is torture sometimes- i usually nap because its so freaking hot out these days.
in the afternoon we have more yoga asanas and guided meditation and from monday to friday i have gotten my head on the floor, my shoulder stand semi mastered and my triangle eh, up to par.
also it happened to be the gurus birthday so on wednesday afternoon classes were canceled due to the crazy celebrations that occurred to honor swamiji. a sacred cow ceremony where we got to feed jaggery balls and greens to the fattest cows ive seen yet in india. a tree planting ceremony- decadent lunch with like three desserts, various epic plays depicted on a massive stage built out over the ganges. a huge statue of krishna- i think- in lotus position sits in the middle. and the guru and his crew - who followed him around all day- this posse of young students in yellow and orange robes tossing marigolds in his crazy hair and blowing conch shells and generally making quite the show of it. there was a krishna skit where a crazy decked out dancing cowherd incarnation of him played the flute and seduced young cowgirls or gupis. the dancing was straight out of bollywood with hip shimmying and wrist and neck flicking and coy glances. did i mention this was all done by the MALE dancer? at one point i was like eh, that's a guy right? kids painted blue and balancing on stilts, women glittering in gold studded saris from head to foot, old ladies pinching your arm fat to squeeze past in all the commotion, etc.
i looked around that night and thought- i cant believe this is happening. i'm sitting on the banks of the ganges river while the warm breeze blows and this unreal dancing is happening in front of me- there's a guru over there with a flowing mane and bright orange robes, there are beautiful saris pinks, blues, greens, oranges, purples, reds and yellows dotting the crowd. most of them draped over women's heads which is one of the most beautiful things you can imagine. there is chanting and fire and marigolds and crazy orange bugs. i cant believe im in freaking india right now.exclamation point.
i cant believe im watching this right now exclamation point.
such awesomeness, i'm so lucky.
some mornings after yoga i practice vipassana on the banks of the ganges. oh so peaceful. so saintly. yeah until the flies and mosqouitos and scorching sun come out. yesterday i could literally feel the legs of the fly step by step as it walked across my eyelid. my whole body was shaking with the urge to swipe it away. THIS is why Goenka tells us to meditate indoors i think.
one evening this week i went down to the banks to chill and immediately this auntie whisked me over and before you know it all her girls were sitting around me staring as she decked out my hand in some badass henna. she even invited me for tea the next morning at her ashram. which i gladly accepted. except when i went the next day and was totally lost and every sign there was in hindi and then i got kicked out by the security guard- i guess no westerners allowed? so thats a bummer. hopefully she isnt grudgin'.
in other news i'm a total sweat machine. yesterday it was eh about 39 degrees c here. thats like 110 . and doing yoga in the afternoon i was 1-sweating so much that my whole outfit was transparent -as i have to wear all white. and 2- slipping at every sun salutation. we did a stretch with a partner where we held hands and did back bends. except me and laney tried to do it and our hands kept slipping out because of how sweaty we both were.
and the monkeys.
every day in yoga a couple of monkeys crawl in the windows to eat bananas . i know. such a stereotype. and mess around and generally distract. one morning we were doing yoga outside because it was too hot inside and this massive beast jumped out from the trees. this was as elizabeth would say like a man in a monkey suit he was so big. and he was black and gray, not brown. and his tail was like a big ass snake. but indu- the teacher says that these ones are actually nice and you can feed them and hang out if you like. which i did see later on that day- an old sadhu had given one a bag of biscuts and they sat together on a bench like a coupla pals just eating their snacks.
but the little ones will bite. indu says. the little ones are the fuckers that is for sure. one afternoon two came in in the midst of a teenage slap fight or something. we were supposed to be meditating but they were at the front of the room pushing and fighting and sliding across the floor. i opened one eye to see one just laying there on his side with his head resting on one hand like george from seinfeld in a photo shoot. hilarious. and i'm trying to be all yoga and om about it while i suppress my laughter. you can hear the one pushing the other one against the wall and crash and boom and oooh oooh aahh ahhh at each other. Indu finally started us all doing OMs until we could get the negative 'vibes' or whatevah out. and they did finally leave. finally.
cheeky monkeys.
so yeah. i'm liking the ashram and the yoga and really hoping it will stick and i'll be able to continue the practice after i leave. i might get a little book of the poses though just so i can remember the sequence, etc. i have the weekend to laze around and get more massages and maybe get some palm reading or my birth chart done while i'm in this spot. so now i will continue to digest my 'hello to the queen' so hasta. exclamation point.