My journey start here: Nowhere 1

Was more than two years ago when I decided to start my Astanga journey.

Yoga wasn’t much my thing,I was more a kind of “concrete” girl,never believed in spirituality,I’ve always considered myself very much as an atheist but somehow,one day I was in front of this place called “shala”.

I had no idea of what was in front of me neither I had idea of what to expect out of it.

For me Yoga was very much a physical activity,the reason why I got into it on the first place was because I had this friend,Sofia,she kind of got me into it by presenting it as not the typical yoga you would expect.She sold it to me as it was something really challenging and calorie consuming as I liked to see it at the time.I decided to give it a go and went with her at one of this astanga level 1 classes held in triyoga,a nice space hidden in the earth of Carnaby street.I was ready to show off my strength and my flexibility gained through a couple of years of proud running and stretching every now and then,however I had no Idea it was going to be so hard.By the end of the classe I was knackered,soaking wet from head to toe and I hadn’t even been able to do half of the posture/exercise shown in there,I had no breath,I was physically devastated.What the hell was that?I immediately though while I was trying to change my t shirt hiding my body in the toilet  while all the woman around me,Sofia included,were openly getting naked talking to each other in the changing room.

Sofia wasn’t so happy about the class,she claimed that it wasn’t as she used to experience it  in her home town,she didn’t feel the spiritual connection.I push her to came back,same hour next week,I didn’t care about all that spiritual shit she was mourning about,I liked the workout,I was sure that something like that would have enabled me to get an amazing skinny body,that along with a good restricted nutrition plan. Everything under control.

The morning after I was in pain,pain in muscles I din’t even knew I had,I could barely walk up the stairs in the shop where I was working,it was nightmare.My friend was smiling at me while she was cuddling her crystal that for the first time she brought up at work. I though she was a little bit too much however I was curious.The week after we went back there and so again we went for almost a month.After that I couldn’t bare any more to listening to her talking about this “mysore style”,the kind of yoga that she used to do in her home-town something more personal,the sort of stuff that would enable you to make a connection within your inner self…whatever that is supposed to mean.

Whatever,I said,let’s check it out!

I remember sending a message to this yoga teacher called Hamish,something like “hey I’ve been doing astanga for a month and I would like to try your class but I was wondering if you had any showers…” and I also remember his very straight answer “no,no shower!”. I didn’t like him and because of that and because of the fact that the price for this “Mysore style” was really expensive I dropped the idea of getting involved with it and I went back to running.My friend in the meanwhile dropped the idea as well.We were working together and we didn’t really have much money to spend for ourselves and also was just our first year in London and much needed to be settled .

After those last attempt into the yoga world I started to feel some changes.

I started to read about spirituality,and I started to develop a faith in the universe.Dropped the anti conceptional patch,started to get rid naturally of the terrible migraines that I used to suffer and generally speaking started to wanting more love for myself into my life.

I was living with my boyfriend at the time,he used to smoke so much pot that most of the times I could barely breath into our crazy messy room. I started to hate to come back home with the nightmare of having stranger crawling around and the idea of finding him barely talking,lost is some mystery world made of junk food and dirty clothes.

Was long till I started to suffer terrible muscles spasm on my legs, I couldn’t stand in the shop floor at work, I was feeling sad and angry  and lost.

I acted in the best way I could to hurt him as much as I was feeling hurt. I did my best to kick him out the house.Found a new place for me and left.

I created suffering by not taking responsibility of my actions, I acted with Ego and I’ve steal other people light  by trying to shine myself and trying not to feel how I was really feeling:lonely,abandoned,disillusioned.

I tried to keep and harem of people that loves me around me and I failed.

Didn’t take me much before discovering that nobody was my friend and nobody want it to be around that selfish bitch that I was and I’ve used to be so proud of.

I was experiencing anxiety,I had difficulty to breath properly a kind of feeling of being strangled all day long.

I’ve just became the manager of the shop where I was working at,I was living in a nice flat with a cool beautiful girl  called Juliette. I had everything I’ve planned to have apart from air flowing into my lungs.

