very nice, very nice

it has been a busy week at the ashram. we have started teaching micro lessons every day. soon we will have to teach full length classes. it's quite nerve racking, but i enjoy it. i wasn't sure that i would actually be interested in teaching yoga prior to this, but now that i've had a little experience i think that i actually would. i wonder if i'll be able to find a studio or community centre or somewhere to teach...

last week, after i wrote my blog post, i went into the old part of the city with 2 of my roommates, Nicole and Steph. we had an amazing time. we visited a beautiful temple and saw the Godavari river.

today is our weekly day off. i woke up at 5, as per usual, but managed to lie in bed until almost 6. i met up with another woman, becky, at 7 and we walked to trimbak. trimbak is a small town. we had to walk about an hour through the fields and sometimes what seemed to be peoples' yards. it was a beautiful walk in the early misty morning, albeit, super muddy. it has been raining a lot here. too bad i don't even have a raincoat. not very good planning on my part!

when we got into trimbak, we went into a temple. we posed for lots of family photos. i felt almost rude that here we were, at this amazing temple, and just being 2 white chicks we were almost getting more attention than the site. our presence was eclipsing the glory of the temple... how weird.

we ran into another guy from the ashram, peter. peter is a christian priest from belgium. he is a very spiritual guy. it was really pleasant to run into him, since i really didn't know him very well before. the 3 of us hopped a rickshaw and went into the town town, since we were still a bit on the outskirts. in the town there is a very famous temple where many indians come from all over to visit, as a pilgrimage i guess. it says that it is for hindus only, but we bought some flowers to offer to lord shiva and entered regardless. it was an amazing experience. not because the temple itself was so special, but because just waiting in the huge lineups with all the indians was an incredible experience. there was a school group there from gujarat, all girls, and they were so funny. becky and i sang sanskrit chants with them and exchanged names while we waited in the line for over an hour. we weren't allowed to bring cameras into the temple, so we left our cameras (daringly) with the guy who sold us the flowers. after the temple, we did get our cameras back and we took a bunch of photos with all the girls we'd met in line.

peter was staying in trimbak, but becky and i wanted to use the internet (which isn't available in trimbak) so we caught a public bus into nasik. we met some college kids who helped us find our way once in town. it was pretty nice. everyone is very nice. very nice.

goodness, i'm tired now. i really want to add photos, but i don't really understand the system here...

in other news, my training has been really interesting. this week we did some cleansing techniques. we did neti and kunjal kriya. most of you are probably familiar with neti, where you clean your sinus' with warm salt water. kunjal kriya is a stomach cleansing technique where you drink a bunch of warm salt water and then vomit it up again. i drank about 6 glasses of the saline solution and then was sick. it was surprisingly difficult to actually get it all up. even though you feel nauseous, it seems that feeling quickly passes into just feeling full. it is said that it often brings up a lot of emotions in people, and i was fully expecting it to. unfortunately, i think i may be a bit of an android; it brought up absolutely no emotions in me at all. i felt completely neutral after; neutral and composed. almost everyone else was a bit of an emotional wreck after... i wonder what's wrong with me. that said, you are supposed to have a shavasana after for at least 10 minutes, which i did without skimping on like i think some people did. after that i also took a therapeutic shit and then did some pranayama (breathing practices) in the outdoor meditation gazebo. i did lots of calming, meditative pranayama. it was soothing and centering. i felt very good after.

i've also been doing quite a bit of soul searching. i won't go too into detail, but it seems all my dreams are surrounding this. in all my dreams i am walking through huge apartment buildings or hotels. i am always looking for a safe place, or my room, or somebody... i'm always searching for a place to reside. for my soul, for myself, for both.

i've also been dreaming about dogs a lot. but i think that's just because i miss taco and feta and because there are dogs which bark in the night here. if any of you see taco & feta please give them a good pet from me, and a cuddle, and a walk! if you can.

love love love.
ri