Sunday, September 21, 2008

Here's a Dream




Hello all.
I really should not talk about this dream (but there may be no should and shouldn't in my existence these days) but I am practically bursting at the seams with excitement about the prospect of having a humble yoga studio in Squamish. This has been going on since I came back from the Vipassana... Sonnie had seen this space in a beautiful building on 2nd street, downtown. The landlord was someone he had rented from before and the space had been spotted a couple of years ago. He just knew that I would get the same feeling from it, and I did. It is the special space. I am trying not to get too attached to it already. The picture of the majestic Chief is from one of the windows and behind it is a small blue balcony. It is currently being used as office space and won't be ready till around Christmas. Perfect.
Another reason I am so excited is that I really miss teaching. Not even teaching, but interacting about yoga. Being with yoga. With others.
Teaching has been as much a practice, and a deepening of the practice, than the discipline itself. I have spent hours on my mat lately but it doesn't substitute for the service and the giving. I have set up some workshops for October and it looks like classes are starting to open up and I may have around 4 a week for the fall. Yay!
To pass the time and pay the rent I have been landscaping recently. A good friend and fellow yoga instructor here named Kim Beck passed on the job to me. (She just recently had a BEAUTIFUL and perfect baby boy named Jackson). The first three days on the job I was thinking "Why on earth would anyone ever want to do this??" I came home with my ears ringing from the power tools, no juice to practice my postures, no energy for making dinner and even a little bit of angst.
I decided to give it another week because Kim had done the job to 7 months pregnant so I sucked up my winging and whining and showed up with my gloves on. I recorded Richard Freeman's Matrix philosophy talks onto my ipod, meditated for an hour before work and patiently made it through the days. Of course it got easier and I came home less tired, stronger, and more at ease. The people are wonderful and gardening is an engaging and satisfying job. I just have to laugh at myself at how I reacted to the labour of the first few days... it just goes to show how everything changes and your perception can too!
However, most of my volition is mentally and physically going to go towards building the space for a studio. Sonnie is more than supportive and so is everyone in this community.
The rain has started to fall but it has washed over me a sense of peace and contentment. My home smells like the apple crumble I just baked and my yoga matt and books are warmly welcoming me. Sonnie and I hiked up the Chief in the rain yesterday and it was even more beautiful than in the glaring light of the day. The mist and the sense of quiet enveloped us until we just had to stop for 10 minutes and just listen and observe the magic of the coastal forest.
I already feel like I am home.
In the "incomprehensible, luminous, vibrant, silent, vast emptiness in my heart."

6 comments:

Unknown said...

hang in there...you will have your studio before u know it.

let me know if u need any help, i will be in whistler next week.

i am leaving canmore today and am sad and excited at the same time.

Cheers - to new beginnings

Erin said...

I am so psyched for you! Can't to come and visit the new studio...
We miss you here!!!

You look so cute with those juicy tomatos!

much love,
erin

Anonymous said...

hi lydia,

my name is jori and i am a friend of sarah's. i knew this blog was here but in there frantic pace of life, hadn't yet stumbled across it. until today...
it is wonderful. so great to hear about the two of you.
your studio space sounds amazing and your words are so descriptive, even I am excited.

isabelle said...

Lydia!
it is very exciting to hear from you and your dream! although we miss you so much in Canmore, you seem happy in Squamish and i know your dream is almost reality. it has to be, you want it so much and it has always seemed to me that you have an urge to teach and share everything you know and feel about yoga. follow your path.
for some reason, i have been feeling obsessed with yoga lately. Practicing, reading, listening, breathing, meditating, feeling yoga..i realized that i want to live yoga, and share it with as many people as i can. i am considering more and more about taking a teacher training course..probably in Thailand, where Julie and Laurisa did theirs. Anyways, Jeff and Harmony are running a Mysore workshop this week and they are definately inspiration to me and all of us i think! it feels weird though to be praticing without you AND Sarah, like there is something missing. but i can assure you that your beautiful, sincere and fun energies are still kicking around the studio so that's great!
I am sendind you a tone of positive, healing, green hearted energies for all the heart and time you are putting toward you new studio and..life!
are you still planning a workshop in Canmore this winter?..hopefully!
love and peace to you and everyone!
isabelle xxxx

Sarah and Lydia said...

I just wanted to thankyou all for all your positivity and good juju. It really does amazing things - sending it out there.
Izzy, see you soon.
Erin, come visit!
Matt, great to hear from you.
Isabelle, go take your teacher training... you will never look back.
Big love,
Lydia

Isaac Tait said...

I am so excited for you! Can't wait to see what you guys do with the place!