Tag: travel

Uncategorized

Peace in My Heart

Katie

It’s been hard to write publicly these past few days. The world outside of this Ayurveda retreat seems crazy. I rarely open my computer or check the news, and yet I can’t escape it. My heart aches for this planet, and I am confused that such a despicable person is in charge of my beloved home country. If I get started writing about it, I won’t stop, so today I’m going to focus on something peaceful.

First, for those of you who don’t really know where I am, let’s get our bearings: I am in Coonoor, India, 6,500 feet up in the Nilgiri Mountains, in a tiny village called Hulical. We are surrounded by tea plantations as far as the eyes can see, wild gaurs roam freely, the forests are full of porcupines, deer, boars, panthers, and black bears (which we never see), and dozens of species of birds which we are delighted to listen to and watch from our little perch on the patio. Each day is like being on a mountaintop safari, and it is easy to just sit and watch the day go by along with the animals, the clouds, the rising and setting of the sun…

We wake up, go to yoga class, eat breakfast in the cool of the morning, visit with the Dr., take walks through the villages and the winding paths of the tea, enjoy our first of two Ayurvedic treatments before noon, and eat every morsel of an amazing lunch each day. Afternoons unfold with a second treatment, maybe a nap or another walk, a cooking class, meditation… And as if any of us could be hungry again, there is dinner, followed by either an evening program or time to retire early to read, write, or chat with loved ones at home.

Some days we get to go to the market, and although it’s always a bit chaotic down there, there is something about it that brings me peace. I love to watch the people move about. Women in their saris, children holding hands with their mamas, grown men locked arm in arm as they stroll, sparrows stealing rice from big burlap bags, Abdul snipping long strands of flowers for altars, Nagaraj and his wife Vasanthi selling sundries in their tiny shop, the same tailor tucked in on the back side of the market, sewing on an old cast iron Singer that looks like something my grandmother would have used.

In this thicket of vegetable stalls, life goes on, despite the crazy world outside this mountain city. Every face offers a curious smile and a “namaste.” I visit my handful of friends who own little booths full of bindis or fruit or flowers, and I flow along with the traffic, taking pictures, smiling at shopkeepers, posing for a selfie, sticking my nose into a pile of jasmine.

And the veggies… Oh my goodness, the abundance, the variety, the colors! People here are truly plant-based eaters, and there is so much to pick from: pumpkins, colrabi, cauliflower, zucchini, eggplant, beets, carrots, onions, beans, cabbage, radishes, peppers… and it goes on and on! People shop almost daily here. Few have refrigerators, the word “leftovers” is not even a word, and folks just cook fresh food daily. Imagine that?

Check out this display. I love the squash sliced perfectly in half and surrounded by brussel sprouts, turnips, summer squashes, okra, and the prettiest little striped eggplants!

This lovely man has had his corner stall since I’ve been coming here, and I have asked him so many times to take his photo, that this year when he sees me, he smiles, says hello, and immediately poses so I can add to my decade-old collection of shots. You might wonder why I need to take someone’s portrait over and over, but every time there is something different and magical about a person’s eyes, the way they engage with you (or not), even the way they keep their shop is different. The photo on the left is from a few days ago; the one on the right is from 2020. I promise myself to write down his name the next time so that next year I can address him properly.

On my way out of the market I know I have to pass once more by the fish monger, and it is a powerful smell. I take a final sniff of petals at Abdul’s flower stall, and hold my breath as I round the bend, up the stairs, and out into the sunlight. The streets are full of people, and it’s time to head for the hills.

I leave feeling happy, my eyes full of color and smiles, my heart full of the knowledge that there are so many sweet people out there just living their lives one day at a time. I’m grateful for the faces, for the beauty of the vegetables, for the expansive green of the countryside I drive up into as I leave the bustle of the city behind me. I’m grateful for peace in my heart.

with love,

Katie

Uncategorized

Love Begins with Me

Katie

“You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire Universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~The Buddha

I’ve come to realize that my years of coming to India to partake in Panchakarma is an embodiment of this quote. It has taken some time to nurture this seed of self love, but a beautiful flower has been growing in my heart, and tending to it requires diligence. How can we love others genuinely and with compassion and joy if we don’t maintain a reservoir of love stored up in the well of our own heart? What are you doing, dear Reader, to care for yourself?