I was breathless. That’s why that day I’ve walked  into this tiny sweaty place.

Was 7 am,dark outside and just a little yellowish light inside. I introduced myself to the teacher Hamish,he wasn’t as I expected to be: indian(first of all), super handsome, cool.He was just a normal man wearing some ridiculous flowery pants and standing on the door  between the two rooms like a pink flamingo.

He didn’t say much,he gave me some posture,the 2 sun salutiations and the final lotus position witch I proudly performed in front of him,that’s it. 25 min for 13 pounds. I thought was a bit too much but however the room,packed with people,the sweet and warm smell in the air…the not so much spiritual fuss around kind of stuck me.

That day I’ve started my yoga journey,what I would like to share in this almost familiar space that have been on my back for the last year without being into my life actively.Now is the time that I would like to tell you a little bit more about myself,truly.

 

Enemies and Oneness

Today is the day, I gotta do it, practice for the first time in this new environment, in this new shala.

I don’t know if any of you have ever felt this way but when you start to practice in a new shala, with a new teacher for me it feel like getting completely undressed in front of strangers, and honestly I am not so comfortable in my own skin yet, Sofia used to say that I am afraid of naked people and indeed is true, I am also afraid on my own naked body,(here it is another box ready to be tick: love your naked body).First practice in a new spot is basically like the first time you have sex, well not exactly as there’s no romance to share, there’s just a deep intimacy that go beyond the naked body, you are basically stripping off while you are floating (or at lest trying to do so) with the movements of your body.

I didn’t know Rolf at all and I was scared.What if wasn’t going to be gentle with me? What if he wasn’t going to understand my injury, my pain,what if was going to try to change the practice that took me so long to establish?What if I wasn’t going to be good enough?

It felt frightened from beginning to end,I was fighting to prove something that perhaps was unnecessary. My knee was painful, it started to be so since I got here,could have been the fear stored into my ligaments to remind me of my own presence? It was so painful that I was finding hard to bind and if you are a practitioner you must know how important is to show you can bind in marichyasana, apparently that is supposed to be the key of your “spiritual development” into the westernized astanga world.

When I got to that pose I must have started to cringe my face or doing whatever weird thing with my body because Rolf came to me and approached me harshly saying basically that I need it to be gentle with myself.Good point,somehow he already got me from the beginning.I felt a little defeated in the moment but then I looked at him and got completely mesmerized by the purity of his eyes.

For a teacher is not easy dealing with new students I guess, people all have different stories,different way to approach themselves,to approach their pains and injuries,different way to give voice to their own ego.A teacher dealing for the first time with a student must show strength as well as an ability to stand his ground but yet sweetness must be kept, you have to be able to let the person feel into your arms somehow,you have to make them feel safe. Although I’ve never teach myself I feel that whenever I am in front of a teacher I do not know,I need to feel able to eventually fall and land safely into his/her understanding of the practice, into their experience as well as their willingness to share their own weakness.I feel like a yoga teacher should not be unreachable, should be indeed be a people person, someone that is there when you need to because let’s be honest, the practice it’s hard when it it goes under the surface of the asanas, when it start to penetrate inside shredding layers and layers without really giving you an hard shell or at least a blanket to cover your renewed fresh skin from what we can funnily define “the wind of life”(you can also at this point start to mentally sing “the wind of change” as I am doing so too), I believe that is why is important to have a teacher, not for advance you in the series but indeed to be there when you feel you are falling apart, overwhelmed by the world.

By the end of my practice I was feeling very sensitive, but I was also feeling safe to be. That glimpse that I’ve found in his eyes gave me the courage to be there.

I’ve waited a little and then I tried to make a conversation with one of the girls there, Elise, an american girl that seemed to me very similar to me. She was pretty much on her own and didn’t give me much attention and that left me very curious about knowing her. I then went to have breakfast at the only open cafe during that underrated season and there I’ve fully embrace the post practice sharing wave and I sat down at the “shala table”.

