A perfect weekend

On Friday (public holiday) around midday my friend Durga Devi and I went up to Ananda Mahi, the healing space owned by her, her husband and two small children. She uses it as a place for spiritual workshops and retreats. We went up to clean in preparation for the Kundalini Yoga retreat the next day (Saturday). This retreat (which had about 21 people) was led by Hari Sant, through whom I first started learning Kundalini Yoga ten years ago.

 

When we arrived at Ananda Mahi, one of the first things I noticed was ... guess what. It had been raining and all the other water om the lower verandah had dried up, leaving this one wet heart-shaped spot.

After cleaning, came yoga, dinner, bathtime, then bedtime. Prior to going to sleep, we sat on the upper balcony, overlooking Maracas Bay with the huge round orange moon rising above it—and we chanted the mantra Humee Hum Brahm Hum (with me strumming guitar and Durga playing a drum). We got so caught up in chanting that ages passed, our voices growing louder and louder, penetrating the forest around us and most likely drifting down the mountain to the houses below. Increasingly, we began to sound drunk, especially when (for reasons I can't remember now) we stopped singing and began to laugh loudly, unable to stop, howling like wild nocturnal hyenas.

In the morning I woke at 3:30 as usual. Some time after, we went down to the lower balcony and began a yoga session—finishing up by chanting our new favourite, with guitar and drum: Humee Hum Brahm Hum until the sun rose.

The perfect way to start the day of what then turned out to be a lovely Kundalini Yoga retreat.

Sunrise over Maracas Bay: view from the lower verandah