Out of Sight, Out of Mind...

Today I register for my final month of practice. Only a couple of weeks ago I felt as if the end was so very far away, and now suddenly, I feel it looming, as if it's shadow is approaching and beginning to cover my toes in Samasthitih. Already, so many of the people that I care about, those who really help to make these trips as special as they are, have left. They've gone home, or continued on in their travels. As I sit in the lobby waiting to practice, their memories of Mysore are fading slightly, becoming filmy and grainy, turning into a blur of early mornings and bowls of rice. And my own memory of them becomes fuzzy around the edges, smudged by the days that continue on, the practice, and the focus.

This forgetting is inevitable, but it is also necessary. It's an important part of being able to go home and re-connect to our lives and families; it allows for re-entry into the real world. And the forgetting will be an integral part of returning; letting go of everything and everyone we love in order to return and fully immerse ourselves once again in practice here. The process is slow, and often painful, but little by little we detach - we have to, it's the only way we'll ever be able to do it again. And this is not to say that home or Mysore or the people in between are gone completely. It is the longing, not the loving, that subsides.

Goodbyes have always been hard for me and as I said my first few this week, I've tried not to think about the ones coming up that will be the most difficult. In this space, where we are so incredibly vulnerable, it is very easy to form fast friends and forge lifelong relationships. There are people here who I love as deeply as my own family, and leaving them will be incredibly challenging. But just as I always carry my practice, the energy of the shala, the love for my husband and family and home, these people too will be with me.

Sometimes we must put those who are not with us out of our minds as much as possible, but we know, and trust that they know, that they're always in our hearts.

Tenderized

I feel like I've been marinating. For the past two weeks I feel like I've been sitting in a vat of breath, and posture, sweat and gaze - throw in people, places and surprise news from home for a little extra spice. I feel raw; vulnerable; tender.

As I near the end of my third month in Mysore, my third month away from my creature comforts, family, and friends, things here are really starting to sink in. Deeply. They're beginning to colour the way I act in my everyday life and change the way that I respond to situations. I'm worried they're beginning to make me a little nutty. I'm regularly exhausted, my body aches and I feel like there's a lot going on inside my head, things that I am not even sure how to properly express.

Practicing Ashtanga is amazing and transformative, no matter where you unroll your mat. However, practicing here, working with intensity, determination and focus that I've never experienced anywhere else, changes the game entirely. Without distractions of work and home, without the stabilizing effects of routine and loved ones, India forces you to confront the aspects of yourself that you'd prefer to ignore. Suddenly everything that you hide away, the skeletons in the spiritual closet, are all exposed. You're gutted; your viscera laid out for the world to see.

It's horrifying. It's disgusting. It is utterly devastating.

But this mess is the impetus for change.

This is where the other parts of the practice begin.