Food!

Yes indeed!  The Cleanse is done and I feel great!  There were moments I'll admit that I was wondering "What the ---- am I doing to myself??!"  Now that we are slowly being put back on food, it was totally worth it.  We had our last enema this morning (thank God & Great Spirit!).  Right now I am saying I never want to do that again...but I probably will once I forget the whole experience. 

After the enema we were given papaya to eat (great for your digestion) and coconut water to drink.  We actually were allowed to have coconut water - locally called "pipa" - anytime during the cleanse.  And it was so unbelievably wonderful tasting.  I had forgotten what it tastes like fresh from the nut.  Yum yum.  Our lunch & dinner consisted of vegetable soup plus steamed carrots, some green vegetable with no flavour, and sourkraut.  The saurkraut was soooo good.  I need to have Mom train me on how to make it.  Sourkraut is the original probiotic superfood.

The Dining Room

 

Tomorrow after breakfast is beach day.  DW will be joining us for that as well.  Once we return from the beach, there will be lunch and then another DW lecture.  It is amazing for the price I paid for a 10-day retreat just how much DW-time we are getting - 6 to 8 hrs a day.  I am so grateful the Universe arranged for me to find this amazing adventure.

I haven't written anything yet on his actual lectures because I have pages & pages & pages of notes.  I'm going to need some time to decompress once the Cleanse is officially over on Tuesday.  I'll still have 4 more days after that to reflect on everything I learned, and perhaps share it with you if you are interested.

Anger

Did you know that the liver is where you hold all your anger??

I had NO IDEA I had soooo much anger in me.  :)   It was released today back to the Universe in the form of gall stones.   Amazing.

Liver Cleanse tonight

Just to break up the monotony of the colon cleanse, we are doing a liver cleanse tonight.  :)  What this means is at 6 & 8 PM tonight and 6 & 8 AM tomorrow morning, I "get to" drink a glass of water with Epsom Salts in it.  I just had my first glass and it is seriously gross tasting!  At 10 PM tonight, I "get to" drink a concoction consisting of grapefruit juice, lemon juice & olive oil.  Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, I should be releasing a multitudinous number of gall stones!  The people who are staying in the casita's are being told that perhaps they should sleep at Tara Gardens Yoga Studio so they can be close to a bathroom.  That should be interesting considering there are likely 20 people and 2 bathrooms! I am soooo happy I have my own cottage.

Our Schedule Tues - Fri

This really is feeling like TT all over again.  ha ha.  And speaking of Teacher Training, David Wolfe's assistant is Daniella who has JUST graduated from this last Fall '12 class.  She graduated and then jumped on a plane for PachaMama.  How cool is that?  She was so happy to know there is another Bikram teacher there.  She is feeling a little of the outside-the-bubble phenomena right now.  Just an fyi, DW (and Daniella) are doing the Cleanse as well.

The Clinic

 

So...here's our schedule until Friday:
~  5:30  Get up!  Dry loffah your body from toes to jaw.  Jump in a cool shower after.
~  6:15  Be at the 'clinic' for a Noni shot.  For those of you who haven't heard of Noni (I hadn't until now), it is a wonder-super-food fruit.  It tastes awful but it works!  Some people don't mind the taste, but not me.  Ick.
~  6:30  Yoga led by DW.
~  8:30  The C-Factor juice:  lemon, orange, golden berries (yes, S.R.!), red hibiscus & fresh aloe vera.
~  8:45  Colonics/Enemas (need I say more?).  (first group)
~10:00  Fibre drink:  juice with psyllium in it followed by water with apple-cider vinegar in it.
~10:30  Orange Shot:  noni powder, orange & tumeric.
~11:30  Veggie-Greens-Juice:  carrot, radish, beet, celery, parsley, spinach, coriander, garlic, pachamama greens, coconut water, chlorella & spirulina.
~Noon  Lecture with DW.
~  2:45  Spicy Tea:  lemon, ginger, tumeric, cayenne juice in a base of stevia tea.
~  3-5    Private body works sessions.
~  4:00   Green Shot:  lemon & moringa. I had to Wikipedia moringa. Another new one for me.
~  4:15   Colonics/Enemas. (second group)
~  5:30   Fibre drink again.
Take-away "food" for our room: Chamomile/mushroom tea plus a pro-biotics drink.
~  7-8  Silent Sitting.  I haven't gone now since Monday as I don't feel like hanging out down the hill at the 'clinic' waiting for 7 pm.  I'd rather treck back up the hill, get in my jammies, and blog.  :)  Much more meditative!

As for how I'm doing?  Tuesday, I felt very sleepy and kinda spacy feeling.  Today, Wednesday, I feel actually pretty good.  Spacy feeling is gone, no headaches, just an empty stomach gurgling!  I'm not sleeping that good, which for me means waking up 3-4 times in the night.  I usually sleep like the dead.

Let the Cleanse Begin!

Monday, after our last meal, was jam-packed keeping us busy so we didn't go down to the Wild Treat Cacao Bar for a shot of chocolate.  We congregated back at the Tara Garden Yoga room at 4 PM.  David Wolfe talked until 6:30.  Every evening from 7 - 8 there is what they call Silent Hour where everyone gathers to meditate in the Osho Hall, shown below.

