Day Off (Thank Goodness!)

Today we had the day off. That meant that we still woke up at 5.30am for meditation and satsang. Swami Mahadevanand (I believe he is French Canadian, with a big belly and very very boring) made his half hour talk into an hour, meaning he was eating into our time off. He realized how over time he had gone and said, "How many of you are thinking I wish this stupid Swami would shut up so I can go outside and enjoy this beautiful day?" Bert, a classmate of mine and true character (imagine drama kid from high school, who is Canadian and plays the sitar and sings Persian songs) raised his hand. Mary Kay, one of my closest friends here (more on her later), blurted out "hell yeah." These reactions should give you a sense for how desperate we were to be let loose for a day.

Me and nine others drove to Mount Tramblanc national park. It's one of the most famous ski resorts in Canada (after Whistler). It was the most beautiful days! We all rented canoes, kayaks or pedal boats and just took off. Four of us ended up sticking together. We didn't quite figure out the steering and zig zagged our way to the nearest beach where we set up camp. I started reading a bit and listened to non-sattvic music for the first time in a week refreshed my hears. Then I put my book down and just relaxed my brain. It had been a tough week – the food and sleep I was deprived of was a tough transition, but giving up mind space was the toughest.

Though we are all going through this amazing experience together, our days are so hectic, we hardly have any time to really get to know each other. Everyone here has such an amazing story. Abel is from Spain – he's father was given a book by his boss on yoga that he found fascinating and then took the opportunity to learn yoga from Swami Vishnudevananda himself in Val Mornin some 30 years ago. After that, his father not only took up teaching yoga as his profession, but also started the first Sivananda Center in Spain. He grew up vegetarian, meaning he doesn't eat most of his own ethnic food. Yohan is from the Philippines and wants to teach yoga and surfing in his home country. He was reading the Power of Now and we all got into a philosophical discussion. It was so cool that four very different people who hardly knew each other could sit on the banks of a random lake in Canada and have such amazing conversations and connections.

There was no way we were going to leave the park without indulging in some junk food – we ALL bought ice cream! It was blissful to enjoy it while basking in the sun on our day off ;*)

Almost as soon as the eight of us loaded into the Sivananda minivan and took off, Bert (sitar boy) suggested that we practice reciting the sanskrit mantras we are required to learn. So there it started 45 minutes of Gajananam Bhutaganadi Sevitam….Three minutes into the chanting the group realized that I could pronounce the Sanskrit fairly accurately and so for 42 minutes, I lead the minivan in sanskrit chanting, and taught them a total of one mantra. It was tedious and I practically lost my voice, but it was really touching to teach a bunch of somewhat random people who sincerely wanted to learn part of my heritage.