Miracle goop in all the glory (Yesterday's post)

Today was possibly the last class with Sharath until January (you don't really know what will happen from day to day though). All the students were told to go to the 5am class. I arrived at 10 till and there were plenty of spaces still. It is nice not having a feeling of panic when the alarm goes off in the morning. At the same time, that feeling of panic was getting me out the door, unlike now, when the combination of dreary weather and whatever have made me the queen of snooze.


I rolled to my side and grabbed the jar of Chyawanprash from the nightstand. Opening the top, I stuck my finger into the jar, wiping up some of the spicy brown goop. Everyone here has a jar of the stuff. I didn't see the need for it, but people here swear by it. (A friend once told me that they went to start their practice and were like "fuck! I forgot the Chyawanprash!" This same person also said they don't go to practice unless they take a shit first...) Everyone says it helps you breathe deeper and gives you a kick in your practice. I'm not one to jump on trends, so I didn't care about it. But then, I saw a mention about how it is good for asthma and thought, I'm going to try this, so I went to Nilgriris and bought it. And, you know, I really feel a difference.

Chyawanprash is brown with the consistency of jam, but thicker. It is kind of sweet, but infused with many different very strong spice flavors that can be a bit overwhelming. You have a spoonful every day and that's it. The jar says that it is packed with vitamin C and that it promotes over all well being, helps fight colds, helps you fly, see through people, that sort of thing.


But I've been trying a lot of new things lately.



If you can be bothered, there are lots of things you can do here in Mysore to fill your days. I was going to Jayashree, as you already know, for chanting. There is also a sanskrit and yoga sutra class held here at the Shala. You can take music lessons (you can tell when there is someone new because sometimes you'll hear that same beginner's scale by someone learning the flute with Ravi). You can take cooking classes. Anu holds them once in a while, as does Tina. Over at Rishi's and Shailah's they'll teach them if you book. You can take classical Indian dance called Odissi (pictured) or painting classes. You can work on your health and go to every different type of doctor you can find. (A friend just got back from the homeopathic doctor and had a full visit for 75 rupees.) You can work on your inner being with meditation classes at Kumar's. ( he does Osho meditations and transomatic therapy. more on that later).You can live at the salon and get something new everyday. You can get every type of massage or body work that you want. Or, you can take a course to learn how to perform traditional thai massage yourself. And this brings us to today, where I am a guinea pig for Enzo's traditional thai massage training.



A traditional thai massage is made up of a sequence of manipulations that are performed on the patient. In this training, they are slowly going through the sequence. Today, they had just finished the belly and were going to begin on the back, which was actually just what I needed with all the drama from yesterday. Enzo is really funny. He has a reputation for being an intense guy, but he just seemed really focused today. Anyway, he's working on my back and at a certain point says "look at this. She is so flexible. Its disgusting!" This type of massage is often described as yoga for lazy people. They don't really massage muscles like you would expect in a deep tissue massage (although your muscles will get attention), instead, they take you through different postures to help open your energy channels. (That's not the greatest explanation, I know, so do us all a favor and check the link above or go out and get one!) So, as he took me through back bends like you see above, I was of course, really open. I mean, I do this stuff every day!


I said they worked on an area that I really needed, and I got it. After Enzo demonstrated the sequence once, he went through it again so they could see if they missed anything. Then, two of the students also performed the sequence. Afterwards, I was in another place.


Somehow, Enzo got on the topic of how we store emotions in our bodies. (Coincidence?) He was saying how we all go through things at one point or other that we don't fully deal with and so we put it in a drawer somewhere inside ourselves. Sometimes we open the drawer later on, sometimes not. Sometimes, body work brings it out. He told us how he had a couple of violent reactions from people he was performing massages on from the release of a stored memory or emotion that was too intense for them to deal with.


Later today, Rachel went to a transomatic therapy session with Kumar. When I fist got to India, I remember hearing about people going to these and having crazy psychedelic experiences. Basically, Kumar puts you into a trance-like state and you go on a journey together exploring what the source is for a pain you have in your body or another issue you've got going on. Always the skeptic, I was unconvinced by the whole thing. Then again, you'll never see me at a therapist either. However, being as Rachel is doing some serious research into this sort of thing, she had to go. She told me that she was also skeptical, but that her first session was pretty incredible. And tonight, she had a session that she wasn't supposed to speak after.