First impressions

This is the start of a 10 week break from my average normal daily activites.  Over the last few months, well, since 1 December 2013 my life hit a new high version of the ‘norm’.  I embarked on my Jivamukti 800 hour apprenticeship with Karolina Szymala.  This in its own right was a journey of self discovery, growth, pain, struggle, laughter, joy and then surrendering to what had to be accomplished. As a celebration of this epic part of my life, I have some time to reflect, regain, rejuvenate, and relax.  So, here I am in Woodstock, New York with my teachers Sharon Ganon and David Life. My first day, couldn’t have been better. Sharonji took us all on a journey to the 60’s, right to the time when the Woodstock Musical festival had begun.  We experienced freedom in class. Freedom of movement, freedom of expression, freedom to dance and do asana without getting caught up in the nuances.  The best part was when we stood in a circle and for a split second i thought, ‘oh no, here comes the hockie cockey’, I was corrected. It was a dance which snaked all of the yoginis, yogis and yogets to the lake… bare foot, in the wild. Middle of summer in Woodstock, birds singing. flys and bugs having random conversations… and then it happened without a second thought. I stripped to my birthday suit and dived in… cold, refreshing and I did not care.

The hippie class, was an initiation to accept within us the wild side, the brave side, the side that even if we started to intellectualise we would dilute the intuition that drove most of us to strip, especially me, the biggest prude of all. And. I. Loved. It. I’ve experienced this before when I travelled to Croatia with my then partner and we camped (for kicks) at an FKK site. Its a nudest camp full of Germans, naked, carrying on with day to day activities, only without clothes. And that was the moment when I thought, I want to experience their freedom. I don’t want to care what others think if my body is okay or not.  What would that mean anyway. And as I watched these naked Germans with awe and not voyeurism, i made a pack with myself that I would get out of my own way and enjoy and celebrate in this freedom.  That I did. And I loved it.

Woodstock has just begun.