Holy Mother India

It's 11 in the morning. I'm sitting in the sun on my balcony. My perfect little life. The real life. I sit on a little meditation pillow against the wall. It's cold in my back, I get another blanket to cover my kidneys. If there is something we have plenty of it's pillows and blankets. I'm awake for about four hours now. Early morning as usual. My stomach still feels a little bit off. Subtle notions of sickness still lingering inside my belly, lightheaded and slightly tired I can tell I am not completely on top of my game again. 

After a few days of cold I thought I'd be mastering my little visitor quite well. Collecting half the pharmacy of ayurvedic pills, drops and candies, powders and balms, I was sure to be fine within a couple of days.

Being in my absolute favorite home space, my real life bubble, waking up to cook my ginger honey lemon instead of my beloved milk coffee is already one of the strongest indicators that something is changing within me. It may sound stupid when I write it like this but people who know how glued I am to my morning cappuccino, how much I fancy it for twenty yours would know what it means for me to just skip it right after waking up.

Voluntarily and naturally adapting to my state of being, without forcing myself, doing the things that feel good and healthy for me in the moment shows me that I'm in the right place. It may not seem like something big from the outside but what it does with me in the inside is life altering for how I feel in my own skin and in the world.

Life changing every single time I come here. This place that seems to hold some magic, some true life magic for me, reflecting to me what life can look like in its most simple and raw form. In its most simplistic beauty. A Himalayan way of life. A happy way of life in finding the simple pleasures and our daily shores. The daily routines that are a burden for most of us becoming my biggest joys when I'm here, creating a happiness that seems so real because it's to be found everywhere when we are taking a closer look, when we are aware of the here and now and act with intention without getting attached to an outcome. The most ordinary things like brushing teeth, cleaning the washroom, cooking a meal, washing your clothes, dressing, undressing, charging electronic devices, changing blankets or showering become a meditation. A daily meditation that's becoming big magic. Grounding me so deeply. Connecting me back to life and who I truly am. What life truly is about for me. The little things. Daily things. Every day life. 

It's these times of sickness, pain and hardship usually that ground us. That force us to solely stay in the moment because there is nothing else we have to hold on to. Nothing else to do than to be in the here and now. Nothing that can change the situation or the pain you're feeling. May it be as little as falling ill for a few days of bigger life events that cause us suffering. These times of hardship can be our biggest teacher if we let them. If we don't resist if we don't want it to be different, if we are able to accept it and surrender for just what it is.

Coming back from the café two days ago, feeling like I was fighting my cold quite well, having drunk liters of lemon and ginger tea and additionally taken all my little magic powders and pills, rubbing my chest with menthol balm and tiger oil, I feel some weird nausea moving through me when I arrive back home to cook myself my early afternoon dinner like every day.

I think of what I'd eaten before and decide that it cannot have been the late breakfast paratha or the papaya. I cook myself some experimental masala broccoli as I like it with my assorted spices and herbs, combining it with some left overs. I love cooking in my basic kitchen on my one flame stove. Turning on and off the gas every time I use it. Little reminders. One of the tiny things that are grounding me here every day. The little things that have you pay attention, be aware in all that you do even the most simple daily actions.

Sitting down to eat and watch some movie I already feel the sickness crawling through my body. I know this kind of nausea when your stomach is about to give up. Food poisoning. Too late. I should be smarter than that but sometimes I can still not distinguish between when to eat and when to truly leave my body alone. I feel the strength slowly leaving my bones. Total body shut down I feel it coming. I know the feeling all too well. Moving from my grumbling stomach through my flesh and bones. I go to bed, covering myself in the thick blankets over my three sweaters. Flashes of shivers and cold running through my veins. The nausea now completely taking me over. I feel like vomiting and going to the washroom. But I know my body. It sticks with the discomfort. It won't come out. It will only come out the next morning after a half wake night. 

