The Yoga Life Retreat

For one weekend a year, I sing Hare Krishna with pride and burn my emotional baggage on a cow dung fire.  Whilst stories of my annual trip are met with scepticism and uncertainty from my friends, I believe that fully embracing a more spiritual way of life even just once a year, teaches you such a lot about yourself, without the clutter of your everyday roles and responsibilities getting in the way.

On the side of Chalice Hall in Glastonbury is Shekinashram where we stayed. The Ashram is home to a spiritual community who commit to ‘conscious’ living, peace and truth.  As soon as you walk through the gate into its pretty, well-tended garden, it’s amazing how far removed you feel from the outside world.  It’s the perfect space to achieve the goal of the weekend, to come out of your head and into your heart.

Aspects of Yoga
A gentle yoga session in the garden as soon as we arrived was very welcome as I needed to stretch out after a long car journey.  The retreat explores many different styles and aspects of yoga, but is also combined with inner awareness.  We were encouraged to breathe, feel and ‘be’ our yoga.  This allows you to dive much deeper into your practice and experience yoga in a way you have not felt before.

On Friday evenings Shekinashram is open to the Glastonbury community for an evening of Bhajans, the singing of devotional songs which express love for the divine.  I can’t sing a note in tune but I adored this, you don’t need to remember any words as lines are repeated over and over, you just close your eyes, go into your heart and sing.  Now stop thinking about the men in the white-sheet type outfits that skip along Oxford Street in London, jangling tambourines and chanting Hare Krishna! – I know you are and it’s not like that! – The atmosphere in the room was totally uplifting, and it filled me with happiness.

 

Celtic Mythology

On Saturday, we awoke for an early morning meditation walk to the Glastonbury Tor, a ‘holy hill’ that is home to St Michaels’ Tower, an important landmark of Celtic mythology.  At 6am, 518ft was quite a climb! Whether or not you believe its history (some say the tor is the entrance to the land of the fairies,) the atmosphere at the top is incredibly special and the unhindered view which stretches far beyond Glastonbury is striking.

After a mammoth 4 hour yoga session of meditation, pranayama and dynamic flow, we were treated to a delicious home cooked lunch.  The community are strictly vegan but are in no way limited by their diet.  Everything was fresh and organic and full of colour – I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many colours on one plate before!

What’s so special about the Ashram is that it allows you to be exactly who you are.  This might sound easy but we go through life playing roles, whether we are wives, husbands, mothers, nurses or teachers, as our lives demand more and more from us we can become the roles that we play.  It’s a scary thought but when you take away those roles, what’s left?  When you’re not a wife, a mother, a nurse – what’s the essence of you?  Many of the group, myself included struggled to find an answer to this question, but simply being at the ashram, committing to the yoga practice and fully immersing ourselves in the lifestyle meant that it soon came to us.  Within 12 hours of arriving I started to feel different, more content, more like me.

Incredible Happiness

Sunday started with a fire ceremony, where dung from special Hindu cows was burned on a fire.  We took it in turns to chant mantras and pour ghee into the fire. Now this might sound odd, but it’s actually one of the oldest documented ceremonies on record.  We each chanted the mantra 108 times and with the pouring of the ghee at the end of each mantra, we focused on cleansing ourselves of emotions or thoughts that we no longer wanted.

Later on in the morning, the tears came, triggered (unbelievably) by a compliment from another member of the group.  But even sobbing uncontrollably felt ok.  Crying is an amazing way to release emotions and I could feel that I was beginning to let go of something I don’t want in my life anymore.  Some free time and a wander around Glastonbury’s treasure chest of alternative shops gave me a chance to get a new perspective on things.

Back at the Ashram we lay for an hour and were bathed in the healing sounds of the crystal bowls; a wonderful out of body experience that leaves you feeling incredibly calm and peaceful.  It was a perfect treat at the end of an emotional rollercoaster of a weekend.  I don’t profess it to be a ‘quick fix’ for all your problems but it does put you firmly back on the path you want to be.  Just as I did the year before, I went home emotionally lighter and with incredibly happiness in my heart.

Experienced Yoga

Yoga-Life Retreats are run by experienced yoga teacher Wenche Beard in Glastonbury, Portugal and Egypt, with one in France coming soon.   Visit  www.yogaliferetreats.co.uk for full details.