At first I felt awkward in front of all this people but instead of hiding behind my old patterns and improvise an acting scene, I’ve decided to be honest.

I share my fear experienced the day before, and I’ve share my fear of not being yet fully comfortable in the environment, in the culture.

This couple, Andrea and Nimesha particularly struck me. She looked like a model,incredibly beautiful, he looked a bit like a cool  guy, I thought in my head that they must have been some rich people whatever from somewhere however. Andrea was Italian and open up to him and her came out much easily to me as we were speaking the same language. I’ve told them that I was feeling really lonely and really scared of not being able to make friends, I told them how everything was new to me, how coming from London, I was finding difficult to approach people and to be comfortable in that type of relax life. Somehow those words they came out from me and got splattered in their faces;when I’ve realized that I immediately felt very vulnerable and afraid of their judgement. The fear lasted few second as the way they both reacted to my words asthonished me. It felt like someone was hugging me inside reassuring me that I will be fine,their words felt really deep,was the first time I could truly feel like I could trust someone so fully that it almost make me cry. I’ve never meet someone so comfortable in their being to be able to just open up to the help of others till that moment when I meet them, although they didn’t escape at first to my fear induced judgmental attitude but I apologize for that, I am still new to the “real” world and everything to me can still look as an enemy but so is not.

I realize then how there are just people in the world able to be themselves, able to nourish themselves, to look beautiful and to be beautiful to the world.

With Andrea and Nimesha I’ve at the beginning felt scared to be a burden that they’ll have to look after, especially when they invited me for breakfast the day after but it didn’t take me long to realize that those two were just genuinely willing to help and that was the first great impression of reality that I’ve got from this new world that I am creating for myself, for this new environment where I am starting to settle down.

People are not enemies here their are oneness

Stripped down of ego aka: Anjuna,second day.

First day of practice in the unknown land.

I was expecting to be cold this morning, I left when the light was just a blessed mirror of perfection into the world.

The earth was pulsating of wild life, unknown bird were screaming their song to the world,the non stop rain of the night has left a sparkle of incredible lusciousness  all around, the perfection of the colors was sprouting. I’ve never seen such a muddy and perfect brightness arising in the sunlight.

It was warm, humid, it was like an undiscoverd world screaming around me, covering my sleepy body with a precious warmth.

I drove to practice much earlier than my supposed time. I  need it to find my ground, to explore the village naked of life.

Nobody on the street apart from the dogs that quietly were sleeping along the road.Particularly I got mesmerized by a place around the corner, a little house painted in liliac blue, beside a huge rice field, It looked almost abandoned but the perfection of the color on the wall indicate that was indeed just probably been renovated for the season to come. Many dogs were sleeping under the empty patio of the little house, peacefully sharing  the space in a natural communion of soul.

Who said that dog in Goa are aggressive or they are unlucky?Looking at this animals living a life of freedom  It makes me that we have indeed no right to choose what is good for them, and we are probably wrong on thinking that they are poor animals as are they are indeed free of possession, free  to be whatever they like. I look at them in this land as they are a metaphor of our ego, do we really need to impose our rules on them or it might just be better to help by sharing instead of possessing?

Driving along the road, my head still buzzing from the confusion of the time difference between here and the place where I was living just 2 days ago, the musky grey London with his efficient soul controlled mechanism.

I don’t really know where the shala is, I am just hoping to meet someone else that could perhaps give me a detached indication, another yogini although I decided I wouldn’t be involved in any of the western yogini life. I’ve decided to make this trip a journey of self discovery, self-reliance, self-love. This is my journey were I will be learning how to be alone in the world and not just hiding myself in the curiosity of the city. Making friends is not my aim, beside I have friends don’t I?

I arrived in the area where the shala is supposed to be hidden somewhere and there there was  what I was expecting, a chinese girl with her yoga mat on the shoulder. She didn’t speak much English and that make it perfect to me to maintain a detached attitude in her regards.