For me, coming to India for the first time in 2016 was the turning point on the idea that taking care of myself with the nourishment, time, and tenderness that I deserve is actually not a selfish act. This was a radical shift for me, and not one that came easily–it was actually tinged with guilt and self doubt. Who was I to leave my home and family for a month or more at a time and go to a retreat where I could rest in my bathrobe all day and receive massages and have someone cook every meal for me? Even as I enjoyed the treatments in those early days, I can remember feeling a kind of guilt that I had the resources to experience such deep healing work. I even felt “bad” that my therapists had to work on my body–and on so many of us privileged people with time and resources to take time out of “doing life” and instead enjoy the beauty of being in the hands of therapists and doctors who have treated me with more love and care than I had offered myself for most of my life. In my struggle with self worth I found self care, and it has made more difference in my life than I could ever explain here in this post. So I’ll just pop in a few pics of the meals the past couple days, and this food is absolutely a gift of love from our chefs: Indrani, Magheshwari, and Mahalakshmi:

In the years before I found Ayurveda and an abiding meditation practice, I marveled at just how much I was able to get done, how many people I could teach, serve, care for… how my husband and I did what so many parents did: the “divide and conquer” days and nights of getting kids up in the morning, going to games, helping them with homework, and still putting homemade food on the table for a “family dinner,” followed by my own crazy combination of grading student essays building a home, and opening a yoga studio simultaneously. Just thinking about that organized chaos makes my body and brain hurt. And yet, we did it, and with a lot of joy, even if we were completely exhausted every. single. day. Thank God for Declan who supported me every moment of that whirlwind. And he still does, knowing that this time in India is an annual reboot, the reminder I need that it feels good to treat my whole being–body, mind, heart, and spirit–with love and with admiration. It’s easy, at least for me, to get sucked back into the cycle of filling every calendar opening with retreats and yoga teacher trainings, but I am happy to say (pat myself on the back), that I am not pushing so hard anymore. I love the work I do in the world. I love teaching yoga and sharing it with others in my studio, on retreats and in trainings, and if ever that joy feels parched, I know it’s nearly time to pack my bags and head on my sojourn. Balance is just waiting for me to hold it in my hands, like this little cup of ghee I am taking for the next 4 days:

Here at the retreat I slow down, walk among the lantana, listen to the birds at sunrise, practice yoga, meditate, laugh and cry with my dear friends, receive beautiful oil massages, and eat delicious food. I remember I am more than my work, and I am more than my body and my mind. At such a crazy time at home in the US, it feels strange to pack a bag and walk away. It could be seen as a check out; but really I am checking in. Deep in. What I’ve learned is that if I want to be of service in the world, I need to take good care of this soul vessel. I’m still learning to feel fully worthy, but for those who are here on this journey with me, we talk about how we can’t imagine life before these years together up here in the Nigiri Mountains. Happy Valentines Day to us, this circle of precious friends who have dedicated this time, like me, to do the deep and beautiful work that is self love. We deserve this.

Happy Valentines Day to myself, to my beloved Declan holding down the Dragonfly fort at home, to my wonderful family, my dear yogis and friends who cheer me on my way each year I come back hOMe to India, and to my sweet friends here with me sharing this time at the retreat. I love you all.

Katie xoxo

Uncategorized

Sweet Mountain Temple

Katie

Last year I wrote a little about Hullical and Pannaven, the lovely little villages perched just behind our retreat here on the mountainside. Between the two, there are at least 5 temples, and each is dedicated to a particular deity. Last year while I was here, Pannaven’s new Ganesh temple was being built overlooking a gorgeous valley. The site was chosen because a herd of nine or so elephants had made its way into the town a couple years back and bedded down here where the forest meets the village. The same group of elephants came through again last year just before our arrival, and at the new temple they had just finished putting up the plaster deity of Ganesh on the roof with a whole consort of gods and goddesses. (Apparently the elephants agree with the choice dedication)! This year we came back to a freshly painted temple and were invited in to see the sanctuary and altar. Ganesh sits prominently on the top deck, just above another covered carving of some of his family including his parents Shiva and Parvathi, and one of his siblings, Kartikeya, the god of war. And yes, the sky is THAT blue!

In order to enter we must take off our shoes and wash our feet.

Outside the temple is a group of nine sacred entities called a Navagraha, representative of the nine planets. They are worshipped by Hindus to overcome any hindrance, obstacle or bad luck. Faithful believers pray to the Navagrahas before they pray to any other deity or the temple’s namesake, so they are located in the area outside the sanctuary. You can see in my pictures, each Navagraha is draped in a colored cloth representative of its planet, their foreheads smudged with a tilak made of sandalwood paste and turmeric. It is customary to circumnambulate this collection of idols nine times (one for each). If the Navagraha is not present outside the temple, then worshippers will take three clockwise loops around the entire temple. This action is either called a Parikrama (meaning “path surrounding something”), or it’s called a Pradakshina (meaning to go around in a clockwise direction).

Even though we are not dressed in appropriate attire (we’ve been walking through the tea and are in our hiking gear), we are invited by a local caretaker to go in, so we wrap our shawls around our bare shoulders, and enter.

Ganesh Altar
Not sure who this little guy is!

