Where I Am Now: May 2016

Today is my last day in the Canadian Prairies. Of all the places in the world that I’ve never visited before and would love to see, this one never even made the list.

It was not my kind of country. In all directions that the eye can see, the land is as flat as a pancake. Winter temperatures can reach -50, and winter lasts seven months of the year!

But once again, I was wrong. Yesterday as I walked away from the yoga studio in Saskatoon for the last time, I was feeling quite teary, and not just because a most amazing teacher training with Srivatsa Ramaswami was coming to an end, not just because I was saying good bye to so many lovely people I had met and practised with over 16 continuous days of full-on yoga, but also because the reality which had opened up for me here and which this stark land emblemized, was coming to a close.

Destiny brought me to this place. (And if you look closely enough, you will see that nothing happens that is not a matter of the alignment of certain circumstances into a pattern in which your action is but the stroke of a single brush.)

I came here to study yoga with Srivatsa Ramaswami, one of the last living links to the tradition of Krishnamacharya, who many call the “father of modern yoga”. Ramaswami studied with Krishnamacharya for nearly three decades in Madras, during the second half of his guru’s life after he had left Mysore Palace in the wake of Indian Independence. Pattabhi Jois studied with him for nearly an equal time, but during the first half of his career, the time he taught under the Maharaja of Mysore.

I learned so much during these 16 days. Many of the missing pieces of the puzzle that is Krishnamacharya’s legacy have come together for me, shedding much light upon the Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga practice and the phenomenon it has become in the West today. Some things clarified, some things vindicated, and some things that inwardly continue to amuse and astonish.

In time I’ll write about what I’ve learned. The ideas for blog topics came fast and furiously during those 16 days, but unfortunately with little spare time for me to develop anything. Over the coming months, I’ll return to those topics, and I hope I’ll have the courage to write what I really think!

This present blog post is more or less a newsletter, intending to tell you what is happening at Seven Winds Yoga. It is suffering, however, from the problem that I don’t really know.

For 16 days that was OK. I kept telling myself I’d decide when the course was over. Saskatoon was holding me very peacefully in that place of not knowing.

My anonymity here gave me much peace. It helped me forget myself. Everything to do with anything beyond the present moment receded from my awareness. The peculiar quality of spring in these parts too kept me anchored to the here and now. The snow had melted, but nothing had come to life. Brown flat fields, leafless trees, barren shrubbery and frigid temperatures kept me wrapped in my winter coat. But just like in Ireland (only with a much greater sweep), the weather could shift in a flash. It is now in the high 20’s with the grass turning green and leaves beginning to open. You’ve got to pay attention here, not just to know what to wear, but to understand the mood shifts that seemingly come out of nowhere.

But just as these vast prairie lands opened up to hold me in this place of suspension after my five weeks in California, so now they will soon close down and most likely I’ll never see them again. Tomorrow evening I’ll be back in San Francisco and I don’t know what I’ll find.

My Dad is dying. My weeks in California before coming up here were painful and difficult. I was staying with my parents during that time to cook and look after things because their housekeeper was away. But carers were also in the house 24/7 to help with my Dad, an absolute necessity. For a while I thought I would have to cancel the yoga training. One particular day I really did think the end was at hand. My heart was in my throat. I phoned all my brothers and sisters and told them to come over immediately. But they had seen it before, the convulsions and tremors and mumbling incoherence. And they were right. He did come back from that terrifying place, smiling again and ready for more life. Since the time I’ve been in Canada though, he has had another turn for the worse, and this time more worrisome, not taking any food or liquid for 24 hours and sleeping much of the time. But once again, strong spirit that he is, he rallied and came to the table for some soup!

Right now I’m sitting on a bench on the side of the road, soaking up some Saskatoon sunshine. I dropped into another yoga studio this morning because the room where I’m staying is not conducive to practice. The course ended last night; everyone I knew has dispersed, so now I am alone and blissfully free. And now I can consider the absurdity of the fact that I’ve been trying to hold ten-minute headstands here in the Canadian Prairies when my dad is dying in California. No wonder I feel unsteady.

I’m scheduled to be back in Dublin 22 May.  And right now, as I already said, I am supposed to be telling you what is happening at Seven Winds Yoga when I return. I’ve rambled on for nearly two pages, yet still have not got to the point, because the truth is, I still don’t really know what is happening next.

However, if you have made it this far in reading, I truly want to be there for you if you want to be there for some yoga with me.

A Sunday Intensive is set for 29 May, 10 to 14.30+ as usual. But unlike other Sundays, this time I’ll have some new pranayama practices to teach. It should be a powerful day of practice. I am charged with a new vision in my yoga and a bit shattered too with what is going on for me personally, which is usually conducive to going deeper in yoga. The intensive is €50, unless I owe you this one. Send me an email if you want to come and do remind me if that is the case for you.

