Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9Part 10 Birthday Intermission Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20Intermission No. 2 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29 Part 30 Intermission No. 3 Part 31 Part 32 Part 33 Part 34 Part 35 Part 36 Part 37 Part 38 Part 39 Part 40 Intermission No. 4 Part 41 Part 42 Part 43 Part 44 Part 45 Part 46 Part 47 Part 48 Part 49 Part 50 Intermission No. 4 Part 51 Part 52 Part 53 Part 54 Part 55 Part 56 Part 57 Part 58 Part 59 Part 60 Intermission No. 5 Part 61 Part 62 Part 63 Part 64 Part 65 Part 66
They took Quinn to the barren, flat, dusty plot prepared for the Yoga Retreat Center. On this land used to be a luscious, mature mango grove.
The owners/developers were seeking Quinn's advice on the layout and infrastructure for the development. They also asked what would be the best use of the remains of the uprooted mango trees that were bulldozed off the land
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Quinn told them the best use of the trees would have been to still be planted in the ground gifting an abundance of mangoes! Duh!! That apparently was not even a consideration!
Of course they could have planned their development around all of those beautiful trees and had an exquisite center that produced some of its own food, but they were obviously in commercial development mode, not in conscious sustainable creation mode.
Palm trees to be planted on the clear cut acreage for the yoga center.
These ladies water these thousands of little trees by hand with hand carried water that is hand pumped each day~ALL of this is done to grow these little plants to one day plant in this 10 acre field which has been clear cut to develop.
We were also invited to the Puja, a ceremony celebrating the ground breaking, blessing of the land and prosperity for the Yoga Retreat Center.
All water for dishes cooking and drinking for the Puja event was also hand pumped and carried in 1/4 mile by these women.
Ingredients just waiting to go into a Indian feast.
Indian version of ice cream is frozen cool whip basically, One of the only cold things we had.
Even ice doesn't really exist, nor refrigerators, and especially not freezers.
One of many ceremonial aspects of Puja--drawing a sacred geometry grid in powder.
Leaves covered in various rice and other food combinations for ceremonial purpose~
Many many offerings are made in such ceremonies.
Every time this woman walked by me and my camera she would pause, walk a little slower, grin at me and walk off. She would then come back and repeat it again some time later. I could tell she was so wanting for me to take her picture. It was if I had honored her in the taking.
A common ceremony in India for events of importance such as business deals or marriage.
The men who do this are called Brahmans. They study for 12 years to be certified.
After the Yoga Retreat Puja Ceremony. That's where the cups and the plates all go. That's where they go all in India. I didn't see trash cans in any public places, and apparently they didn't need them!!
We were grateful to be a part of this private, sacred ceremony. We gained a lot of insight into the Indian culture and got to know the people a little better. Their culture is very different than U.S. culture. Seeing their process of creation gave rise to many more opportunities to see my reflection in this experience of newness.
Being that there was so much happening on the outside, I was grateful for the distraction. I did choose to consider my overall experience to apply to my own personal internal process.
I metaphorically paralleled the developers uprooting of the well established, thriving, fruit giving natural state of the land to what I could be doing to our relationship. I was already tearing out facets of our love root by root, and on that trajectory I could have ignorantly ignored all the juicy abundance we already had thriving in our relationship to replace it with my ideas of impending nothingness, instead of integrating the best of what we already had with the newness that was coming.
Their tedious planting and tending to a new forest of trees was myself planting new seeds and having to give constant, focused, dedicated attention to the possibility of new life, to replace the death of my ideas of our relationship taken down to the dusty bottom.
I saw their celebration as a ceremony of my own. Chopping wood and hauling water -- “Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.” — Zen Kōan
I felt all the small details it took to arrange and carry out the Puja was like bringing my own ingredients from all of my experiences in life to find reason to celebrate and help me progress through these shifts from old to new.
The trash they threw to the ground showed me how haphazard I could be with what was leftover after this facet of our relationship ended. If I wanted to transcend the difficulties for a truly sustainable relationship, I would need to become less scattered, more conscious, more intentional, and more responsible with my own thoughts and overall existence.
I knew there was balance to be had, but my pain showed up every time I wanted to touch Quinn, which kept me off kilter. I also knew there was something extremely deep that was brewing that I would eventually have to face. Gratefully Quinn had not abandoned me and was just as willing as ever to help save me from self destruction.
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