There we are in total exhaustion. I make my way to the bathroom to repeat that scenario for the next hours for over a handful of times. I feel drained and tired. Bed time. My friend wanted to come see me. I tell him I'm sick. He calls, he asks if I need anything, offering hospital. Does this word derive from hospitality I wonder as Indians are so quick to offer medical help once you announce your un-wellbeing. I step on the balcony where Nisha is dusting. I look at her. Always a smile on her face she asks me what's wrong. Asking me for all the details of my physical state, telling me she would get her son who is an ayurvedic doctor to get medicine. Only minutes later she comes up with a warm cup of sweet and salty water. Drink this. And when you finish and you go to the toilet you drink another one. I will make you kitchari. I follow her instructions and take some charcoal as well. 

It's these little things that make me feel the most grateful and happy especially in times when I don't feel well. This care that surrounds me everywhere. India. It makes me feel lonely, unseen, unheard and overlooked, struggling to mentally and spiritually survive while at the same time it makes me feel seen and cared for. An apparent paradox, oppositions at first sight, yet when you experience it in your own flesh and bones, your own spirit you understand the wholeness and complexity of the world in it. You understand how everything is one and one doesn't exclude the other even if they seem contradicting at first glance.

Lying in bed, listening to podcasts I go back into trance dream land, my eyelids naturally closing from a lack of energy. I hear my neighbor's door open. He's peaking into my room, putting his head through the open door. As we found out a couple of days ago we met a year before, knowing each other he took over my room and I took over his, making it our residence. Having a lazy day? He asks smiling at me. More like a sick day I tell him and crawl out of my cold dark 5 degree bed into the warming sun on the balcony. I tell him how I feel and no less than mother Nisha he goes to grab some powders for stomach acidity, offering me to stay in his glass front sun room to chill there while he's going out. I drink some of the powder as well along with coconut water and lie down in his premises now to absorb the warmth of the mountain sun while resting.

This truly feels like home. He is doing some dusting, puts me a small table while asking Nisha to make me Kitchari. I look at the little paintings on his wall that seem to have come out of his own hands (his friend's), looking out the window. Nisha is coming up with the healing meal telling me to be careful and eat slowly. A true mother, nourishing her child. It's these moments where I find back to myself and feel a deep connection to all that is. I pause for a moment, breathe, acknowledge where I am and how I feel. My heart is full. It's so full. I'm warm, I'm loved, I'm cared for. By strangers who are yet not. Strangers who feel like family. I can feel some tears in my eyes rising. Tears for this place, this moment, this life. Everything that it includes. ჩემი გოგო. My girl. It comes back to me later that night.

The hours are moving by my neighbor -Sunkiss- is coming back and so is Nisha to bring me the promised medicine. Three more powders that she instructs me to take along with the electrolytes to replenish, rehydrate. Lactates and other little helpers I don't know what they are. Take one pill now, the other in the morning. More instructions before she brings me my dinner a few hours later. I already feel like all these little helpers should cure me a hundred times but mostly the care and compassion I receive today.

After the sun has set and I feel more than ready for sleeping again my friend shows up. The friend who is responsible for the soul food. The unhealthy care. A bag filled with chocolates and rum. Look what's written on the chocolate he orders me when I put the bag aside. Slowly I pull out the chocolate, overly tired and almost incapable of standing up straight. You're so special  it says on the wrapper. He's so happy with himself. Always he is this happy with himself, claiming our friendship. Coming by now again for the third time here in these three years and all the multiple times in between when I was in other places. He can only smile about my rough mood, my harsh speech, my words of disconnection on how much I think he doesn't understand or feel me because we are from different worlds. I smile at him, that no matter who I am or what I say he only has love for me. He just wants to care for me and loves to call me his friend. So simple and yet so beautiful. I know Lina. I understand you. And now don't get angry again because you think I don't. I remember. I know everything about you and every little story you told me. You're my friend. That's how he is. I know it. From the moment I met him three years before. Even if we don't have the deepest conversations, even if I don't have a connection to him like the ones I have to my friends from home, even if I feel like there is really nothing much we can give each other... even if this and that what makes me upset and triggers me because it's not what I'm used to or what I have defined in the past as 'true connection'... what remains is his loyalty, his kindness and yes his unconditional love for me and his conviction that he understands me, always coming to me whenever he knows I'm in his country. Always making sure he comes to see me to even just spend a few hours with me. No matter what. Helping me to get around, making sure I have everything to feel comfortable and happy.

