A truly amazing birthday...

I must sound like a barfy little ray of sunshine...you must be wondering how it is possible that I be so utterly happy here so far from home and so out of my element.  Let's just say that burnout is not a myth. It was alive and well in me, and it took coming across the world to realize that life is more than work, and I was worthy of a wonderful life, it was here all the time, I just needed to realize it.  I was working towards happiness 'one day'..and not realizing that one day never comes.  It's all about balance. When I first came here I asked myself if I was meant to work in the emerg, and I'm finding my answer.  I'll keep you posted.

So today was the most wonderful day.  We got up and went to chanting this morning, and right when it ended, the girls planned it where they broke out into happy birthday, and I was so suprised!  It was a wonderful gift. They kept on coming...after philosophy class I was presented with a lit cake:

I just about cried. I couldnt beleive that people who have only known me for a month went out of their way to order me the cake and present me with the most awesome gifts and cards:

That little elephant is the hindu god Ganesh, which I'll use for my new 'Gratitude Rock", where I wake up every day and grab hold of it and remind myself that I'm grateful for so many things: it sounds lame but look at me so far, trust me it works....and those things in the lower right, they are fashion "bindi's", the dots you put on your head...they are meant to represent the third eye, or intuition, you know...

So, as I sit here and revel in my wonderful life and realize that I'm a little cooler than I let myself ever believe, I am thinking this self love stuff really works. That and even though my body hasn't massively changed, my perception of it sure has. Every morning I wake up and thank god for 4 hours of yoga the previous day and check out my arms: slow but sure the muscle is starting to become defined! woo hoo! Never mind that, 4 weeks toxin free has done wonders for my mind as well.

We watched a disturbing animal farming movie today.  You guys can laugh, but I think I may just give up farmed meat. Free range or nothing. I am even considering cutting it out where I can actually and learning how to cook vegetarian.  A really unbelievable statement, but not an unattainable dream.  You wouldnt believe how abusive the industry is to animals, and we eat the meat of stressed out, fearful animals...you are what you eat you know, and I truly believe the horrible energy and fearful hormones running through these poor animals comes through in our own bodies..it's just bad energy all around. The proof is in the pudding: I feel amazing and my profound sense of anxiety has vanished since stopping. Meat is banned here in Rishikesh.

So the guy who runs this operation is named Roshan. He is our yogi:

The guys in the group thought it would be awesome to show up in class yesterday with new haircuts:

He just about cried himself!

So, I am currently adding about a billion photos to facebook from the last few days of the ashram waterfall trip, and check out the village photos, they are like right out of national geographic if I do say so myself...I'm going to finish that and then crash..we had some major yoga today.

I present my class with Mara on March 16...I open the two hour class at 730am, with some warm ups and some cool warrior, sun salutation and inverted poses and Mara will come in for the kill: she is a yoga goddess, reminds me of Alicia...pics to come. 

Bye for now from the land of wonder and profound experiences.

xoxoxoxoxo