A “mini-term” of regular classes will start on 30 May, with Philosophy and Meditation (more on that below) on Mondays from 6 to 8 pm. The Wednesday Shakti Rasa class will be 6.30 to 8.30 pm, and Thursday Open Self-Practice will be 6 to 8 pm. There will be no classes on Tuesday or Friday. All classes (except the philosophy) will be drop-in, €20 per 2-hour class, unless I still owe you a class. So once again, please remind me of that.

Classes will continue for a few weeks and there is no need to book. However, I would really appreciate it if you would send me an email to let me know if you intend to come so I can have an idea of numbers.

For the Monday night group, we need to set another “marathon day” to make up for the three classes you all missed out on last term. I am thinking of a 2 to 6 pm session either Sunday or Saturday 4 or 5 June. I’m aware that it is a bank holiday weekend. If it is not good for you, please let me know when you would be free and hopefully we can find a day suitable to everyone.

On the long finger, there are some other options to consider . . .

My retreat to Puglia in October is going to be even more fantastic with all I’ve just learned from Ramaswami, so if you are interested in some powerful immersion into practice at a stunning venue in Southern Italy, there are still places left, 22 – 29 October, and all the details are here.

In my experience, serious yoga retreats usually require adjustment to spartan living conditions, and luxurious yoga holidays are light on the actual yoga. My Puglia retreat will give you the best of both: a serious and authentic experience of deep yoga, in all its dimensions–with a life-enhancing introduction to Jyotish as well–along with comfort close to what you would expect from a luxury spa. I really don’t believe the two are incompatible! (A non-traditional view and perhaps the subject of a future blog . . .)

And on the really long-finger, I’m teaching a couple of modules on the Advanced Yoga Teacher Training Course at the Elbow Room in the spring of 2017.

It will be a wonderful course, designed for all 200-hour qualified yoga teachers as a means to enhance your knowledge and skills and bring you to the 500-hour level of qualification. I’m excited about my modules, because I’m free to design the content myself. The four-day Philosophy Module will be highly experiential, taking you beyond theory and dogma into a genuine encounter with what this yoga is all about. The two-day Pranayama Module will help you develop this dimension of your personal practice as well as teach you how to introduce pranayama into your teaching with safety and understanding. All details about this course are here. Please let me know if you are interested!!!

And also note, if you don’t want to do the whole course, you can just do my modules as one-off workshops.

OK, I think I’ve covered it all. If you’ve continued with me until this point, you are definitely to be commended. I broke all the “rules of marketing”, embedding my content about what is on offer into full paragraphs at the end of this lengthy blog post. But I do not care, that is the way it unfolded.

I am also aware that the uninterested will have left me at a much earlier point, and that is really not a bad thing. I’m feeling time passing, the preciousness and poignancy and bittersweetness of life. In the months to come, I’ve got some serious rethinking to do about what I’m doing with my life and my yoga. Though much of that by necessity will be solitary, I’m interested in walking that journey as well with others of similar commitment. The form that will take has yet to take shape.

For now, all I can say is that I will be very, very happy to see you again. All you dear ones out there who have brought the joy and pain, the struggle and sweetness of your lives into my yoga shala seeking something (even if you weren’t sure what), I want to be able to serve you.

Of all the practices I experienced these last 16 days, the inwards ones have been the most powerful: pranayama, meditation and chanting. Yesterday finished with a real yogic thrill. We were lying in Savasana with Ramaswami chanting the Aditya Hrudayam Mantra, an ancient hymn to Surya the sun. Grace flows from Surya in the form of vitality, strength, luminosity, and life-force energy that infuses the entire manifestation and leads all forms towards the expression of their inherent purpose. Those potent syllables resonated through my body, sound becoming light becoming sound again, and truly the celestial light of Surya belonged to that moment, palpable in every cell.

But the moment passed, as all moments do. Impermanence in life is the only constant. One thing inevitably merges into the next, propelled by its own inner necessity, a principle that in yoga we call the law of karma.

I’ve done my best to sketch out my projection of things into the time ahead, knowing full well that truth which the Scottish poet Robert Burns expressed so aptly with “the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley”. But my plans just got some shape, and that feels good.

The present moment here on this bench too is coming to a close. I’ve been sitting beside these traffic lights for a long time. The midday sun is deliciously hot on my skin, probably close to 30 degrees right now. But as much as I relish this much needed heat, my stomach is telling me it’s time for lunch. So onwards and outwards to the next event! This is how we measure time.

Om shanti