The shala is closer of what I thought, is on the main street,if you can call this muddy, narrow roads this way; Is in the house of the teacher actually, on the roof top. It a small half-open space made of woven palm tree and concrete floor. I wasn’t expecting such a simple place,knowing the greatness and the popularity of the teacher I thought I might find myself in a spoil half natural space.The simplicity of the space make me feel  happy It make me think about Hamish’s shala, the humbleness of his space;that helped me to accept my staying here, in a way it make me think that I am in the right place, I am not is a fashion oriented yoga environment, perhaps I am indeed in a true place of wisdom and I am going to meet another wonderful yogi as it is Hamish and of course Peter Sanson,wonderful souls randomly dressed with nonappearance

I’d waited a little in the empty space facing the jungle still covered by the soft darkness of the early hour. I was feeling a little nervous, like I had to prove something to someone. My knee was hurting so much from the day before, I was cuddling my fear of not being able to be good enough, as if it matters now that is just me.

I was trying not to look at the people walking through, trying to calm the anxiety of that first fucking day. Rolf walked in with a dog on the leash, behind him more dogs, 7 in total, walking around the shala.I had been warned of that,of his love for animals,but honestly I wasn’t expecting to have a fluffy dog sitting down my mat and looking at me with wondering eyes. Foxy to be precise, a puffed fluffy being with remarkable posing capabilities.

It was  a moonday,I was really happy to discover that, I wasn’t ready to practice.

During Moonday at Rolf we do some light Pranayama technique for beginner, I wasn’t however feeling ready for that either.

Rolf looked different, nothing as I expected, a little skinny man with sea like eyes and a strong, sharp German accent. I was happy not to find his wife as most of the people who I’ve been hanging in London have told me that she was sort of “intense”, I very much know how people can be deadly judgmental upon someone, I was pretty sure she was going to be very similar to me or at least to the person I was when I was feeling like nobody could really understand me but I wasn’t really strong enough to face someone that could have potentially tried to make me strong by showing my weakness. I need it to believe in my capabilities first in order to accept my weakness and willing to work with them.

By the end of the class, I quickly grab my stuff and run home. Rolf was trying to gather all of us for lunch but I really didn’t want to be involved with any of that as I felt I really had nothing to give or to share with this few people.

We were just above 10 people in the shala, the atmosphere was quite intimate, too intimate for someone like me trying to figure out how to deal with others.

I went for breakfast  to the only place open during monsoon, Artjuna, and as soon as I’ve seen the yoga crew I’ve avoided them and hide myself under my tarot book.

It is weird, the feelings I am exploring right now.  I feel like I am back to be a kid,back when during the summer we had to move to our house at the beach with my grandparents. I had no friend there and there was no place where you were almost forced to interact with others , to develop a friendship with someone. Me and my sister we always had that problem, every time we would have been thrown into a different environment we just wouldn’t know how to interact with others, we were shy to show ourselves scared to hell to be rejected .What is wrong with us I do not know, what I know is that in my life I’ve always preferred to find excuse not to know people. I  am afraid of people not liking me or not to have anything to offer to them.

Here it come the truth, my lack of self-love and self-respect rising upon the surface once freed  from the platonic cocoon of self-developing friendly environment.

I’ve never made the first step in making a friend, all my friend have come to me through work or school, I’ve never spoke to someone deliberately unless I have taken some drugs and I would have been surfing on a silver rocket sparkled up by the beauty of never-ending plastic love.

I just thought being alone was the easiest choice, calling this trip “self-discovery path” was a nice way to hide my incapability of being social. I didn’t need anybody, what for? Disposable travelling friendship is not ideal when you are an ipersensitive fragile person that covered by the strength of her body.

I avoided eye contact for the whole day and then I went exploring on the beach by myself empowered by my renewed self-sabotage.

Eventually the loneliness struck me when I’ve clashed against the unknown culture.

I was climbing on a rock cliff when this is happen, my camera around my neck and my pretty little westerner face.

I obviously didn’t pay much attention of being surrounded by only men going uphill beside me.