I may still not be able to grasp that concept fully and often times even be triggered by it in a fit of Western arrogance of superiority and intellect assuming he's too dumb to understand me or where I am from or what I feel, when truly I may be the one having way too complex notions about which boxes a human connection needs to check in each and every case at all times. Being confronted with this mentality and reality here, makes me question my values and overall perspective on interpersonal relationships repeatedly. With all the different yet same experiences in this country, again at first glance appearing contradicting, I am asking myself over and over again...

Is it better to be with intellectually intelligent, reflected, complex, well informed and educated personalities or isn't it more important to have people around who are attentive, caring, kind, loving, compassionate, giving and openly in love with you? Lina call me whenever you need anything ok? Day night it doesn't matter. I know what you think but I am your friend. Yes these are not just words I know. I know because he does every time. Take care of everything I want or need. Bringing me whatever I want, taking me wherever I want to go, coming wherever I am.

He reminds me of all the last stories from the past year. Yeah I know you went back to Pulga. He knows. My hot rum drunken and exhausted mind taking the journey back to last spring where apparently I had nothing better to do than to meet up with the one person who in contrast to my friend K is a conscious asshole, fully aware of how he's behaving and who he is, using people however he likes as he has done uncountable times with me because I let him. Because I felt a 'deeper connection' with him in the mirror of all these apparently surface level encounters I usually have. I found something in him, the intellect, the feelings and emotions, the depth and reflection I thought I needed to be seen, to be heard and felt. To be loved by him for who I am. Totally blind for his ugly character and he did not love me or appreciated me for who I am but merely needed me as an extension for his own ego. For his character that due to his education, his intellect and ability to apply complex thinking structures he chooses himself. That's the part I could hardly get over. A person that I felt connected to on many levels, being the absolute worst choice for me when in comes to an interpersonal, intimate, loving relationship as this is something he has absolutely no access to and never cared to cultivate and implement into his life but rather use his 'superiority' to upgrade it to arrogance to put himself above others and use and play them for his own selfish interests. An egomaniac like so many others, yet attractive to me on an intellectual level that in the end only caused me pain and heartbreak to my existence as my all being is full of love and responsible care and most importantly loyalty. Something this one knows nothing about. This personality that apparently I felt a connection to was in the end breaking me into tiny pieces. Scattering me all over the place for a long time. Not just once but repeatedly because I wasn't able to withdraw myself consistently enough.

As I am writing these lines Sunkiss returns and offers me his sun lit room to write. As we're chitchatting about our world views I realize how much we have in common that I have hardly found in any conversation lately or overall in these realms. As we are talking the lyrics of the music playing in the background strike me.... there we are, going back to ჩემი გოგო.

 

I'm Walking Back to Georgia

And I hope she will take me back 

[...] But she's the girl who said she loved me

She's the only one who knows

How it feels when you lose a dream

And how it feels when you dream alone

And if she's still around, I'm gonna settle down,

With that-a hard lovin' Georgia Girl

Georgia can you hear me callin'?

We laugh along with Georgia. Again connecting my different worlds to my surrounding in the here and now opening the doors for my next destination through multiple channels coming in the form of past and future encounters, offering me new options for my individual self development, finding me a home, connecting all the parts. I feel the Holy Gods of Mother India pull-playing the strings of the music of life itself. 

Having gone into another somewhat restless night of sleep from the nausea I can feel the sickness at least gradually leaving my body along with the booze. My usual early wake up around 7am, offering me a beautiful surprising field of long forgotten loves. Receiving messages from people who love me, who I have not remembered or not spoken to, coming back to me for various reasons. The five planet alignment. The surprising early morning love moving me to tears. A kind reminder of K not to do yoga  today coming in very much appreciated as I still don't feel full power. My skin still falling out of my face. Dry skin, shedding my old skins as K has already noticed the night before.

