Sometimes it takes a journey to come home

Have you ever done yoga before? Some of my favorite classes have been with teachers that take as much time to experience the effects after a pose as they do for the pose itself. It's like my 3rd grade music teacher who told us music is made up of silence and sound--puzzling and intriguing to a young mind. Both silence and sound, movement and stillness, are equally important in their differences.

After moving, traveling, experiencing, bouncing around spaces I could never imagine, I am at rest, at home. It's only now that I can really feel the effects of my travels, the music, the movement. People have told me I'm completely different, something new has blossomed within me.
I have had a really rough past couple of years, and I feel more peaceful and stable now than I have in a very long time. Even though I was terrified of going to India alone, it is the absolute BEST THING I could have done for myself. I feel a new energy to face injustice around me. I'm finding new ways that I can change my life today that challenge structures of oppression and injustice. There's a flame burning subtly but strongly within my being. I am so grateful for being afforded this life to learn, to share, to turn this lost ship just one degree back in the right direction.

I will briefly share a few things I learned from India that stick out in my mind:
-Self-sufficiency is an illusion. I would not have gotten anywhere without the help of so many people along the way. Having a Lonely Plant guidebook for India is sort of useful but won't get you very far. It's a lovely feeling to let go of control of most everything. Like jumping into the ocean and letting the waves rock you back and forth, you can't predict their movement but there's comfort in uncertainty.
-Plans are arbitrary. We make them but the universe often seems to have something else in mind. GO WITH THE FLOW, it's out of our hands.
-Laugh more, much more. Laugh at most things--it makes the most unpleasant experiences more bearable. Don't take things too seriously
-"Struggle with the saying: You will be needed in the movement when you realize you are not needed in the movement."
-Feel the fear, and DO IT ANYWAY :)

Thank you all for so much love and support.

Your most grateful friend,
Laura

A decent from the clouds: Nilambe Meditation Center

Meditation hall :)

Cloud livin'

hiking up to Nilambe, me myself and I

botanical gardens: Kandy

Tea plantations

Our hotel in Trinco (aka traveling with no guide book is the best thing ever)

Rafa y yo, and a delicious king coconut

Buddha felt like coming home compared to all the gods of India

This might be hard for some of you (cough cough dad:) ) to believe, but I love being quiet. I've arrived back into the city of Kandy from a wonderful retreat at the Nilambe Meditation Center. The schedule is a little something like this: 445 gong wakes us, 5-6 morning meditation, 6-630 the most deliciously needed cup of tea, 630-730 yoga, 730-8 scrumptious mindful breakfast, 8-915 working meditation, 930-11 meditation, 11-12 outdoor meditation, 12-1230 lunchmm, 1230-230 library hours and rest time, 230-4 meditation, 4-430 the precious tea and mindful talking time, 430-530 yoga, 530-630 watching the sunset, 630-730 chanting and meditation, 730 snack, and at 8 there is a talk or we retreat to our rooms.

I love being in a room with people for hours, just sitting, breathing, being quiet. I love walking in a forest with friends, no words needed to form such friendship and no words capable of describing the beauty of that very moment, the majesty of the trees. Words are another structure, a necessary tool, sometimes failing to do justice to a moment, a place, a peace.

When one is quiet, each moment is a fresh, blooming flower. Flashes of unspeakable beauty passed before me, memories of all the things that fill me with awe, all the people. And yet as the present moment whispers of the only truth capable of touching, a smile cracks on my face. What if "god" was a similie for the smile of a rare orchid, a hungry child, a lost friend? What if it was the wind waltzing with your hair, or every single molecule in your body? god, peace, allah, rama, love, jesus, prabhujee, hope, buddha, yahweh, earth.

I long for the breaking of structures, language, borders--so that our uniquely universal experience could decend upon our collective consciousness. We are all someone's child. We all come from love.

If you desire to check out more about this place, which I can imagine you must be, check out their website here :)
http://www.nilambe.org/

Namaste,
Laurita