Mother of Ducks and Chicken Runs -- Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

I’m starting this post from the dining room area of the Yoga Forest. A Swiss girl sits to my right and reads quietly. I can’t make out the title of the book, but I believe there's a giant head of lettuce on the cover. She and her Swiss travel buddy are currently learning English, so I had to write down a list of body parts and actions for them to study so participation in yoga classes would be easier for them. And then I spent a good while explaining why I use the word “melt” and what the difference is between a thigh and the quadriceps. 

It felt odd to write down the most common verbs I use in my yoga practice. 

Melt. 

Relax. 

Release. 

Lengthen. 

Expand. 

Explore. 

Invite. 

Flow. 

These are the words I want to carry me through life. Not just my yoga practice. 

Petrona and Angela work on cleaning up the breakfast burritos and getting dinner going. I’m not sure what dinner will be, but my educated guess is that it will involve beans, rice and plump, blue corn tortillas. Even though Guatemala has such rich and diverse agriculture, the food is startlingly bland when compared to its neighbor to the north. Nothing as divine as the chalupa or the tlayuda has ever been found in Guatemalan cuisine, to my knowledge. Even the tamales here are disappointing. The tamales in Mexico were positively bursting with flavor due to the exquisite moles and abundance of meat. In Guatemala, consider yourself lucky if you get any sauce at all inside your tamale. The majority of your Guatemalan meal will be corn. Or corn and rice. Or just rice. Or potatoes. They even make a tamalito, which is just cornmeal cooked inside banana leaves.

I almost cried with disappointment when I ate my first (and last) tamalito. 

Hayley is speaking Spanish with a new guest and a very temperamental dog named Honey sits underneath my chair. 

I don’t mess around with Honey. She’s a heartwarming cuddle-puddle one moment and she’s snapping at your fingers the next. 

Hence, I don’t mess around with Honey. Nor do many of the other guests. 

Two German shepherd-esque dogs are roughhousing on a patch of grass beside the outdoor dining room. The older, more aloof dog is named Bean. I joked around that his extreme nonchalance and “there’s nothing else to see in this world,” attitude should earn him the title of Ser Bean the III. But I believe that I may very well be the only one on the Ser Bean the III bandwagon. 

If Ser Bean the III cared about anything, I’d reckon he’d prefer to be called Ser Bean the III. Alas, Ser Bean the III does not, in fact, care about anything. 

There are three resident ducks at The Yoga Forest. They live in a small pond under the mulberry tree across the stream that runs beside the outdoor dining room. I say hello to them every morning when I skip-hop my merry way down from Lakshmi Cabana to the Yoga Shalla to guide morning meditation and yoga. 

Well, I give one duck a personal hello and give the other two respectful nods. Only the smallest duck is properly named. 

She is called Khaleesi. Mother of ducks. 

Something that I adore about The Yoga Forest is that even though it’s a spiritual place, everyone is so down to earth. I haven’t yet heard anyone drop the f-bomb yet (other than myself), but “shit” is commonplace. Conversations range from permaculture to yoga to boyfriends to travel adventures to a series of unfortunate bowel movements to what we love to cook at home. It’s such an easy-going, supportive environment that we feel encouraged to share our whole stories — not just our spiritual journeys. And even though only vegetarian meals are prepared here, us carnivorous yogis aren’t looked down upon. In fact, some of the interns scamper down to San Marcos on “chicken runs,” every now and again. The first time I heard Joseph say, “I’m going on a chicken run,” I figured that the local chickens had escaped from their wood and wire coop. 

“Are they violent? Should I be alarmed?” I immediately queried over my plate of salad. 

“No… I’M going on a chicken run. Into San Marcos. To get fried chicken. Do you have any orders?” 

And at least three other guests handed Joseph a few Q to pick them up some chicken. Unfortunately, I was not one of the three. The most popular snack in Guatemala by far seems to be french fries and breaded, fried chicken. Neither of which make my tummy feel especially at ease. 