Inside the temple is the main altar of Ganesh with fresh flowers, incense, and multiple oil lamps burning. Just outside the altar and looking in at Ganesh is this other stone carved animal, also adorned with flower garlands, a banana, and a champa flower (smells like Heaven!)

We spend a few minutes here and then head to the steps back to the path where our shoes are waiting for us.

The town of Pannaven stretches out from the edge of the forest and surrounding tea fields down a little walkway that leads to a diminutive village of about 20 terraced houses, each with some variation of tile roofs, pastel washed in blues, greens, and one pink with red trim. Beside it is a crumbling home with roof tiles in disarray which looks deserted. It’s hard to say how old some of these cottages are; some of the tea plantations date back 1835 here, but the local tribes existed here long before the English colonized these areas and set up their tea operations. The original huts of the hill tribes were made of red clay with teak beams and thatched roofs, and as far as I know, none of these remain here.

We pass by numerous outlying cottages, follow the pathway through the tea, visit Lakshmi, the retreat’s cow (who is due any moment now with a new calf), and turn the bend toward Mountaintop.

Thank goodness we get to walk every day–there are so many temples to visit and tea fields to romp through…

Until the next post, much love and many blessings,

Katie

Uncategorized

Tea Time

Katie

I am back in India where my room overlooks the Nilgiri Mountains of Tamil Nadu. The past few days have been a nestling back into my perch looking out over the tea. It is a comfort to return, a time of sweet solace, of deep deep physiological, emotional, and spiritual work, and the joy of rest and the expansion that comes when we stop the grind and just allow ourselves to be cared for, body, mind, and soul. It is a gift and a privilege to be here, and I am grateful. The mornings begin with a bulbul bird heralding the coming day. I hear him before my alarm goes off. And it’s worth getting up for the sunrise here.

Since all of our rooms face east, this is how we wake. But the sun sets behind us, and the rooms do not have back windows, so it is easy to miss that equally beautiful moment unless you walk up through the garden to the top of the retreat. My first afternoon here, as the sun dips low, I am pulled to the back gate to a tiny dirt path where the tea cascades down the Western slope of the mountain, where a gigantic olive tree commands the ridge, and where the flowers are so fragrant and full of birds, you would think you were dropped into paradise from out of the sky.

When I return to my room, I begin to sketch out a poem: (still in progress):

Tea Time

It is four o’clock

on the nose.

Sun pours liquid light over mountains, 

splashes silver and gold on emerald hills,

and a million leaves

shimmer in response

like diamonds on the sea

a sea of tea

I need to stand in it, 

this ocean of green leaves and sunlight spilling.

So, I open the gate–

the back way out–

to where it’s just me and the birds

and the breeze

in this hazy tea-time diamond light.

Lantana branches out, pours citrus petals

along the path, and

red dust rises from between my toes.

I walk slowly

take each step as a breath rises and falls

there is no need to rush now

It is easy to stand here

at tea time

on a mountain top

as the sun sinks low

and the red whiskered bulbuls sing in the lantana

and the golden-silver light stretches over it all

glimmers the metallic air 

hides behind silver oaks

floats down their skinny trunks

lands under the giant olive tree

who beckons for me to come and sit in her silken shadows

But far off, clouds are coming 

seeping through the folds of the mountains

Soon they will curl into the village

quiet as a cat’s tail.

A bell rings, calling people in before dark

before the bears and the leopards wake from their sunshine slumber.

Night belongs to the wild things here

At last, Sun bows his curtain call to the tea

and I slip back in the gate, past the shell pink datura flowers

hanging like skirts

step silently to my room

where ginger tea is waiting

There is no coffee here, by the way. Only fennel and ginger tea. It is simple. Intentional. I like that I don’t need willpower to keep my head out of the fridge or the pantry where boxes and bags with snacks abound. Sometimes it takes the absence of such choice to cultivate the clarity we need. It’s not lack. It’s not a deficiency. It’s just simple. It is deliberate. I think about how easy it is to eat mindlessly and how often I grab a snack when I’m not even hungry. Here, Indrani and Narayan serve us our meals with smiles, and we only need to receive the gifts of their work with open hands and heart. I raise my eyes to theirs and bow in gratitude. So much work–so much time to wash, chop, slice, stir, season, and serve us. I eat slowly. One bite. Spoon down. Breathe. Savor.

Breakfast: passionfruit, amla berry, figs
Lunch: beet salad, coconut sabji, dahl, chappati

It is still early morning. The dogs bark, the crows crow, and the mountains rise out of the metallic sky. It is good to be back here in my cozy nest where my mind continues to uncoil and my body softens with each massage.

I will share more from the mountaintop in weeks to come. Thank you for coming on the journey, dear reader. It is nice to have you along.

With love,

Katie