Easter Experience

I´ve now been back for a few days, I turned ill immediately on returning (again), so know I am home from work and have time to write. First day of work was so stressfull that I totally forgot that my course at the Buddhist center started that evening! Creepy. A total contrast to the Easter Holiday I just had.

I don´t really know what to write about my experience. I have mixed feelings. It really is an amazing place; the whole world comes there, and they attract world leading artists and teachers. There was an open atmosphere and a sense of freedom and acceptance. I went there for the yoga, and to see what the place was like. There were people there, who just like me and my friend, went there for the yoga. Then there were the people who lived there, or the ones who came there several times a year, year after year.

One of my goals was to try several different kinds of yoga. I´ve only tried Ashtanga, Satyananda and Hatha. So, I started out trying Hatha. I guess a Hatha class can be anything really. It´s up to the teacher. This teacher had no energy, so I was really bored. Also I am so used to getting warm and sweaty in my practice that it felt really painful stretching when the body wasn´t warm. So, next yoga form was Jivamukti. I think it has it´s roots in Ashtanga, but it doesn´t follow a certain sequence. The teacher was great and very knowledgable, so I was in total bliss afterwards! We worked on opening the hips and shoulders, which is where I have all my problems! She let us work with each other in bridge pose, helping the other press the elbows first inwards towards each other, then in towards the back to realease the shoulder blades before going up into the pose. Did you get that?? Anyways, it made it so much easier to come into the pose.

I had a yoga ayurvedic massage there, which was really good. The masseur, Shubhaa, a Brazilian girl now luckily living in Stockholm(!), used her feet to walk on my back. Sounds odd, but it gives another pressure which can get to the deeper lying tensions. She did a whole body massage, which I find is much better that having just your back done. It´s more balancing.

I also tried a Kundalini yoga jam, which I guess was more of a happening than a real yoga class, where the very talented, humble and gorgeous musician Marcus Berg played while we did yoga. It was awesome! But I don´t think Kundalini is my thing really. I like the really physical yoga forms more. I have my buddhist meditation on the side, and that´s a good combination for me.

I spent a lot of time in the beautiful weather sitting on the veranda, having a coffee(thank you for serving coffee), reading a book, and spending some time on my own. There were so many people and so many activities that I needed to have some time on my own. I´m not the kind of person who can be social all the time. So I skipped the sharing part, which is apparently one of Ängsbackas signums. That was one of the things I had some trouble with. But, everything was of free will, so it was fine. There was also a lot of long huggs and long looks and a lack of boundaries that I found disturbing, but then again, I didn´t participate in that, so it was ok. I guess that those things are a part of what the spirit of the place is, what makes it what it is, why people choose to go there year after year. So now I´ve experienced the place. I might go back, I might not. For the moment I´m just happy with having had a nice Easter.