I decide to start with my favorite Ginger Honey Lemon after a day break to slowly test my stomach on its resistance. Putting my feet on the freezing ground, wrapping my blanket around my body marching up to the stove. I turn on the gas flask under the counter, fill one of the pots with water, turn on the flame and set it on the stove. I grab the grater and rub the ginger on it, the spicy juice dripping in the water together with the ground root. I put a spoon of honey and half a lime in my tea glass and wait for the water to boil. The flame is strong, it takes no more than three minutes. I take the strainer from the wall and pour part of my solution into the cup. I stir the honey and lime in carefully and start pouring my health elixir from one metal cup into the next, exchanging it with cold water until it arrives at a drinkable temperature. I love this little morning ritual. One of the many things I enjoy so much in this little bubble of mine. I return to bed, put down the cup and ignite an incense. 

I pull the blanket up to my chin, turn my focus on my broken cotton bag after cleaning up the leftovers from last night, rinsing the cups under the ice cold water. I found some thread and needle in my backpack that I can finally reattach the string and fix the hangers. Another little task that feels like meditating me into the moment, the hours of the early morning. And so every morning proceeds slowly as I answer my messages and dedicate myself to a medical issue of an old contact from Kashmir. A young girl asking me for my expertise and help with her little brother's disease. I cannot believe that I of all come to her mind. My little sister from back then. I start researching, going into my Ayurveda knowledge, my knowledge about healthy living in general, sharing all the knowledge I know to help with. It touches my heart. This care and fear of her for her brother, making me the chosen one to trust me to help her as far as I can.

Another friendly reminder of the universe about the importance of health and the beauty of life making me feel deeply grateful.

After having answered my morning messages I decide that it's time for a deep cleaning after the low point of my sick day. Again arranging the order of all steps included in the washing procedure in my head, I first turn on the water to let it run for half a bucket to become hot while I slowly undress in the coldness of my room, selecting which pieces to wash, heating up some water on the stove for my coconut oil to melt to then follow my morning routing of oil pulling under the shower. I arrange my fresh clothes and towels on the little hangers, pour the cold water on the floor and let the hot water fill the bucket. I put my little piece of hair wash soap on the sink, take a sip of oil in my mouth, throw the two pieces of clothes to be washed on the bathroom floor and start pouring the hot water over my freezing body. A little extra cold water to mix in the big bucket and so I proceed, to wet my hair and body, trying to warm up my cold skin with the hot bucket shower while shampooing my hair.

I love this clash of the hot and cold when slowly I feel my flesh warming with each little bucket I throw over myself to a point where it's hard to stop because I don't wanna feel the cold air on my skin again. Leaving a bit of hot water in the bucket to wash my clothes, I wrap myself into my towel as fast as I can, my hair into the small one, drying up quickly to put all my clothes back on while trying to dry my feet on the wet floor. Once all wrapped in warm clothes again -except for my feet as I keep going back and forth into the bathroom so they have to stay bare and cold- I decide to do a face wash. Since the sink has only ice cold water I get the idea, reaching my arm out to the kitchen stove and grab the small pot with the hot water from my coconut oil. Once finished cleansing my face I pour it over my face to wash off the leftover soap. All this is meticulously arranged logistics starting already in the morning hours.

Sometimes I think I'm a little genius when it comes to super practical daily life solutions just like the time when I boiled some water a few days ago feeling how my cold started clogging my nose, pouring some rock salt in it and start rinsing my nose with it. I poured the rest in a glass jar and from then on kept cleansing my nose multiple times every day over the sink, pouring the salt water into my nostrils, sometimes heating it up again in the coconut water. Multipurpose hot water. Multipurpose anything in this lifestyle. These details giving me deep satisfaction like a nerd. My nerdiness is survival skills. Life skills. Practicality and creativity. It makes my heart beat faster. These things that probably nobody ever notices. How to survive without paper tissues? How to do with cold water in the winter season? How to position yourself at what time in the day to get the most sunlight? Which moment to do what so all the errands are run smoothly. Managing my daily life as my most simple pleasure.

