Ecstasy ~ The Bali Spirit Kind!

So here it is…the climax of Festival Day one and I, Cathy, Yoga Barn’s Ecstatic Dance facilitator & self confessed movement/dance/yoga junkie am, yup, you guessed it … ecstatically satiated!! Hallelujah! What a ride!

You may think that, being my day-to-day practice, ecstasy comes easily, but it is actually something that I work very hard at. It comes to me in the moment that my mind, body & spirit unite, & at Bali Spirit 2011 it seems that every detail of the Festival is conspiring to bring us all to that peak of ecstatic union.

The drive to Purnati, where the festival is held, takes me along streets of Bali activity (children/dogs/chickens- check!), lined with tall, multicoloured, umbl-umbl flags, marking the way through the pale blue sky, to the greeting smiles of locals and volunteers at the Festival grounds.

It is 7.30am and the first workshops begin at 8, just time to drink down a coconut on the lush lawns, admiring the coloured ribbons and billowing white tents of the Trimurti pavilion sponsored by the inspiring Desa Seni Resort in Cannggu, before laying down my mat for the first class.

Wow, what a feeling, the first inhale of the culmination of a years work on the part of the festival planning team and a whole lot of dedication and devotion, from teachers, students and every individual contributing to make this festival work- I breathe deep!

Tara Judelle, Anusara Yoga Instructor & Director of Yoga at Desa Seni, ushers us close. Yogis, from as far a field as Brunei to Brazil, gather to welcome in our Bali Spirit practice together with a sanskrit invocation and an invitation to move through our asana today with love.

Tara sparkles! I love her class! She embodies, heartfull-ness, humour and sacrifice.

This sacrifice, as I see it, is the hard work part of reaching ecstasy I was speaking about… The sacrifice of identification with who we think we are in order to allow something greater and purer to arise. In Tara I learn this through her humour & humanity! The woman makes me laugh, gets me sweaty and inspires my mind! Maybe sacrifice comes through attempting an asana we’re afraid to try? Or surrendering to dance harder than ever before? Or maybe it’s holding a pose just a few breaths more than we thought we could? Busting our limits? Or knowing when to pull back? And maybe if we take it a step further, the true sacrifice comes when we do fall, fail, look a fool, or even when take ourselves too seriously in our achievements! That we can sacrifice our ego again, enough to be able to laugh at ourselves & give ourselves a pat on the back for all pride, fears and frustrations of our humanity and give it out all again! ?… Having a sense of humour …key to an awake, ecstatic life???? Maybe?…key to a great Yoga workshop and an awesome start to the Festival? I think so!

So your challenge for the festival should you choose to accept it!?! Can you bring that humour, heart fullness and sacrifice that we practice on the mat into your daily life? Into your business? Your work? Your challenges? & Your relationships?

Can we train ourselves toward love and devotion? … To see the good in others and appreciate what we have while we have it? Can we bring our whole selves to each moment? Frame every moment as sacred?

Body, mind & spirit? Union? Ecstasy?

I think so…

You can catch Tara again at Trimurti, Thursday 3:15pm

I’m getting back on the mat!

Laters!!

xx

Namaste

Written by : Catharine Anderson