There's always daisies

There's always daisies.



With eyes closed, leaning on my walking stick, I listened to the low hum from the thousands of bees in a field of vibrant yellow flowers.
I think they were actually mustard flowers and not daisies- but beautiful and picturesque  nonetheless as they rolled across this magical flat patch, nestled in the mountains on our trail.  We stumbled upon this buzzing patch of brilliance on our 9 hour trek from Rhishikesh to Kunjapuli Temple today.

The week before, Joey pointed out two little lights that absolutely looked like stars in the night sky... So far away from us and so high in the sky were these twinkling markers of Kunjapuli. A million miles away from the rooftop jam at Hill Top where we sat snuggled up around the fire making music for and with the tribe of creative brothers and sisters we found in Rhishikesh.
Somehow it didn't fully compute in that moment that I would have to hike all the way up there to get to where Joey was pointing from behind me so my eyes lined up with his fingertips.

Now I was willing my legs to take just one more step as we climbed and climbed through North Indian forest.
Joey rocked his red "midnight suns" Alaska firefighter shirt and told us stories about living in the wilderness and fighting wildfires, effortlessly skipping up the trail like it was no big thing as I attempted to keep up and tried not to puke or pass out.
Krishna, our unbelievably talented israel yogi musician brother walked along side me and continually asked if I needed a break... When I'd look up through a beet red face and eyes full of sweat and nod feebly, Krishna would yell ahead that he needed a break (but really it was totally for me.)

It's not that I'm out of shape really at all... I can float through a challenging yoga class without even breaking much of a sweat... If we were walking on level ground I could go on forever.
But the uphill thing was killing me.
I reminded myself that I have been very sick and spent a lot of time just lying in bed especially since I've been in Rhishikesh... And spent most of 2011 living on a completely flat Indonesian island in the middle of the indian ocean. The biggest change in altitude is maybe 2 feet... Now I was trying to go higher then I've been in over a year. Aaron had just trekked up the Anapurnas for 8 days, and Sequoia, our sound healing circle leader and fierce Goddess, hikes regularly in these mountains as she lives here.

The landscape was getting progressively more and more beautiful as our band of 5 ascended the mountain... I was getting more and more exhausted, disillusioned and over it with each step.

We stopped at a shady clearing underneath a big, beautiful tree. The Kriya Yoga Dome in Tapovan, where we started earlier in the morning, looked like a speck in the distance down the deep canyon. Descriptive words started bubbling up in me as I caught my breath and gazed out over the magnificence and magic of India and i realized in that moment that I had a lot to write... I have been so caught up in loving each moment, loving my friends and tribe here, and loving myself (which is awesome)... I haven't taken time out to write as I usually do.
My nighttime routine of laying down and recounting experiences and lessons found in simple moments in the day has fallen by the wayside in the last few weeks.

After being so sick and then bouncing back to life, I feel anew. Everything is more vibrant then before and more magical... I think I shed a layer of dead snake skin and am fresher now, full of new bright intentions and happiness though still clearly pretty weak.

I announced that I was staying here, at this beautiful tree to write and be alone and would catch everyone on the way down.
I truly didn't feel like a failure or a wuss... I felt like I was honoring myself by deciding to just hang out instead of pushing myself and feeling like the weakest link on the trek.
Aaron strongly disagreed with my sentiment and asked what part of myself I was honoring by quitting.
"uh... The part that likes to be happy and chill." I replied.
He insisted that I needed to push myself and overcome the mind which was preventing me from going further and confronting things that are difficult throughout my life.

Joey too wasn't having it and gently encouraged me to keep hiking saying he wouldn't leave me behind, making me a walking stick/priestess staff, wearing my backpack for me and picking purple flowers off the trail, so I could put them behind my ear.

I was flattered and felt loved and also was so pissed off!

I did not want to hike! I could not wrap my head around why people do this! Walking up a steep hill for 9 freaking hours? It's pretty much hell.

I love nature and being in nature, I love exercising and feeling that rush of endorphins but my thighs and head were not having any fun and I only smiled when going downhill. Why was I doing this in the first place? Isn't the point of life to laugh and have fun?

I talked to Sequoia about this as we hiked, in an attempt to distract myself from the irritation in my mind... I told her about the Yogis from Belarus i met in Varanasi who were so so strict and gnarly on themselves. They barked with Russian sounding accents how they were YOGIS!!! They restricted themselves from so many things and seemed to be totally pushing against any sort of flow as I floated and flowed across the rooftop, tango dancing around them and between them singing songs about being happy and sleeping in past the sunrise.
They reminded me of a time in my life when I was so strict and regimented- a vegan, strict no alcohol or toxins or junk food, I woke up at the crack of dawn to practice intense asana and was pretty hard on myself.

