I am typing this on my phone, so please excuse any typos. One nice
thing about India is that telecommunicationis quite cheap. It costs me
20 rupees a day (50 cents) to have always on Internet on my phone (vs.
$1/hr in Cameroon which I thought was pretty good).
It's the final week of the Yoga teachers training course (or TTC as
they call it). We have our exam on Saturday morning. 3.5 hours and no
books. . . I think it may be 25 years since I took a closed book exam.
I'm a little nervous. You wouldn't believe how much stuff we've
covered in the 4 weeks -- the Bhagavad Gita, Anatomy, Vedanta
philosophy, chanting, how to teach Asanas, plus our practice teaching
sessions. then there is our own practice -- meditation, chanting,
asanas, kriyas -- that is several hours a day. And we've hd several
special occasions: two initiation ceremonies, 2 fire rituals, one
puja, 3 talent shows, a visit to the temple, some special guests. . .
and, oh yes, today is Chistmas!
I taught today and the class went well. I got two very heartfelt
acknowledgments from students and that made me feel really good. At
the end of class, I felt I'd done a good job. Then I relaized that I
really like it. The process itself was really. nice. That was a
pleasant surprise.
It's late and meditation is at 5am, so I'll write more later.
In addition to learning how to teach yoga asanas in a month, the gift of
doing this Sivananda Yoga Teacher's Training course is that we actually live
an intense life of spiritual practices for the month we are in the Ashram.
Here is what the daily schedule looks like:
4:30am Wake up
5:00am Satsang: Meditation (30 min), Chanting (30 min), a talk (30 min)
7:00am Asana practice (2 hours)
9:00am Brunch
9:45am Karma yoga (service work -- cleaning, etc.)
11:00am Bhagavad Gita class (1 hour)
1:00pm Vedanta Lecture (2 hours)
3:00pm Asana teaching practice (2 hours)
5:00pm Dinner
7:00pm Satsang (like morning)
9:00pm Lights out
The Vedanta and Bhagavad Gita classes are full of new and mind-bending
concepts. The Asana class includes Pranayama breathing and usually starts
with 12-24 Sun Salutations to warm up. And the last couple of days, I've
gone running at 5pm rather than eat dinner.
Today we did kriyas which are cleansing practices. I won't gross you out
with detailed descriptions, but if you have any idea what a Neti pot is,
I'll tell you that this was the most mild practice we were taught. Anyway,
doing these cleansing practices is quite draining, at least the first time,
so we are all tired today. Some people had a lot of emotional stuff come up.
I didn't have that, but my back is suddenly stiff as a board. . .
Another aspect of Ashram life is very limited Internet access. You can sign
up for 15 minutes every 3 days. On a dialup connection, that does not let
you do much! So off I go so the next person can get on.
After a long trip consisting predominantly of waiting in airports, I have
arrived not only in India, but at my final destination, the Sivananda
Meeknashi Ashram near Madurai. Despite bad reviews on the website
www.sleepinginairports.com, I found the Mumbai airport to be quite nice.
There's not anything there (in the domestic terminal) except one snack shop,
one gift shop and one book shop, but there's no rule written somewhere that
the purpose of airport terminals is to entertain white people . The
people I met there were extremely helpful and accomodating and welcoming.
And it's clean and modern -- a far cry from Douala International, believe
me.
Madurai is a small city, not much bigger than Bamenda, I don't think,
although more crowded and bustling. And the Ashram is a good hour outside
the city in the rural area. Nice, peaceful, quiet. And the temperature is
perfect. Warm during the day, but not too warm, with a nice afternoon breeze
and cool in the evening (cool enough to need a warm shirt). Altogether
lovely in my estimation.
So now I am here and beginning to settle in to the pace of life and the
discipline of the place. I haven't seen the monkeys yet, but I hear they are
around. The Ashram is very open -- the dorm where I am staying is a slate
floor with grass walls and roof and that's the construction of all but the
two new buildings that are under construction. You can hear everyone and
everything and it feels a bit like camp, but with plumbing and electricity
(a generator, which makes quite a racket!)
I've had a shower and one night's rest (punctuated by numerous trips to the
toilet -- something in my travels got to my innards and liquified them --
uggh) and feel almost myself again. I plan to try to go running something
today.
If we go by my Personality tests, then I should be a musician or producer or
a writer or a theologian or a phys ed teacher or a mechanic. . . No wonder
I'm confused.
Honestly, I've seriously considered looking into something full time related
to running or yoga -- managing or owning a running store, being a coach and
a yoga teacher. That would satisfy the kinesthetic part of me and maybe a
little bit of the intrapersonal.
I do have good intrapersonal skills, but I'm not cut out to be a theologian.
Too academic and theoretical. I've thought of becoming a counselor or going
into spiritual direction or pastoral care. I'm not really interested in
becoming a therapist, partly because I know I don't have the commitment to
go through all the training that would require.
Never thought of being a musician or producer, but again, that's a whole new
field of study.
This it the problem with these sort of tests. Same thing with career tests
(at least the ones I've taken), they never even offer anything in the realm
of international development or overseas service or missionary-type work.
I recently took a personality-type test that is meant to indicate which "intelligences" are your strengths (see the sidebar on the right for a link to view my results, also of a Meyers-Briggs test which turned out quite differently than the last one I took).
My number one intelligence was Musical, then came Kinesthetic, then Verbal and everything else was much lower than those three. [Later -- ha, I was wrong! Musical is 85%, then comes Intrapersonal at 80%, then Kinesthetic at 70% with Verbal and Visual/Spatial tied at 65%.]