One of the guests recently asked Hayley what she was — vegan or vegetarian — and Hayley thoughtfully responded, “I’m a human being.” 

I loved this. Loved this. I get so tired of categories. Titles. Vegan, vegetarian, pescetarian. I get so frustrated with these categories and the preconceptions that come along with them. Just because I adore bacon and cheese does not mean I’m not a spiritual person who comes alive on a yoga mat. 

Speaking of coming alive on a yoga mat, teaching yoga twice a day at the Yoga Forest has been an absolute dream. Branching out and guiding meditation and yin yoga as well as my intense vinyasa classes and acro yoga play sessions has been a revelation or me. The still, quiet, meditative yin practice provides such a beautiful, natural counter to the energetic yang morning class. I feel relaxed and stimulated, muscles thoroughly worked and tendons and ligaments gently stretched. It’s also been marvelous to work with all the different people who come through — experienced yogis and total newbies — from all over the world. We had four Israeli guys for a long weekend who’d never practiced yoga before. They didn’t quite understand that during a yoga practice, it’s respectful to the rest of the practitioners to keep quiet. So they laughed and chattered to each other in Israeli during the whole practice. I didn’t stop them. I embraced the laughter and the chatter and worked it into the practice. In my experience in both theatre and yoga, I’ve learned that laughter, like tears, is a way to release tension. And four super-fit Israeli ex-army dudes practicing yoga for the first time with a bunch of hippie ladies had to have a lot of tension to release. 

After the practice, the Israelis confided in Gigi (my gorgeous Guatemalan roommate) that my yoga class was harder than any army workout they’d ever done. 

I laughed because it had been a relatively easy class. Nothing at all like the classes I used to teach at the gym of my hometown university. 

Jeremy giving a permaculture lecture. It's been so inspiring to participate in these classes.  

Hayley leading a women's gathering in an hour or so of devotional chanting --  Bhakti yoga. We sang a rain song from Africa. And it poured all night. ALL NIGHT. 

This is the Norwegian volunteer who's currently designing a new energy system at the Yoga Forest. I kind of adore him. And his shirts. 

Isis will let NO ONE eat in peace. We've all become quite adept at picking up Isis and kittens by the scruff and plopping them down onto the stone floor. However, I've never met such tenacious cats in my life. In approximately .07 seconds, they're back up on your lap and crawling onto the table. As if you invited them. 

But even though the only things that could possibly make The Yoga Forest feel more like home for me are a) Boy b) cheese and c) bacon, I’ve still come to the realization that I’m moving past the life of a volunteer. Falling so terribly ill during the first week of my stay and feeling so terribly helpless helped me to understand something — I’m tired of not being able to take care of myself. I’m tired of not being able to afford to go to a proper doctor, to feed myself food that’s good for me and not being able to pay for my own drinks. I live on a budget of two dollars a day (which is the price of a coffee/Skype date with Boy at Circles Cafe) and even two dollars a day is stretching my budget thin. 

I can’t even afford to Skype my boy without worrying about how I’ll survive in Mexico next month. That’s not okay. This sort of self-denial is not necessary. I could ask Boy for money. I could ask my family and friends for money. But that is also not okay and that kind of dependance seems unhealthy. 

I came to this conclusion Sunday night, wracked with pain, alone in my cabana and wondering what I would do if I didn’t get better. If the pain decided to hang around for a few weeks. 

Tuesday night, Chris arrived. Chris works with an organization called, “Will There Be Dragons.” This is a gap year program that takes kids to explore different countries for three months at a time. All expenses are covered for the counselors and the pay is pretty decent (more than two dollars a day). 

This could be an option for me. This could be my next step. I’d make enough money to cover medical bills, to Skype Boy as often as I please and to even pay for more yoga trainings. And I’d make the money through traveling and working with youth. 

Which sounds like a dream.