Tales from the Ashram

I think I could possibly be in my own personal hell. And it is the personal hell in which I chose to place myself for Christmas, so it’s all completely my fault. I’d like to blame someone else but I actually can’t and anyway I think that is against the rules here, the blaming bit. As indeed is everything else which does not involve beating the soles of your feet with hot things that hurt you at 5.30 in the morning.

It’s 7.15pm on Christmas Eve and since 3.30pm I’ve been at a “Yoga Farm” in Grass Valley. This particular yoga farm is one of eight which was founded by Swami Vishnu-Devanada for the practice of Yoga and Vedana, which means yoga philosophy or positive thinking. And then there is me, the ultimate tool. For some reason I decided to have a different Christmas this year. No trips home or staying with friends. A retreat was required. Somewhere to clear my head and to try something on my own that was a bit different. I show up on Christmas Eve, just too late to take part in selfless service but I am rushed into the second of the day’s yoga classes.

The day is carefully scheduled on the ashram. Scheduled with the same thing every day. And with a military precision previously known only to Swiss railway workers. Wake up call is 5.30am for a 6.00am compulsory Satsang class, being 30 minutes of meditation, chanting and a talk or reading. There are also 2 compulsory yoga classes a day, known as Asanas and Pranayama, meaning posture and breathing respectively. The other compulsory session is called Karma Yoga or selfless service. This is performed from 11am to 12pm and as yet I have no idea what this will entail for me. I’m just praying to god I don’t have to clean toilets or rake leaves. My 2 least favorite things to do. Vacuuming or a nice bit of light dusting would work well for me I decide. Or just being a happy smiley person and doing fuck all, which is what I work best at.

No meat, fish, fowl, eggs, garlic, onions, narcotics, alcohol or smoking are allowed on the ashram. Because they are EVIL. I immediately start to panic as the trunk of my hire car contains six bottles of wine I picked up in Napa prior to this retreat. I decide to keep quiet about these. I need to keep them after all. They are the only things in my life that I currently give a shit about, since my Blahniks seem so far away from Grass Valley at this precise moment I can hardly believe I even own some.

On arrival, I am asked to complete registration documentation. First, last and spiritual name. Spiritual name? What the fuck does that mean? I must also check off a list of interests, over which I had initially I had drawn a blank since I am not normally so keen on astrology, fasting or children’s activities. Then before I can change my mind about the tool shed I am staying in, I am ushered into the two hour yoga class which had just begun.

The quality of instruction on the ashram is excellent. Emphasis is placed on relaxation and breathing and there is no pressure or inter-class competition that I have found in yoga classes in New York. Throughout the 2 hour class we repeatedly come back to the “dead man” pose, lying on your back, legs apart and palms facing upwards. I knew there was a reason that I was attracted to yoga. How can you not appreciate a practice that requires this constant reclining? Still, the classes at the ashram are intensive and in just two sessions I have noticed a dramatic improvement in my concentration and flexibility.

Since the ashram is not full over the Christmas period I have a 2 person cabin to myself, for tonight anyway. Christmas Eve and it’s fucking freezing. The temperature will go below freezing tonight and the electric heater that I have in the cabin doesn’t seem to be taking the edge off the chill. There are three electric bars which are trying to fight the icy winds coming through the two inch gaps under the door and around the windows. Two other things which have been filling me with a sense of foreboding are the large baskets filled with tambourines (tambourines!) I spied in the meditation hall and the hand holding Hare Krishna chanting we have to do before dinner. All of us in the kitchen. Singing over the vegetable curry. If I have to do that again, I very well might be fasting during my entire stay.

It’s now 12.30am and I am running silent-screaming across the frosted lawn towards my tool shed, appropriate really, and away from the people dressed in orange. The screaming is silent because my voice box is frozen and because I am terrified of appearing anything other than happy clappy. Four hours of sitting on the floor chanting and then singing Christmas carols with the harmonium, tambourines and enforced frivolity have left me at the edge of desperation. And then pushed over it with a great big footprint on my arse. The fact that right now I could be tucked up in Frette sheets at Gaige House in Napa is doing nothing to ease my madness. One of the yoga instructors had dressed up as Santa Claus and handed out presents to the ashram – I got a tongue scraper and a copy of the Bhagavad Gita. I leave on my clothes and get in to bed. I sleep despite the cold and the plastic undersheet. But I can’t shake the doom I feel for tomorrow. Thank god the Apple Mac G-5 Powerbook gets really hot or I think I would have probably perished in my socks. I wonder whether my family would have even been informed…….

More to come....like Christmas Day...whenever I can be arsed.....