- had ginger tea at 6:30am (sneaked out to have a chai before this, shhh ;)
- the opening ceremony for the course begun at 7am, and it lasted more than 1hr. It was unique! All the detailed traditional steps which a Swami had to perform to ask blessings from a Ganesha for us, the students: a mixture of fresh flowers pedals, herbs, liquid...was sprinkled into the center fire of coconut skin, following with chanting of different verses... Students were also asked to individually offer flower pedals, 3 handful rice crispies into the fire.. At the closing ceremony, some of the lightly roasted herbs were mixed into a paste of 3 colors: white, black, red, and dotted on students third eye (space between eyebrows) as some meaning symbols... Small breakfast was offered right there.
-1.5 hours asanas (Hatha yoga poses) & pranayama (breathing techniques) Head stand, Shoulders stand, Plough, Fish are performed right after Sun Salutations. I had never done that many of different breathing techniques which were extended up to 1/2 hr! So much awareness was required!
- fruit time around 1:30pm.
- free time until 4pm (today is the first day of the course so some parts of schedule were skipped) I took advantage of this free time to go outside looking for an Internet cafe to send news home.
- back for another 2 hours asanas and pranayama.
- dinner
- chanting session with Sanskrit to end the day!
On reflection, I had a well-receiving nourishment day: spiritually from the ceremony; mentally and physically from the asanas & pranayama & healthy meals with Bhooma, who has knowledge of giving well-balanced chosen sets of poses and dietary advice which I so needed after a few days full of stress; emotionally from the chanting with Swami Yogesh who is so humble, sincere, caring, fun, and determined to make each one of us re-chant the verse. I even recorded Avelino's voice who was reluctant to chant but was the last one in turn ;) He said the same thing as my friend, Nirala, wrote 2 years ago on her blog: "I couldn't believe they made me do this!"
I was finally "at home with myself" again with much gratitude!
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