Oh hey, what’s up?
Let me first start off by introducing myself… Hi, I’m Gordon.
Alright cool.
Where did the past three months go? It feels like no matter how full our days are the weeks keep getting shorter and shorter. This last week was spent at the Satyananda Mangrove Retreat Center, a few kilometres outside of Gosford. Before I say anything, let me just say this, it rained everyday. They swore it never rained there, so I guess we were just lucky! Arriving on Sunday around 5pm we got situated in our rooms then met up at 6pm for dinner. Interesting… Vegetarian. I failed to realize there wouldn’t be meat on the menu for the next few days until it was already too late. Mom, this was easily the hardest week to survive without your cooking. After dinner we had a quick introduction, family meeting, and then it was off to bed. Between 8:15pm-7:30am each night the community practices Mouna. Basically, a time for self reflection. No talking. Personally, I didn’t enjoy it, but it got easier through out the week. One thing that made this possible was the Sunrise Yoga classes at 5:30am every morning. It quickly turned 8:30 into bedtime. The day would start with some light stretching, meditation, breathing techniques, with an unlimited source of blankets and pillows. Breakfast was served at 7am, followed by Karma Yoga at 8am. Now don’t be fooled, I may have said Karma Yoga, but what I meant to say was chores. Cleaning bathrooms, working in the kitchen, cleaning up the dorms, washing cars, folding blankets, etc. Yoga lectures daily around 9am, morning tea at 10:30am, followed by something random around 11am until 12:00. Now, if you haven’t heard of Yoga Nidra, I suggest you get you some. By far my favourite form of yoga from the week. Imagine a dream like state/meditation/fall asleep if you want/natural mind trip for a half an hour that feels like 10 minutes, but is the equivalent of 4 hours of sleep. Parents, don’t worry, we all got gift bags the day we left with a yoga nidra recording. You’re in for a treat. Each day we had lunch at 12:30pm, clean up until 1pm, and then the rest of the day had some form of meditation, afternoon tea, and maybe some free time until dinner at 6pm. Monday was spent in the Library, Tuesday we made yoga journals, Wednesday we got tricked into working on a farm… But, after lunch on the farm we tricked them into giving us all a yoga nidra session before they could put us back to work! I know Emily and Christine will throw a fit if I don’t mention their amazing shit spreading skills, so… Umm, Emily and Christine are really really good at spreading shit. Just one of the many jobs to be done on the farm before we headed back to the Ashram for the Havan (fire ceremony). Keep in mind yoga is a science, not a religion… Thursday was a day of silence so there isn’t much that needs to be said. Friday was a half day. Like usual, wake up at 5am, sunrise yoga at 5:30, breakfast at 7am, a hike up to the caves at 9:15am (really nice view from the top), one last yoga nidra session at 12pm, lunch at 12:30pm, a team meeting until 2pm and then we made our exit at 2:30pm back to the Gosford train station. One last night was spent in Sydney, then an early morning departure to the airport headed to Cairns. Today we had our first official scuba lesson. Here’s one thing they forgot to mention, we have homework. What? What is homework? I thought this was a trip to get out of the classroom??? Oh well, I suppose it’s not the worst thing in the world. I mean, we have gotten almost 3 months off. Plus, the homework we have could probably be done by a 10 year old. Overall, it’s worth it. With less than a week left in the trip we are trying to en
joy all the time we have left together, our little travelling family. We have come so far over the past 3 months, and I am so proud of everyone. I’m blessed to have been a part of it.
That is all for now!
Dr Goon
