A Long Wait: Taking Time to Integrate

The lessons of Indian trains and a new yoga series to book

Two weeks ago my train into Chiplun had arrived 14 minutes early which was, I had been reliably told, as likely as a lottery win. The Indian train system is a feat of both engineering and logistics but is also notoriously late. The speed of the trains puts our UK equivalents to shame, but it is all the gentle loitering at stations that adds the hours; time for people to leave and join in the usual way, but also to buy masala chai from the chai wallahs at each stop, or freshly made pakoras wrapped in old Hindi newspapers, with all of its beautiful script.

Time too to just watch the comings and goings of a station, for other trains to roll past, with heads lolling from windows, children with arms outstretched or waving, the sun angling pink on the always pink landscape. Or time to attempt, in my case, to decipher which station we had made it to on what was to be a 581 kilometre journey from Madgoan to Mumbai. The schedule said it was to take a little under nine hours but in fact it was closer to eleven. Maybe even twelve. And none of it felt like a waiting. of all forms of transport, train travel is the most porous. And a train carriage in India is its own world. And what a luxury, to take our time.

The inevitable delays meant we were deposited into Dadar station in the dead of the night, which is the wrong expression for Mumbai because it’s nights have no deadening. In essence Mumbai is too vital to sleep. 2am was populated. The train platform was a throng of arrivals but plenty of others too; taxi drivers looking for rides, porters for bags, food sellers for hungry mouths. The only concession to our timing was the sheer number of people sleeping, everywhere and in various versions of asplay. Conspicuous as we were amidst a sea of shining dark hair, we were quickly approached by a taxi driver dressed in well pressed white. He asked us where we were headed and simultaneously assured the elderly couple who had become our surrogate guardians for the trip, checking on us at various stages for no reason beyond simple goodness, that he would not ‘fleece us’. Which of course he then did by adding to the final price in easy increments on our arrival. An unexplained 300 rupees extra to start, more again for being the middle of the night. We didn’t especially argue. It felt wholly miserly once we had done the conversion with the requisite removal of two zeros. And anyway we were tired by then.

We found ourselves -by sheer accident of some previous google searching - in a Portuguese guest house that lies deep in the old quarter of Mumbai, the very little that is left of it. Not being a hotel in any real sense of the word beyond having people pay to stay, our untimely arrival required waking up both the house help and the owner, both in various stages of sleep that they wore on their faces whilst they greeted us somehow still warmly. For a while they were able to hide the fact that despite having booked, our arrival was completely unexpected. Which explained the long wait in the front room- time for us to take in the crowd of curiosities in a museum worthy collection- whilst beds were hastily made. Had someone also been ushered out the back door whilst we sat at the front we might not have been surprised. We politely refused offers of mid-night coffees and teas. It had been 15 hours since we’d said our goodbyes to the group amongst the coconut palms of that Goan beach, and all I wanted now, with a creeping desperation, was a pillow. But I was also grateful for how long it had all taken, for the stretch of it all. For all of the waiting.

It is not easy to leave a retreat behind and being deposited too quickly back into my own life can feel something of a hard landing. A longer form retreat is enough time to have become wholly wedded to the ritual of each day, for it to take up residence as a more-ish pattern within the body and mind. Waking to the same light each morning and the quiet of enforced silence. Lighting incense - itself a calming. Then pausing in places to watch the fisherman in the bay. Dropping into my own practice before teaching everyone theirs. A move from mats to food. To meals that we had the luxury of having no hand in making. Then a midday of beach and silken swimming. Of days that lulled as they hit the quiet of mid afternoon. Before all too soon but also just when you need it, the bell for tea and time- for me first and the yoginis later- to prepare for evening yoga. Days whose repeat comes in merging rounds, that become increasingly soothing in the way that predictability is. Over the course of the week the body will necessarily gets stronger by degrees, but the real luxury, I think, is the space the mind is afforded when choice is taken away. It makes you realise quite how much bandwidth is taken up, and daily, by the sheer quantity of decisions we have to make.

But ultimately it is the company that is the hardest to leave behind. There is something extraordinary about taking up residence in a community of women for week and in the kindness of a collective. In the mats rolled out for each other, the teas and waters offered, in all of the lingering after yoga to share wisdoms. Kindness too in the arms thrown liberally around people who were only days before strangers, as stories start to unfurl from the cracks left by practice. Kindness too in the quiet energy that everyone is passing everyone else, without even realising they are doing it. So that people feel held in a way that is all too rare in our ordinary, more nuclear lives. And in a way that we can miss - unsuspectingly- when we return to them.

So that night as I fell into much needed sleep, I felt grateful for the slow pulling away. For the stealing of a best friend with me. For the easing back first into the wider Indian landscape. And for the fact that I would spend a little time each morning as I woke to the insistent and enveloping heat of Mumbai, and before we went and explored its kaleidoscopic streets, to lay down memories and ideas - letting them take up quite deliberate residence in my bones- so that I might be more able to take it all back with me. And to weave it into my altogether different life.

We are programmed - in a way that is protective rather than deliberate- towards negativity. Which means struggle sticks whereas the beauties often wash more easily away, unless we deliberately soak ourselves in them. Unless we take time to ponder and remember and record. But also to decide on ways- with small practices or bigger determinations - that we can take the experience of something which is all encompassing and weave it into life when it feels more ordinary.

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Tuesday Zoom Classes Resume Again This Week

‘ Spring Via the Senses’ : A Yoga Series

Book here

Here in the Northern hemipshere we are on the cusp of the Spring Equinox and so about to be launched into proper Spring. Whilst it can feel as though we have waited a long time for it, it can also be fleeting when it finally arrives. This series of classes explores the senses - one each week- as a way to fully awaken to and embrace the Spring as it happens.

Each class works perfectly as a standalone session, and will include asana, breathwork, mudras and poetry. But you can also choose to buy and join or receive the whole series ( at a discount). Just a reminder that if you buy the series pass, you need to then use it to book onto the individual sessions. All sessions will be available to join live or sent as a recording (or both). The recordings all last a full week and can be repeated as many times as you would like.

So looking forward to see you all over the coming weeks as the Spring unfurls.

Classes

Tuesday March 18th 9-10am SIGHT Zoom Session and/or Recording - Book Here

Tuesday March 25th 9-10am SOUND Zoom Session and/or Recording - Book Here

Tuesday April 1st 9-10am SMELL Zoom Session and/or Recording - Book Here

Tuesday April 8th 9-10am TOUCH Zoom Session and/or Recording - Book Here

Tuesday April 15th 9-10am TASTE Zoom Session And/or Recording - Book Here