Winter Solstice

Greetings all,

I decided to take a week off and participate in a kundalini yoga winter solstice event. It takes place in Florida so it was a chance for me to get some sunlight and take a spiritual vacation as well.

I was tired a lot as 3 of the days were spent doing white tantric yoga where we have a partner. In the mornings we did 3 62 minute meditations and the afternoon was around 2 62 minutes meditations and maybe one or 2 31 minute meditations. There were slight variations during the 3 days with the number of meditations we were doing. We did different ones too and didn't repeat them. Most of them involved locking eyes with our partner. I noticed by the end of the last meditation that I felt pain more on my right side. According to yogic philosophy, the right side is the male energy and left is female so right is about giving and left is about receiving. I might have to work on being more giving and clearing the blocks. I'll probably ask the email group I am in about this to get some more experienced perspective. I heard some people experienced a lot of emotions coming up during the first day but for me, since I did a lot of clearing at home this year, I didn't have that sort of experience. I probably felt more physical pain rather then emotional pain. My mind was fairly calm during the 3 days. After the first day I had a pain in my right hip and on the third day during a meditation some pain was experienced around my right shoulder. They were offering workshops during the rest of the days and in one workshop, I noticed again there was some pain and discomfort on my right shoulder area.

At the end of the tantric portion, I felt I had to really muster my strength to do the second last meditation as the last one just involved holding our partner's hand so that was easy. I felt at the 2nd last one while on break, the concept of 'all for one and one for all'.

I feel pretty good now and had a great time. I think with all the kriyas and meditations we did, it'll take a few days to process all that energy. I really liked it since the week before Christmas, people get all stressed about buying gifts and they waste so much energy on materialism when this time of year (the winter solstice) has so much spiritual energy. It's too bad people are not sensitive to that but get suckered into the nonsense.

I sent out a lot of resumes the week before I left so I saw that someone called me so I will have to call them back to arrange for an interview.

I miss the sun though. It's dark here in Hamilton as I am staying at le Hotel Parents and there's some snow here. But it's good to be back in 'civilization'

There was the option of camping in a tent or staying in a cabin but I chose to tent it. It was cold at night but my sleeping bag was warm once I realized that if I put my blanket inside my bag, it would help. The first night I had my blanket over my bag and I think the heat is retained better once it was inside.

The next day after we finished the 3 days of white tantric yoga, a woman who was tenting near me was yelling at I am guessing her boyfriend. I guess work like this can bring out stuff you don't want to deal with and she was basically complaining about the relationship and called him an asshole. I was laughing a bit to myself as I thought this was not really the appropriate way to handle your anger, especially in a spiritual environment. I didn't hear the man yell back...

I had thought if he's an asshole, then why are you with him? Take responsibility for your choice in a man.

They have a summer solstice event in New Mexico and usually more people show up, usually over 2000 people. Here there was probably around 500.

As an introvert, I found it hard to socialize as there was so many people it's overwhelming. I met one woman from my previous retreat in Atlanta so I was more chatty with her. I think if I were to see these people again I might open up more. The conversation usually was just about where are you from, how long have you been doing kundalini. Nothing really too deep.

You have to do 'karma' yoga as well to help out and mine was being a veggie chopper. I managed to survive a week without internet, Nutella and no meat. I had thought I had an internet addiction but I guess it's just a habit since I can survive without it. We had a special Christmas eve dinner. On the white tantric days we got a vegetarian burger so that was a nice change. We basically ate the same foods every day. Breakfast was a soup made with onions, potatoes and celery. Dinner was mung beans, hot sauce (basically something made with onions), beets (which I didn't eat) and salad. Lunch was quinoa tabuleh and potatoes.

I brought chocolate raisins as a snack and they had a bazaar so I managed to finish my chocolate and bought some organic chocolate and kale chips, which were actually tasty.

Overall I enjoyed myself even though I didn't do too much socializing.