Meet me at the Dancing Shiva

So this stop is going to seem a bit far off the track of what you might expect…

After the unreasonable amount of work we put into the yoga festival and the month preceding, Thea, Sat Siri, and I were surprised with a trip to Ananda the day after the festival ended. Apparently this place is like the only 6 star hotel in the world; I don’t know anything about that but it was amazing. We were treated like royalty even though we were only there for the day. Usually you cannot just visit without staying as a guest at the hotel but someone pulled some strings and got us each massages, lunch, and a tour of the grounds. We sort of showed up with bright eyes like the homeless kid on the street taken in for Christmas dinner out of the snow. It was gorgeous, quiet, and luxurious.

Having come from grabbing apple pie in a bag for breaky, hopping a cab, and showing up with a few names scratched on paper in case no one knew who we were, we were accommodating by the head of the spa and the new general manager within minutes of arrival. Now that’s pretty good service considering someone had called in a favor and we were not brining them any profit that day. Certainly not after our free for all lunch which included multiple fresh juices, teas, salads, entrees, and desserts because we had to try them all!

We would have gotten to the ladies room sooner if we had known it had a hot tub, cold tub, lounge chairs with mountain views and music, and the therapeutic food bath/reflexology walk thing-a-ma-bobber: The roof was painted really pretty too ☺

I was most excited after the lunch, lounging, massage, and tour to then be able to take home my flip flops. I know it’s funny but I was so ecstatic because my near and dear Chaco sandals disappeared and the cheapo replacements on the street gave me blisters before I got to my room! This happened last year with my nice Teva flip flops. Having to take your shoes off nearly everywhere is sort of a hazard which begs the question of why there are not more shoe swaps at the door than actually occur? Anyways, the only way to move on when you loose something as crucial as your single most important pair of footwear is to think of the kid that has shoes for life now. I sure hope those Chacos last forever for whoever has them now but I know they won’t last as long as that person’s karma

Finally, I will leave you with a few shots to goggle over.

This peacock just begged for the picture.

Out in front of the palace that is Ananda

Cascading water encases the stairs on our way out….

So Sat Siri has been helping out by teaching English and Kundalini yoga at this other orphanage up the river called Ramana’s (this is Ramana):

One day she was talking with Lalita, one of the fabulous chefs, and she mentioned going to church. CHURCH? We are in India, like the birthplace of Hinduism and Buddhism. We are in Rishikesh, like the holy city, the birthplace of yoga, the destination of pilgrims. We were not expecting a church anywhere nearby. Fortunately, this news came just in time to make Easter Sunday service.

We made our trek to Tapovan near Lakshman Jhula (bridge) which is up river from Swargashram near Ram Jhula where Parmarth is located.

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Here I am waiting for Lalita who took us to her church.

It was a lovely building, not the typical western church or hymns but we had the Eucharist and they had a baptism before the service AND I gave one of the readings! I think I was the best bet for delivering the English version of Romans Chapter 6 versus 1-14. There we a few other westerners and my reading was about the only part of the service we could understand save recognizing the rhythm of the Lord’s Prayer and recognizing the preparation for communion. Regardless of language barriers, sitting on the floor, no organ for music, it was a lovey service. Here you can get a look at the “vestry” and “alter.”

After church we had Easter lunch at Ramana’s delicious café were the food is grown, cooked, and served by her orphans. It’s the only place to get salad in town as it is all organic and safe – can’t beat this one stateside:

Being that I am in India and I am next to Ganga Ma , the divine mother, everyday…as I wrote so much last year, this place is where I feel my mother very strongly and have found much peace around her death. So it turned out that Easter was the day that I would remember her especially during a puja (special ritual) next to the Ganga. Last year I was joined by Jake and his mother to do the first puja for her and this year Sat Siri was with me. It is a beautiful ceremony which I cannot explain in detail but just know that it is a commemoration, a reminder, and of course a reconnection with the divine. So I put on a sari for the second time (first time was during the festival) and sat at sunset by the Ganga going through the puja as guided by the acharya (priest).

I’m sure if you are reading this you are curious what life at the ashram is like. To be brief, it is very simple. I have a simple room and simple bathroom.

I have simple duties: be happy and helpful. Well, there’s more to how I fulfill those two duties but that’s for another time. If I am hungry, there is a kitchen providing me 3 warm fresh meals a day and street vendors for in between.

The best part of the street vendors are that they include carts of fresh fruit including PAPAYA! I LOVE papaya. It is so cheap and abundant here so I could nearly eat one a day by myself if I want to, and I do want to.

I have had the distinct joy of having 2 roommates during this stay. They have been absolute joys to share my room with and have taught me so much. I could take away all the other wonderful reasons to be here and want to just to have gotten all the time I have spent with these two goddesses. My first roomie was Thea. She was literally sent by God to save me from the truckload of work I had for the yoga festival. She is as detailed oriented and committed as Alka and I are which made for a perfect addition to our team. We have an amazing amount of common experiences in life which immediately drew us to each other from the first moment that we both noticed the “other white girl at aarti that knew all the words.”

Sadly she left after the yoga festival to return to the UK but then Sat Siri moved in. I have already given a little background on her in other posts. Basically she is my guru of grace and other important life lessons. You would not believe that based on some of our late night conversations or the amount of Nutella she can eat in one sitting: she is my perfect match. Here she is seated on the porch of our honeymoon villa at the Ananda Spa in the Himalayas. We plan on splitting this villa on our honeymoons so that it is affordable; trust me, there was plenty of space and we could just split the pool time if need be.