Why Yoga? Are you a Hippie now?

Hmm … well somethings gotten hold of my heart.

I live here … nice huh? It’s the Heart Chakra of the world … what now? Rewind.

I moved to Glastonbury to be closer to work & open up work opportunities in the not so far away little smoke of Bristol (UK). I did not want to move here, I wanted to move to the tiniest City in the UK, just down the road – but boring story short, here I moved.

When I moved here I was pretty judgmental about ‘the type of people’ who reside here … outsiders for ease would call them hippies. It’s like the 60’s happened & time stopped there. This isn’t a joke, only at the weekend I was invited to a cannabis festival & had an offer of free love.

But I did get jokes from my friends about when I might start wearing tie dye & dreading my hair … they hadn’t yet seen the regular Robin Hood with his bow & arrow, or the guy with his Pet goat who heels to command, who are regulars of the high street. But ‘Glasto’ is  known for it’s uniqueness … & that big music thing that happens down the road.

Anyway relevance to Yoga … well it was upon arriving to my new home, out on one of my 1st runs exploring the neighbourhood, that I was deciding upon what other physical activity I could do, to spice up my running schedule. I came across a Yoga class & with the specific intention of getting a physical hit of adrenaline rocked up to my first foray.

I still remember it, it was only just after 6 & dark already due to it being January & I had walked there & due to it also being Freezenary lost all feeling in my face. I was welcomed & asked did I bring my own Mat … nope, had I done any Yoga before, nope, did I have any injuries yada yada … cut to me on my mat, being moved about by my teacher & having absolutely no clue what was going on, other than having the feeling that I’d joined some kind of cult & everyone was in on it bar me & this was some mind control way to get me involved.

I went back, the next week. Mostly because I couldn’t do it & wanted to prove I could. I then also tried another class, which was 1st thing on a Saturday morning (rude) but with work commitments was struggling to make evening classes.

I attended my first Saturday class hungover (insert your own tut here) & found it some random cure for my fuzzy head & upset stomach – win! & So I went back the next week. My teacher – Sarah had tattoo’s, was not stick thin (gorgeously womanly is how I would describe her) & had dreadlocks. She was strong – like floating with ease strong, but moreover she radiated warmth – there was just something about her. To an outsider she was from Glasto, to me, a smile-maker.

That’s not to say I wasn’t going back because of the physical – I was. Doing anything upside down was alien & impossible to me & using my T-Rex like arms to balance even an Oz of my body weight was an immense struggle. I would leave feeling like I’d really pushed myself, apart from that bit at the end, where they make you lie down like a dead person and not do anything, not even think, for what feels like an inordinate amount of time. I would write my whole week to-do list in that time, or think about how I might be able to escape the next class before I had to do this bit, but I always chose the far corner to set up my mat, so I would only be scuppered by this by the time I remembered it the next class.

I think it was the 3rd time I went to that class that everything changed & in some weird vortexy moment, for the time I was in that class, the world fell away. Like it didn’t exist & wouldn’t again. I only thought about my body & myself.

Then when it came to the dead bit at the end (genuinely called ‘Corpse’ pose), I distinctly remember lying there thinking about the black birds in the tree I had seen on my way in … now technically you are not meant to think of anything, but the birds were really active that morning & I could hear them throughout class.

I felt like I floated home … & there began my love affair with Yoga.

To come back to Glastonbury, it’s apparently (& I’ve not yet looked it up ‘properly’) on an ancient ley line & is the Heart Chakra of the world (Chakra’s are sort of subtle energy points in your body – I’ll likely come back to them some day).

People flock to Glastonbury for many such mystical qualities it is said to hold like this – including a grave for King Arthur. So did something deeper call to me? I’m not convinced of that, but Glasto has changed me.

‘Those’ people I saw as Hippies, I now see as wonderfully free people, who make this town a happy place. The high street bustles with buskers & tourists all year round & there is always something to sit & admire. I love this town that I now call home & if I am now a bit Hippie (or a lot, got to say I love a herbal tea now too), then I take that as a compliment.

Oh & that 1st class I dropped into all casually … the teacher there is now training me up … now I do believe in Serendipity.

Namaste 🙂