My instinct sent me a silent sign of awareness but my ego overcome it, trying to prove my virgin independence aged 1 day.

I still don’t know what happen when 2 men approached me while I was trying to rest upon a rocks losing my dreams in the vastness of the sea.They  came next to me speaking in their language trying to grab my camera while I felt like a complete idiot victim of her  fucked idea of not needing anyone. I felt lonely, although I’ve managed to run off the cliff as fast as possible, between the language misunderstanding and the cultural fear,with the men running after me, probably trying to explain themselves to mean no harm.As they did after when they started laughing while I was still running along the beach scattered.

What if something would have happened? Nobody there would have notice my disappearance, nobody knows me.

Being strong or being silly are not to be misunderstood, there it was when I realized that I was indeed victim of my ego trying to prove to whothefuckknow that I was “whatever”.

Wrong.

Making friend, nourishing yourself by sharing is the point of travel , Is the reason of the travel itself or at least that it is what it will be for me.

I don’t need to prove that I am able to be alone just because I am afraid to get trapped into sabotaging relationships, I need indeed to be able to be able to become friend with myself, to understand that I am valuable and good enough to give my love to people

I decide to come out to the world because there’s no need to be good enough to open yourself to people.

I am a virgin of the world

First day in Anjuna:

I was amazed from what I wasn’t expecting to find.

I’ve never seen anything as wild and rough as this place.

I was in bed, devoured by a massive headache, seriously, I’ve felt like my head was going to melt and my brain would splatter around the room. Gross,I know, but I got even worried I’ve taken some drugs because it was worse than a post Mdma headache.

I’ve never been out of Europe, the longest distance I’ve ever reach was London.

I am a virgin of the world.

For me leaving the city was a challenge.

If you’ve been reading my latest post you probably missing a middle part of my life.

That is because there’s nothing much to say about my latest years in London.

I’ve been working pretty much every day maintaining 3 jobs on my lap. No time for myself whatsoever apart from those morning hours spent in the magic of Hamish’s shala and the incredible evening spent knowing what was going to become one of my greatest friend perhaps a sister from another life.

I got over my pain taking deep and slow breathing, looking at myself.

I got over my self- destructive addiction by looking at it without being scared to talk about it openly. I can for the first time say “I AM GOOD NOW, I’M HEALED”.

But my life during that time has definitely changed again when I’ve moved house, fighting my fear of not being able to be loved, because let’s be honest, I’ve never allow myself to make real friends breaking my  comfortably numb state.

I’ve moved in a house with other 5 people and I am blessing every moment of the time I’ve spent with them. As Sofia told me right before I moved: “this is going to be good for you”, her fucking psychic power strike again.

There I’ve meet Louise, and my life has definitely taken another path.

She’s what I’ve never gone for, a smiling shining woman. When I’ve meet her I just thought she was high and I got really scared of her way to be so open to the world.

She helped me to believe in myself, to believe in the practice,to open myself up in way that I didn’t know was possible, she show me how to hug people freely.

She is a hugger, she would dispense hugs without me asking for, something that I felt special as nothing before. Really how could I have lived without hugging anybody never before?

Without any of our dreams sharing morning coffee, and late shared skies I wouldn’t probably be where I am right now. That is right, in that final stage of my life in the city meeting her has been the greatest gift from the universe and from the practice because there is where me meet.

Call it luck, call it casualty, I call it Magic of the practice, is the practice that tune in with yourself and give you back when you need it mostly.

Thanks to her I’ve meet Peter Sanson, my teacher. He’s the reason why I am going to New Zealand.

He’s the person that in one of the most scary/lost moment of my life has held my hand and kept me going.

I am grateful to Hamish as my first teacher because his gentle approach has for the first time made me able to trust a man touching my body and is kindness has got into me when I need it, I’ve learn how to be kind with myself trough him.

He’s been the best person for me for that first part of my practice but when I’ve meet Peter, for the second time a couple of months ago I’ve just felt an incredible magic that left me tearful for days.