On one level, this did not surprise me at all, although I think it may surprise other people who know me. I'm perceived as being predominantly verbal and I've certainly been trained well in that domain in my academic career. But for me to learn things more deeply than just concepts in my mind, the kinesthetic and musical intelligences must be activated.
This made me think, though. Particularly about the musical thing. Developing the verbal part is really not necessary. I think if anything, the more I downplay that, potentially the better. I think I am doing well caring for the kinesthetic part, although remembering to get up and move around in meetings is helpful. But I have a somewhat mixed relationship with music. On the one hand I am a great afficionado. I listen to music every day and have over 30,000 tracks in my iTunes library from virtually every genre in the world. I love music. Music speaks very deeply to me and I find it the most effective tool for experiencing and expressing the depth of my feelings.
But I was the "smart" one in the family, NOT the "musical" one and, despite playing (or playing around with) several instruments as a child, I find myself very blocked in the area of playing music.I come from a family of music appreciators, although none of us ever tried to become professional. Both my parents and my stepfather love music, my sister and my brothers have played various instruments, we sing along around the house and some have sung in the church choir when we had the time, etc. Most of us have pretty strong opinions about music. All of my siblings and I studied with music playing.
I don't know if my musical intelligence would be served by trying to breakthrough this block I have about playing or not. I have a beautiful classical guitar that I bought before coming to Cameroon and a bunch of books I brought in the hopes that I could re-teach myself to play. When I was out in Fonta, I started for awhile, but didn't get very far. I feel like I am lacking knowledge about how one effectively learns music. My default approach is to learn mentally, but I don't think that is the right approach (and it has not been very effective). And I get really discouraged by the gap between what I want to play and where my skills are currently. Whenever I read/hear about someone learning, it's almost always a story of someone who just picked up an instrument and started to play and there is a part of me that thinks that if it isn't that natural, I shouldn't do it.
If anyone has any insight or comments, feel free to share.
I am realising that one thing I have found frustrating professionally is
that I always feel like I can only find work that satisfies part of me. My
ideal position would somehow combine both intellectual creativity (strategic
thinking, analysing, designing, planning) and on-the-ground application,
people contact, service, etc. For some reason, I have not been able to get
into a place that satisfies both those aspects. One of my greatest jobs
recently was working retail at MetroSport, a local running store in Palo
Alto. I loved being able to serve people directly and to share my passion
with others who either were also passionate or willing to be inspired. But
it wasn't mentally engaging enough to work as a long-term job and my heart
really wanted to be in Africa. As I think about the future and try to
imagine what sorts of work I might do after VSO, I am hard-pressed to see
clearly a position that could engage my passion on different levels:
intellectually, physically, socially/emotionally. I have so often been
either mentally engaged or relationally engaged, but rarely both, and for
some reason, the older I get the less satisfying intellectual engagement is
by itself. I want to apply stuff I think up. In the end I only really care
about what happens in the real world, with real people, in real situations.
And I'm becoming much more interested in the process than the final result
(although I don't think I'll ever not be interested in the final result).
I feel like I could really use a career counsellor that knew how to place
people in international development jobs, but I doubt such a thing exists or
that I could afford it. Maybe when I'm in India, something will become clear
for me.
Probably by the time you read this I will be on my way to India! I have my
plane ticket to Mumbai (still need to get the one for Mumbai to Madurai), I
have my Indian visa and my Cameroon Exit and Re-entry Visa (and my passport
back in my hands!). I've paid for the course and I'm almost packed. I leave
Bamenda the morning of 28 November and a bus ride, 3 plane rides and 3 taxi
rides later, I should be at the Sivananda Yoga Ashram near Madurai, India
for a month-long yoga teacher's training and retreat. I start my return on 1
January and should be home 4 January in the evening. I'm quite excited on
many levels. I am looking forward to the retreat aspect and to the possible
transformative opportunities of spending a month in intense meditation and
yoga practice (each day begins with wake up call at 5:30am and meditation
and ends after evening meditation/satsang with lights out at 10:30pm). I am
excited to take my personal yoga practice up to the next level. And I am
eagerly anticipating learning and practicing how to teach yoga. Hopefully
I'll get to do a bit of sightseeing in the 3 or so days I have after the
course before my flight back to Cameroon. Madurai is apparently known for
its beautiful temples, so I hope to bring back some great photos.
This began as a bit of a fluke. I have a collection of photos of family &
friends on my phone/PDA and one day I was looking through them while
listening to music and the song that happened to be playing was "The Prayer"
sung in a duet by Andrea Bocelli and Heather Headley (from the Under the
Desert Sky album). It was beautiful. Moving. I got all choked up.
I thought it would be nice to share the experience. So I took some care in
selecting the photos and created a slideshow that you can all watch (more
easily than me, at least those of you with a Western internet connection!).
Because I only have photos of those I have photos of, know that each one
represents for me not just the person pictured but also everyone they are
connected to. I am surrounded by saints.
Click on the link below to see the slideshow. If you turn on captions you
will see the names of those in the photo.
Every time I look at them, this is how they are, piled on top of each other.
This is a great article from the Christian Science Monitor:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1108/p07s01-woaf.html?s=hns
Apparently there's a "scandal" in the US over the fact that there was sexual abuse at Oprah Winfrey's Girls Leadership Academy in South Africa. That's no scandal folks. Welcome to Africa.
But the stunning, inspiring, beautiful news is that Oprah responded swiftly, seriously and responsibly, investigating the allegations, finding the perpetrators, firing and suspending teachers, etc. The stunning thing is that she took this seriously -- something that is RARELY done anywhere in Africa, particularly South Africa.
Any surprise that her show is one of the most popular in every country in Africa where it is broadcast (including here in Cameroon)?
