K. D. Lang sings that love makes sweet and sad the same. What’s true for love is also true for India.
It was the hardest and most incredible trip I’ve ever taken. India pushed me to my edge at almost every moment. I had the chance to experience the full range of my emotions, sometimes all at once.
I would catch glimpses of ordinary, every day living like playing cards and sharing tea, only to turn and see that I was bearing witness to deeply powerful events: a woman in deep prayer at a temple and the first day of a newly married couple’s life together. I wept and then laughed out loud. I had profound insights with a deep sense of peaceful knowing, followed my massive amounts of confusion that made me question everything. India was nothing like what I expected it to be – it was more and it was less, in equal amounts.
I’m unpacking my journal and my pictures. The 8 days I spent there may have given me a lifetime of writing material. So much of it still needs sorting, tending, and reflection. I struggled with the idea of how I might make everything I experienced available through these daily posts and determined I couldn’t. India needs more from me.
As part of my advanced yoga teacher training at ISHTA, I have to complete a research project. I considered a half dozen different ideas until I realized that I was being handed the perfect opportunity for research and reflection upon my yoga teaching and my personal yoga practice – India. Just as yoga was born out of India, the country and her people gave me a new lease on life. And that’s worthy of extensive exploration.
By the end of July, I need to complete my research project and I am going to put together an interactive experience with writings, photos, and video footage that uses my time in India as a lens to re-examine my yoga. Pieces of this project will be published on this blog along the way and once it’s complete, I’ll publish the link to the full work. It’s the only way that I think of to really honor my time in India for all that it is worth.
Christa Avampato 