Yoga retreat nonspecifics
Jan. 29th, 2007 07:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flexagonI'm back! Oh the yoga. Oh the food and the sound of the surf. It's hard to know where to start... I had a great time. And although I now have a cold (clearly Boston-based, it attacked after I got home), it is also nice to be back where I can flush my first-world toilet paper down the first-world toilet, something I couldn't do last week because Maya Tulum's wetland septic system can't handle paper. Also, my kitty is here, and she is worth a lot of crabs and geckos. :)
What to talk about? I did a lot of thinking while I was there. A lot of not-thinking too. It's interesting how the way a person acts is a function of who they are plus where they are... like laying a lumpy blanket over an irregular surface, some aspects of self can be amplified or almost cancelled out by the environment. For example, I don't often dance around bonfires at home, especially if not many others are dancing... but around people who are more than acquaintances but less than friends, after a week of relaxation, when we are encouraged to dance and I just bought a great dancing shirt, my resulting behaviors are different.
I need, need a CD of the surf now. A good one.
Anyway, I was good; I did a little technical reading and played with iMovie to keep my left brain alive, and of course did yoga for two hours every day. Also, I totally rediscovered my introvert side. I took videos of myself all alone, and walked along the tops of fences alone and discovered a tiny little hidden spring alone and generally had a marvellous time. Yes, I hung out with people too; I just rediscovered that when not feeling stressed and needy, I still find plenty to do and look at when people aren't around. I wonder if stress makes me need people more.
I read A Scattering of Cats, which basically documents a lot of cats dying. It also shows a girl growing from a child to a 50something adult without evidence of a shred of personal growth. I left it there.
I ate a lot of fantastic vegetarian food (and sometimes fish). They got something so right with the food there! I kept thinking very strongly, oh, THIS is how people are meant to eat! But I still can't put my finger on what "this" was. It wasn't just the vegetarianness of it. And they didn't get everything right (not everything was whole grain, and one or two things were awfully sugary). Still, there was something good happening, and if I don't figure it out, I'm going to have to go back next year to keep trying. ;) Um, also, I found a new cocktail that I really like, and I drank one almost every night. It was called a Mayan Monkey. The interweb and its googly powers failing me, I will be working on reconstructing the recipe this weekend.
More posts to come at some point, including video and pictures.
What to talk about? I did a lot of thinking while I was there. A lot of not-thinking too. It's interesting how the way a person acts is a function of who they are plus where they are... like laying a lumpy blanket over an irregular surface, some aspects of self can be amplified or almost cancelled out by the environment. For example, I don't often dance around bonfires at home, especially if not many others are dancing... but around people who are more than acquaintances but less than friends, after a week of relaxation, when we are encouraged to dance and I just bought a great dancing shirt, my resulting behaviors are different.
I need, need a CD of the surf now. A good one.
Anyway, I was good; I did a little technical reading and played with iMovie to keep my left brain alive, and of course did yoga for two hours every day. Also, I totally rediscovered my introvert side. I took videos of myself all alone, and walked along the tops of fences alone and discovered a tiny little hidden spring alone and generally had a marvellous time. Yes, I hung out with people too; I just rediscovered that when not feeling stressed and needy, I still find plenty to do and look at when people aren't around. I wonder if stress makes me need people more.
I read A Scattering of Cats, which basically documents a lot of cats dying. It also shows a girl growing from a child to a 50something adult without evidence of a shred of personal growth. I left it there.
I ate a lot of fantastic vegetarian food (and sometimes fish). They got something so right with the food there! I kept thinking very strongly, oh, THIS is how people are meant to eat! But I still can't put my finger on what "this" was. It wasn't just the vegetarianness of it. And they didn't get everything right (not everything was whole grain, and one or two things were awfully sugary). Still, there was something good happening, and if I don't figure it out, I'm going to have to go back next year to keep trying. ;) Um, also, I found a new cocktail that I really like, and I drank one almost every night. It was called a Mayan Monkey. The interweb and its googly powers failing me, I will be working on reconstructing the recipe this weekend.
More posts to come at some point, including video and pictures.
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 02:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 02:56 pm (UTC)I'm glad you enjoyed going by yourself. I absolutely loved travelling by myself too. It is so freeing and relaxing, assuming nothing bad happens that it'd be nice to have a buddy for.
That book sounds horrible!
no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 11:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-31 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 04:11 pm (UTC)