Restoring the Ravenna Centenarian: 03/20/17

A rare posting from June! This year the J's are taking separate trips so one of us can be in hospice mode with the old kitty cat. A great excuse for me to dive deep into one of my loves not as loved by the other J: yoga. Thus, a pilgrimage to India. And this year my teacher, Shiva Rea, was making a special trip with students for her 50th birthday, which coincided with the Hindu festival Maha Shivratri. This festival falls before spring and represents a time of rebirth, a time of Shiva the destroyer (a deity of Hinduism), a time to focus on overcoming darkness and ignorance in life and the world. So... the timing was great all around.

Yoga's my jam. I inherently have a busy mind. My job can suck the life out of me when I let it. Let's just say that the needs and desires of the body and mind have eclipsed the soul of late. Yoga is the framework for mastering the body and mind so the true self can experience life in its fullest. This trip was nothing but yoga 24/7.

My teacher Shiva Rea is a unique western yogi and a f#&%ing bada$$. She's been traveling to Kerala (south India) for decades learning an ancient martial art, Kalaripayattu. Kalari is thought to be the first martial art. It inspired traditional Indian dance and likely early yoga postures and sequences. Shiva has translated Kalari (and other types of yoga/dance) into the modern form of yoga she teaches in the west. Kerala was the first stop on our trip to relax by the ocean and practice with her Kalari teachers. Seeing Shiva practice this ancient art with her teacher gave me a better appreciation of her and the 4000 years of human experience/knowledge packaged in yoga.

Why celebrate a 50th birthday and Maha Shivratri in relaxing Kerala when you can fly up north to the epicenter of the festival?! The second part of our trip was in Varanasi, the holiest of India's 7 holy cities and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the WORLD! There are 23,000 temples in Varanasi - that's one every 5 meters. Nuts. Adding to the holiness is Ma Ganga, mother Ganges, which runs along the city.

Varanasi is a place of hospice where people go in old age to pray/meditate, to die, and have their bodies burned by the river. There are also younger pilgrims who go there to renounce the materialistic world, live by the river and the death fires, and dedicate their lives to attaining enlightenment. Things have been like this there for thousands of years.

I of course saw a lot of poverty but I saw way more beauty... India is a country of extreme contradictions. But there are a lot of lessons there, and it was great to put the screened device down for a couple weeks and soak it in.

From Shiva Rea reflecting on this trip and her 50th birthday in Mantra magazine: "The ancient places and indigenous ways are calling all of us to listen to the cells in our body. Where are you being called in your own community? Upon this sacred earth? Something is there for you." 💗

KERALA
No vacation for me is complete without ocean time. The Indian Ocean in this part of the world is very warm and salty!

I also spent a lot of time on the beach watching the local fisherman. They go out on boats at night, then pull in massive nets from shore during the morning hours before it gets too hot.

Heave ho in the language of Malayalam.

Auctioning post-catch.

I was really, really special to watch Shiva and others practicing at CVN Kalari in Trivandrum. My videos from the Kalari temple are too big for the blog, so check out this YouTube clip of her's:

Then there was our twice daily meditation and yoga by the sea:

My morning mediation and yoga spot.

TRAVELS TO VARANASI
An experience in and of itself!

Surya Namaskar (sun salutation) in the Delhi airport

An hour taxi drive from the airport to Varanasi... definitely the most dangerous part of the trip!

Look carefully and you will see a tiny gypsy girl performing for a crowd!

The boat ride from taxi drop off to the hotel... I was like "where the heck am I?"

Photo of the burning ghat before I learned you are not supposed to take photos of the burning ghats. Whoops. "Ghat" means "steps" and this ghat was for the ceremonial death fires.

Shiva Rea greeting us the next morning... This woman is constant celebration.

VARANASI
A bit tough to describe my experience in this town. It's another world. Below you'll see lots of sunrise meditations, singing/chanting on the Ganges, beautiful Mughal architecture, and lots of rituals and celebration.

Morning glow...

Ma at Anandamayi's ashram. Jai!

Lucia, my roomie. She's from Slovakia. PhD in Slavic languages; former swimmer; and tall... Like sisters from the start.

Floating candles for our loved ones. An evening ritual.

Shiva (yes, another one): a musician traveling with us. He's holding a trident, which represents various trinities. One common representation in Hindu is the three aspects of god: creation, maintenance, and destruction. Other sacred threes is found in just about all religions. The father, the son, and the holy ghost, for example.

Our boat captains.

A morning puja (ritual) we joined a few times. Fire plays a prominent role in many of the rituals in Varanasi. I loved listening to these girls every morning.

The swastika was a symbol of well-being to Hindus thousands of years before evil polluted it.

Touring through the tiny streets of old town.

The hotel I stayed in just opened last year after 18, yes 18 (!), years of renovation. An old Mughal palace now a 5 star hotel... Nicest hotel I've ever stayed in.