I can't remember exactly when the craziness broke and some light poured in, but at some point it did, and my true yoga was illuminated to me.  I realized that if I wasn't enjoying myself or having fun and being happy, then what the f was I doing?

I feel much further evolved and wiser making decisions that feed my joy rather then things that follow a set of strict rules and guidelines just because someone along the way said I should.

I have found that sometimes honoring yourself means letting go of some crazy goal you made and realize along the road to it that it's way too hard.

Thats where I was in the mountains- totally over it... Detached from the idea of reaching Kunjapuli and seriously into my new plan to sit underneath this glorious tree in the middle of nowhere and write, but the crew kept encouraging me to go a little further.  Joey told me his favorite part of the trek (which he's now done 4 times) was just ahead and it wasn't too steep to get there.

I staggered away from the tree i had melted into a puddle beneath and my plan to hang out, feeling more sad with each step I took away from that little zen zone I had decided to call home for the afternoon.

We rounded a bend and all of a sudden, as though in technicolor, the fabulous yellow field unrolled before us in it's glory. The buzz was like a constant mantra. 
Low and deep - bees working, mating, loving, creating, collecting, OMing it seemed.
We all stood captivated, still and silently smiling before running down to be in it and dance with the bees and take turns snapping photos...
Krishna and I stood facing each-other in Natarajasana (King Dancer pose) right in the middle of the field.
Nataraj is Shiva - the cosmic dancer. We were in the Shiva land- above the Ganga - prancing around the field like cosmic dancers.

This beautiful, blissful moment was suddenly broken. Blasted open by the piercing shriek of a woman trying to move her bulls up the path.

How symbolic, I thought.

Astrologically, my Mercury falls in Taurus, the Bull.
I think it was my Taurus mercury that was stubbornly fighting against my psyche and my friends. Arguing my point and digging my heels back near the tree.

My guilt at being the weakest link was almost suffocating me... Crippling me... I didn't want to keep going, like one of these resistant bulls. Shrieking voices inside of me, egged on by my friends- sounded like that of the little Indian Lady- insisting, demanding that I keep going just a little further.

Just past the flowers was a part of the trail that dipped down. I threw my arms in the air waving the walking staff above my head and yelled, "I love downhill!!!"

I remembered our walk down towards the Ganges, past the Kriya Yoga Dome that we did every day from Bandari Swiss Cottages in High Bank when we were living up there with Mikey and Danny.
(which btw feels like eons ago.) So much has happened in this month in Rhishikesh!
Back in the day, I would run down the hill towards the dome and got filled with excitement every time we did the walk.
I felt like that skipping down the little downward portion of this hike... Elated to be surrendering to gravity!

Aaron asked me what it would take to make me happy going uphill.

"a chairlift" I replied.

I thought about snowboarding and how much I love it... And realized that you have to go up in order to come down.

That 100 dollar chairlift ticket represents lots of hard work to be able to afford it. The hard work that takes you to the top is done before in your job, here on this mountain I was having to work hard too in order to reach the top.
I was ready to come down!

Similarly, just in reverse - I realize that in life sometimes we have to go down in order to come back up and fly high - like my getting so sick only to bounce back up and feel really full of life and love as I do now.

My brother Krishna was experiencing the opposite of me on this hike and in life.

The night before, I shared with him a poem I wrote that says "in order to fly this high, we'll dip that low... And in the end, it's worth the comedown to darkness to fly beside the sun."
I had reminded him that this low he is in will only catapult him higher!

My lesson is that there is always work to get up the mountain. There's no free way up.

The temple at the top wasn't THAT amazing and in all honesty I think I would have been satisfied at the patch of yellow flowers.... But everyone wanted me to be up there at the top which made me feel loved and did give me a sense of accomplishment. The view was spectacular and I felt like I was sitting in the clouds (with all the temple monkeys of course)...


We sipped chai and ate bread watching the clouds cruise past the Himalayan skyline and preparing to head back down home.  Krishna hates going downhill and was stressed about making it down whereas I was stoked and ready to skip down the hill...

Aaron and I lead the way down the trail, psychoanalyzing the lessons and messages in the hike.
I still had a flavor of disappointment in myself for sucking at hiking so bad... Reaching the top didn't mean as much to me as being lame on the way up for some reason... I was still stuck in my head. I know that I am way too hard on myself and willing to work on it.

I felt so lucky to have such strong support and love from my tribe and the ability to look back on the experience and find lessons from the universe hidden along the path like a cosmic scavenger hunt as I skipped down towards Rhishikesh as twilight began to fall.


We trotted down the hill and passed the field of yellow flowers once again.

I paused and realized that there's always daisies. On the way up and on the way down.

Maybe that's all the lesson I need.