sadness & gratitude

Guruji r.i.p.


Aum
Trayambakam Yajamahe
Sugandhim Pushtivardhanam
Urva Rukamiva Bandhanaat
Mrityor Mokshiye Maamritat
Svaha





light and love

i wish i was the moon

on my way home tonight i met a little hedgehog who'd strayed from his neighborhood, probably the park a block away from where we met. i was still so amazed - never have i seen a hedgehog on a city street! poor thing, i hope it found it's way back home again...

another long day...

... has come to an end. i'm so tired and really should be in bed by now... all i can think of is how i'm gonna be able to wake up tomorrow and drag myself to practice? tomorrow, though, i'm not in such a hurry. if i can only get to the shala reasonably early i will have time to do my whole practice.

you can tell spring is here and that the temperature is warmer because there is a really nice heat in the shala these days. it doesn't take as long to work up a good body heat and a nice sweat. soon we will have to open windows if we're not to faint from overheating ;-)

i do love my shala! we're a nice little group who sweat together every other morning and we have a very dedicated teacher taking such good care of us. some day when i'm not this tired and have a little more time i'll write a little more about my shala mates and the wonderful room i've landed in. i imagine it's a lot like Liz's shala over in Austin. whenever she's telling stories about their group i feel like she's talking about us :)

are you human?

this has sort of been my theme song today... i love the rhythms and the mystical tone of it, especially the last minute or so. it's been my friend in the ipod all day long.



i was expecting a crazy day when i woke up this morning. it kinda was, but not as crazy as i could've been, had all the things that were planned come true. lucky me they didn't. but still, i've been running from a meeting to the next, having just moments in-between to get other stuff done. and the rest of this week looks a bit the same... ugh... what a contrast to the relaxing life i had this weekend!

my mind is blank at this point... i'm so tired i can hardly recognize any verbal thoughts at all. i should just get to bed fast now. tomorrow i need to be at the shala really early if i am to have a decent practice. so, goodnight, sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite!

Gemini

on the boat, on my way back home after a lovely couple of days with Gemini. it's been a pleasant mixture of work an relaxation. she also treated me twice, needles and she got to try out her new moxa-lamp. really, REALLY nice :) imagine laying on the bed, all covered up with blankets and covers, with acupuncture pins in all the little trigger points that usually hurt and give you pain. and on top of this, a constant heat coming from this 'lamp', warming the achy shoulder, scaring all the cold and pain away... i almost fell asleep!

she's a very special person, my Gemini. she amazes me all the time, so wise and strong. i forget she's so much younger than i am, but then i realize that all the energy she has is of course much due to her youth. me, i'm an old lady in comparison ;) anyway, sometimes it's like she can see right trough me. so very observant and curious. always asking questions. it's like she's constantly building a puzzle. but it's not only for her own 'pleasure' or 'fun', it's because she wants the best for people around her. being educated in traditional chinese medicine and acupuncture she's diagnosing through watching and listening to people. you can get statements from her like "he's got a weak liver", "there's a lot of wind in her neck" or "you have weak yang". so, i have cold and wind in my left shoulder. she's also working on balancing my yang, since that imbalance is the reason for my winter depressions. and she's not only working with the pins. i often get moxa and also she has a little electric box that she connects to the pins to run electricity through them.

not to forget the food! i always get advice on what to eat and how to prepare food and so forth. today she gave me the recipe for a black bean soup with miso, ginger and sesame oil. soooo good and really easy to make. i have some in a jar with me here on the boat and now i'm going to heat it in the microwave oven at the cafeteria. yum!

here i am

i arrived to Gotland at midnight the day before yesterday and Gemini picked me up at the boat terminal. we slept at her friends place in the centre of Visby before going out to her house yesterday. we had a full day and so much to do, that i didn't have time for my assignment, bad girl...

Gotland is a beautiful island and the weather has been gorgeous since i arrived. still cold, but sunny with a clear bleu sky. spring is a little later here than in Stockholm, but here i have the time to really drink it in and enjoy the wonders of nature coming to life.

Gemini is renovating this house that have some parts as old as a couple of hundred years. let's just say there is A LOT to do. right now she's having a couple helping her to make a fantastic plastered brick stove, with a baking oven and it will also be the main source for heating in the wintertime. this couple have a business together where they build and make those very special stoves. she is russian and he is native here from Gotland. they are such a cute pair, lovely people! i think they stole my heart :)

the sun is setting and i'm sitting in Gemini's garden while she's finishing up some stuff. we got up at 6 this morning, did practice (we took resting day yesterday), had a long nice breakfast and after the couple arrived we took the car to go and run a lot of errands. when we got back at 2pm some friends of Gemini came over for lunch and we barbecued in the garden. so now, at 6.45pm, i'm totally done. i wonder if it's ok to go to bed already? ;)

yawn... (april 30)

today has been a long, long, ridiculously long day - started at 5.20am getting up to practice and it's now 9pm and i'm finally on the boat. (i'll have to post this later cause i can't seem to reach my wireless broadband from here.) ugh, i'm completely exhausted, on the edge of passing out... it takes about three hours to get there so it'll be midnight when poor Gemini is picking me up. we'll see if she's up to driving out to the house at that hour, or if we can borough her friend's flat in Visby and crash there till tomorrow.

jeez, i'm so exhausted i can't even write! my brain is shutting down. i'm in my seat and people are running back and forth around me - going to the bathroom, getting food in the canteen, finding their seats or whatever. i just had Karunesh's heart chakra meditation on the ipod and it's soooo soothing! i think i'm going to fall asleep as soon as i shut down the laptop.

saw my sweetheart Bumblebee today. there really wasn't enough time but i just didn't give a damn, i had to see her before going away. she's a fantastic kid, the youngest at her daycare, and everyone loves her because she's so cut and happy. since she started about a month ago she's developed so fast. i guess it's because she's trying to keep up with the older kids, doing the same things as they. was so amazed to see her climbing the ladder to the slide, all by herself!!!

ok, i'm breaking my own rules here... as i'm totally incapable to think this is taking waaaay to much time to write. so, i'll stop here. i think you get the picture. i'll take a nap and hope i can fall asleep when i finally get to go to bed, for real...

yawn...