I empty the rest of the leftover washing detergent into the bucket with my clothes and twirl them around in the water to soak in the soap for some time while I hang the towels to dry outside as I did with my blankets to air up in the sun and kill the germs from my illness. I return to swipe the wet bathroom floor like every time I use the shower. Thoroughly to not spread the dirt, cleaning the drains from hair and other dirt. An every day shore. Between naked feet, dressing myself, washing my clothes with my hands, wringing them, the most simple tasks bringing me back to myself in such a subtle and humbling way. Tasks that we don't really have in an average ordinary civilized or Westernized lifestyle. Tasks that yet require physical and mental skills and strength in the most basic natural way, cultivating a healthy routine.

Just a usual morning in my little grandma's life. When everything is about set, I put my tooth brush to charge, dry my hair and make myself the leftover kitchari from the night before along with my broccoli masala. The best breakfast I could imagine. Alongside with my hydration electrolytes and some peanut butter. I sit down in the sun and feel all that simplicity of my morning routine fulfill me with joy and pleasure for life. Feeling the nature of my own being, just existing in the most simple things, feeling every part of me.

Typing these lines next to Sunkiss who is one of the few and only Indians I apparently seem to get along with just easily, sharing similar views, gives me all the more grounding and ease needed for my day. He puts on a movie and casually places Chai and snacks on the tiny table. So I make you little tea or a big one? The casualty of the hospitality is something I appreciate so deeply. While I feel like an intruder, coming every day to steal his sun light, he is serving me like a welcome guest. My eyelids still heavy I feel my natural appetite slowly returning as he now also pulls out his laptop dedicating himself to some extra Sunday work while he lets me do my writings.

Seeing the complexity of my own life practice in every detail of my daily routines, my survival in the best possible way I witness how far I've come, how I've implemented and cultivated an efficient and yet slow lifestyle that is so wide open for creation, becoming creative in every little aspect itself as life itself is happening, giving me the power of being the creator I am. In the tiny details of life, in the practical skills in the ever changing circumstances, giving me the chance to rethink, to adapt, to modify, to learn and unlearn, to become fluid and flexible and creative and all that I am.

I realize here in this simplicity of a routine life that it doesn't take fancy workshops, retreats or transformation trainings to change, to crack open, to transcend or find new ways of becoming. Of being, of doing things, of looking at things, of breaking through patterns or habits. The fluctuation and fluidity of life itself is giving us everything we need every day to transcend, transform or break through old or hindering patterns that hold us back from becoming different versions of ourselves. Here in this little Himalayan place in the North of Mother India. Mother India who keeps nourishing me. Healing me, holding space for me. Even when I feel like I'm struggling to breathe in exactly that space sometimes. Even when I cannot feel the warmth of her sometimes, I know it's there at all times, especially in my struggles. Especially when I'm open and ready to receive all her love and care through all the different channels she's sending it. May it be places, may it be people. May it be the little things in my daily life that make me smile just like sitting here in the sun with my weak bones and unstable stomach, looking at the mountains from Sunkiss' window. Holding space for me.

This day synchronizing around me the day already comes to an end again without me having noticed. After two days up in my bubble I feel a strong calling to go outside. I grab my phone only and start walking towards the small forest with the small flags I love so much. I climb up the few rocks and settle between the trees, seeing a magical day off in the midst the colorful Tibetan flags at my favorite sunset spot. An extra magical sunset just for today. I feel overwhelmed and wholly blessed by the beauty of nature and endlessly grateful to be alive.

Authors Note: After going to bed I receive a message including the picture of me at sunset. Oh this was you?! I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you. It was me standing there. He’s been ‚following‘ me for quite some time. You’ve manifested it he says. Sorry I didn’t ask for your permission. Indeed he didn’t have to when I thought how nice it would be to have a picture of me sitting there.