Mysore continues to be real for me. Everyday, as I read updates on facebook, as I recite the opening prayer on my mat, as I recall the memories of the two and a half months that I spent there, my mind fixes on it, the city and the shala, the people and the energy, the yoga community as a whole.
I miss the energy of it. The quantity and the quality of that energy focused on yoga is both exciting and overwhelming. In Mysore, I felt fueled by the community around me. And though I love the tight knit group of dedicated yoga friends that I practice with here in Boracay, in the Philippines, we're a small group driven predominantly by an easy-going island vibe. While the island itself is only 7 kilometers long (with the thinnest width of the island a measly 1 kilometer), its small pockets of yoga barely every cross or meet.
Then, I started to see all the announcements go up on facebook from my Mysore community--some of whom by that time, were spread out around the world in their respective homes. Everywhere it seemed people were rallying around Odanadi Yoga Stops Traffick, the event that creates awareness against the trafficking of women and children and raises money for the caiuse. I felt that we needed to take part somehow. I felt the need for that sense of togetherness here too.
So on March 12, I felt the strongest connection to Mysore since returning home to Boracay, in the Philippines, as our own island yoga community gathered for 108 Sun Salutations, joining over a hundred participating studios and organizations world wide for Odanadi Yoga Stops Traffick.
Within the Mandala Spa shala, eight resident teachers led part of the 108. Clayton Horton of Greenpath started things off followed by Nicole Serrano, Mo-ching Yip, Stacey Memije, Markus Duss, Margaux Palau, Sebastian Stroeber and myself. After a wonderful savasana, Clayton led us in Kirtan and a short meditation for the victims of the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan. In total there were 24 participants, packing the shala.
In the end, we raised not only PhP10,800 but we also raised the bar in terms of our own local yoga community.
