Part 31
... After a long, diarrhea ridden month in India, By August 2016 I had made my way to England en route to meet Steve in Southampton in September. His yoga school was to recommence after their summer holiday break on September 5th, so arriving to London in early August meant I had several weeks to re-acclimate to the first world on my own. I'd spent three months abroad at this point and hadn't flushed toilet paper down a powerful enough toilet since I left home in May. It had also been one month since I'd had a regular bowel movement and I felt pretty depleted, so coming back to a place with a familiarity that I had removed myself from for so long was actually a bit strange at first. Call it reverse culture shock. Since there was time before I had anywhere to be, I decided to explore what it was like to be a human again. What did this mean? For starters, I was starving after a month of rice and lentils and often one meal a day, so the European pastries were among my first enjoyments. I spent the days wandering the streets of London and tasting all the delicious food, it was awesome. I would get up very early, hop the fence into the local park that didn't open its gates until 7 am, practice under a tree, then find some cafe with an amazing array of baked goods and sit down with a coffee and pastry to write, read, and reflect. To be honest, coffee actually tasted like shit at first so I spent about a week looking for the best hot chocolate in the city and spent well over a hundred dollars doing so. It was fun, I was on a whole new adventure that was vastly different from the one I had been on up until that point. I think the beauty of this reflection is in the experiences that are available to us are endless. There is nothing inherently wrong with any activity, and maybe this is just me justifying spending more money on food in a week in London than my whole month of travel in India (it was cheap), but whatever. Maybe you are wondering, like me, if all this was necessary. I can tell you, it brought me into stark recognition of my truth, because none of these things brought any more or less contentment to life than I'd already found. As we begin to identify with the One who is witnessing it all, we understand that experiences are just temporary moments for us to see ourselves. If we don't do this, then we think that it is the experience itself that brings the joy and we become attached to our pleasurable moments and avoid the painful ones. This binds us to living half a life. I was determined to live a full one...
Part 32
Welcoming all the experiences of the modern world felt like I was rediscovering things for the first time. I was so thankful to have gained the perspective of a month in India and could certainly have spent more time as a barefoot spiritual seeker throughout Her mystical lands, but honestly it felt good to finally have clean bathrooms and ready access to WiFi. I was buzzing like I was high after my first coffee stop in one of London's quaint cafes. Gelato was too sweet. Bread was dry. Food from the famous markets looked fake and unreal; the cost of food had me alarmed. And, no supermarket-purchased mango tasted as sweet as the ones those carts on the sides of the streets in Rishikesh. It was fun readjusting and relearning all these things, because it felt like I had gone on a deep inner journey and was now reemerging into the daylight of the external world. London was awesome for this. Yoga didn't take a break, in fact I explored a lineage of the practice known as Shadow Yoga at school located right there in the city. A unique blend of martial arts, classical Indian dance, and hatha yoga - Shadow Yoga of Chandor Remete was beautiful new exploration for me to incorporate a lot of the energetic discoveries I was making from my own practices. For the next three weeks I'd be there, I would attend every lesson I could. It was just like that; for my time spent in London I reintroduced myself in a new way to things I previously liked, rediscovered other things that I didn't like but thought I did, and learned most of all one very precious thing. It was all this that showed me in an initially jarring but eventually joyous manner that nothing is an absolute enjoyment other than the presence behind it all...
Part 33
... I said my goodbyes to the beautiful and diverse city of London with a final embrace to a beloved friend who showed up as another angel on my path onward. It was through traveling that it was really made clear to me that no matter where you are, showing up with an open heart will provide opportunities to meet the most beautiful humans of all kinds. These interactions inspire you to continue to share and become the love that they reflect; they show you that ultimately we are all the same. We are beings made of love, created out of this Universal truth that allows all things to manifest through the Union of opposites. My train sped onward as fast as you could turn the page in a novel, symbolic of this closure to one chapter as we opened to a new one. My journal was full of entries, as full as my heart was of experiences. As I approached Southampton to embark on the next leg of my journey, my head wondered what was next but I felt the freedom of not needing to know....
Part 34
... Steve welcomed me at the train station as i arrived. He was wearing jeans, sneakers and a t shirt with a hole in it. Just an apparently normal guy but with a radiant smile and a light that was nearly visible in the ordinariness of daytime. We embraced and then I was introduced to his family which was all waiting in the minivan. It felt amazing to have an entourage of beautiful smiling faces waiting for me in a foreign land, and I will never forget the feelings of gratitude I have for such an experience, and all like it. After we shared a meal together and caught up, I was handed the keys to a flat that would be mine for the next couple months. Can you believe such fortune? One of the advanced yoga students, another angel, had just moved out of her place and was going to sell it so had offered me the whole place to myself while it was being prepared for sale. My word.... The truth is, we don't need much , and least of all do we need or want an expectation; when things happen the way they should, we are rewarded tremendously. In some cases the reward appears greater than others, but perhaps this is only because we were patient and tenacious while life took its time exhausting us for a rest in the gorgeous open meadow just ahead of the rocky road. We are never given more than we can handle, and we are always given what we deserve. This goes for 'good' or 'bad' experiences. Diarrhea for thirty days straight in India? Maybe there was a lesson there for me. I'm sure there was. Being grateful for just being alive allows us to see the silver lining behind every experience and certainly gives us something to celebrate when it appears like we get 'lucky'. This form of simple, practical gratitude shakes us out of the automatic, taking-things-for-granted way of life that we fall into. We might even find ourselves making demands from life if we forget to give our thanks daily. I can tell you, having a private bedroom, a kitchen to cook my own meals, and even my own designated yoga room after months of cots, dorms, and bunk beds... My heart was bursting with thanks for the love and support I continued to receive....
Part 35
It was September 2016, and four months previously I had left home without the foresight to where I would end up. Arriving in Southampton on the overcast coast of the UK was something I would have thought crazy, especially when my plan was to travel the sunny and tropical coasts of Central and South America. Funny how life has its plot twists. The Saturday night I got into town, Steve (my yoga teacher) called a meeting to kick off the Sanctuary's next semester of yoga classes, beginning Monday. It was my first introduction to the crowd of authentic yogis and the community he had fostered around one man's sincere wish to spread the teachings of yoga into the world. I was awestruck but the love present in these individuals. I was even more overwhelmed when he introduced me by asking me to rise in the yoga hall filled with about a hundred of the Sanctuary's students. After he had welcomed every one back for our upcoming semester, he launched into a comical story about how he met one devoted yogi while on his own yoga retreat in India over the summer and apparently this practitioner wanted to come back to the UK and practice with the crowd listening. I felt heat rise into my face when I understood he was referring to me. Then as I stood in the room and looked around at the smiling faces, welcoming me, offering me their absolute attention... I knew I'd finally arrived. This was a group of yogis I'd been traveling to find. Every one of them shined with radiance and devotion. I felt so blessed in that moment to be received as I was. It was incredible. Even though I left it months ago, I finally felt home....