 

 

After Silent Hour, we were back at Tara Gardens with an introduction to the Cleanse with Amari, the PachaMama partner with David Wolfe (whom I will just use the initials DW from now on).  We got an evening tea and a shot of cacao before we were let out.  It kinda had the feel of Teacher Training with every moment scheduled in. 

 

Feeling a little hungry, but not bad...

Sweat Lodge

Well, it has started...finally!  I was getting a little bored.

The day started with the usual 8 AM breakfast - pinapple, papaya, bananas, granola, nut-milk.  It could have started with 6:15 AM yoga, but my body said no.  lol

 

After breakfast, we met in the yoga studio with David Wolfe giving us a little chat before we headed down to the river and the Sweat Lodge.

Before the cleanse can begin, we must get in touch with Mother Earth again.  We need to cleanse ourselves mentally and emotionally, as well as work up a good sweat and remove some physical toxins.  That is the purpose of doing the Sweat Lodge first.  It was an amazing ceremony with aboriginals there conducting some of the spiritual blessings. 

For those of you unfamiliar with a Sweat Lodge, the tent is approx. 12 feet around and 3 feet high.  We packed 36 people in there 3 circles deep on the dirt floor around a pit, everyone sitting very up-close and personal, the men on one side and the women on the other.  There is a ceremony to fill the pit with hot stones (Grandmother & Grandfather Earth), the tent is closed, and water is poured on the stones creating a sauna effect.  There was rattles and drums and singing.  You set an intention before you go in, and focus on that intention during the sweat.  We did 4 sweats honouring each of the 4 directions of the earth. 

It was freaking awesome!!  When we came out, we were covered from toes to the nose with mud from the steam and sweat in the tent.  When I was in the sweat, I used the mud on my legs and arms and face.  Women pay a fortune to have that done at a spa!  I'm sure I looked like a real Indian Warrior Princess when I crawled out of the tent.  Sorry, no pictures!  Sacred ceremony.

And the best part of all was getting to jump into the river after it was done.  Fantastic.

The staff had juice and watermelon for us, as well as transportation back up to the top.  It's not so bad going down, but getting back up after an hour in the Sweat Lodge can be challenging. 

From there we went to lunch (our last meal for the next five days!) consisting of raw soup, veggie wraps, salad, hummus w. dehydrated crackers.  It was delicious!

Sunday at the beach

Although the retreat started Sunday, it didn't really start Sunday.  It was mostly new people arriving and signing in.  The rest of us who were already here had a beach day.  Below is a couple of pictures of the beach at Puerto San Juanillo, a 10 minute drive from PachaMama.

 

The Road Less Travelled

How to get to my cottage in these simple easy steps:

Step # 1...

Okay, let's keep going...

I'm starting to sweat now...

Nearly at the top...

I'm never gonna make it...

And now, it's all downhill from here...

Yay, there it is!  I can make it...

I did it - Thank Goddess!  And that was coming back from breakfast.  I think I'll nap now before I go back down for lunch in a few hours...then back up, then down for dinner & meditation...then back up...phew.

 

My calves have been screaming at me for the past 3 days.  I can't imagine how they'd be feeling if I didn't do Bikram yoga.  I'd likely be needing to borrow my brother's wheelchair! Ha!





My Kingdom for a Coffee!!

Holy Caffeine-withdrawal, Batman!!  Oy vey. 

No coffee since Wednesday morning.  I have had a headache for the past 2 days and all I've wanted to do is sleep.  It's Friday afternoon now, and I am just starting to feel human again. I'm so glad I arrived here early to acclimatize myself and get that coffee-thing out of my system first.  This really helps...

 

These delicacies are all made with cacao (pronounced ka-cow) with other superfoods incorporated into them.  It is certainly helping with my coffee addiction.  Perhaps a new addiction?  :)

First Impressions

I like this place!  It reminds me so much of Dominica, a country in which I lived for almost 4 years.  It is lush, humid, and soooo peaceful.

The people here are passionate about their little PachaMama community.  A lot of the residents came here on a Work Exchange Program and stayed.  It has been open for over 12 years now and has grown to a community of 80 residents and 20+ children and they are now building homes here. 

I feel a little under-named right now. :)  The people here have names like Adya and Raaji and Anamika and Anoosh and Rakoosh which I immediately forget!  These are (probably Sanskrit) names they've acquired with their new spiritual path.

There is a lot of excitement here right now as they are practising songs, and gearing up for the big White Light ceremony that starts Friday evening and goes continuously until early Saturday morning.  You must wear white (for your non-ego self) and yes, you can drink the "tea" to assist you with whatever vision you want to achieve.

Ah no...I won't be attending. 

A couple of pictures below, taken of my room.  Very simple accommodations.

 

 

What a pretty way to start my day...

This is the view looking out from the Liberia Airport Hilton this Wednesday morning.  Since I arrived at 9 PM last night, I had no idea what it looked like outside.  Three hours later...this is the view from my balcony at PachaMama...

 

Can you believe?!  I feel such gratitude!

Until tomorrow...good night.  xoxo

Nearly 3 years later...

Nearly 3 years ago I received my Bikram Yoga teaching certification. On Saturday, November 10, 2012, I received my re-certification in Los Angeles so I'm good to go for another 3 years.

There is probably lots I could share about my teaching journey in the past 3 years, but I'll save that for another time.

For now, I am just reviving my blog to write about my next adventure...my cleansing retreat at PachaMama, Costa Rica. You can preview the retreat at www.pachamama.com.

Stay tuned...