Is something I cannot still explain, but I just know I have to study with him.

But those aren’t the only reason of my departure.

I’ve decided to jump when I’ve discovered a stranger in my dreams.

I’ve meet this stranger in real life but I can barely remember his face, we’ve been for some reasons in contact via electronic universe for years before starting to meet up in dreams.

His wildness and freedom has inspired me to push myself out of my comfort zone.

Talking to him trigger in me an inner strength I didn’t know I could have and somehow he universe always respond in a positive way every time we speak together, but I will explain this after.

I left my job inspired by the few words we would share together and I’ve booked my trip to India.

I kept on dreaming about him, dreaming I would meet him some days on this journey.

While I am crawling in bed listening to the rain falling sharply around me my head keep wondering to the thoughts of the people I left and to the dreams I just cannot push away.

I have to say that leaving Louise wasn’t easy but the reason why it felt right is because I want our friendship to be real, I didn’t want to rely on her, we need it to grew apart in order to became something that could have never been swept away. I am thinking about her while lying here listening to the rain, my body hurt, is the first time in my practice history that I felt myself physically unable to do it, to let my body just be, to feel it.

I am feeling great in way.

I made it, I am here in this stranger land, alone, in a house hidden in the jungle where I could hear the sound of the sea when there’s no rain.

Initially there was the happiness.

But the first day is always a slow settling. Is the easy part, when the body is adjusting and it doesn’t give space to either mind of soul to feel anything else rather than pain.

 

 

 

Free breathing with sound

Is been a while since I’ve last wrote on this platform. I’ve taken a break because I need it to figure out many things in my life, I need it to put things back in the right places.

Since then many things have changed.

What I am living now is many different from what I was living before. I’ve set myself free. I am in the world.

And for this I have to thanks the practice.

I left London a couple of months ago and I’ve started my new journey, my journey into the world, I’ve decided to climb the highest hill and embrace fully my deepest fear: LONELINESS.

If I look back, when everything started, back in my beginners years, I can’t believe I make it till here.

I’m serious, who though that the crazy anxious self destructive person that I was would have make it till here, where I am now, India, without making herself victim of some sort of self punishing relationship or crazy control freak system of soul.

Yeah, you got it right, I move away from the city and I’ve jumped on a plane that landed in Goa, Anjuna to be precise, that crazy party land where most of the people go to get wasted out of their eyes, to walk on the lysergic shaped moon and swim into the pink fleshed sea.

Well if you’ve been reading my blog by now you should know who I was and you should have intuited where I am trying to shape myself in away, what I am trying to “achieve”, although I am coming to the conclusion that the only thing worth achieving is Love for every being in the universe and not perfection of thoughts, body or whatever.

My commitment is to share with you my adventure, my vision, my dreams in this journey that started in India and It will lead me to New Zealand in a non traditional way that I will reveal you later int this blog.

 

This is an introduction to my new life, actually, this isn’t right.

This is the first time I feel like I am living and breathing freely.

This is my free breathing journey “with sound”, and I would like to start it by showing you my first sunset into the spelled village of Anjuna, the way it was when I arrived there, the 6th of September, still blessed my the monsoon abundance.

 

 

I am a believer.

Back in London with my music.

Yes, you heard me, my music, everything that in the years has been the focus of my feelings,my collections of cds was in my backpack on my way back to the city. I was motivated to make that space where I was living like my real home, I was motivated to stay there for as long as it would have taken me to be back into my own self, the one that I’ve lost when as a teenager I was deprived of my dreams, of my innocence by a man who make me believe to love me as a daughter, from my delusional father,Giorgio, the same one that was waiting for me to grow up and blossom, trying to get the first drop of amber on my fragrant petals. Yes the same man who try to fuck me behind my mothers understanding.

I was trying to get to that place of peace where I was before. I need it that to move on, I need it that to be free to go and belong from anybody and anyplace in the world.

In order to get that freedom I had indeed to build roots in the place where I was, because I wasn’t steady in my soul, I wasn’t in peace inside. I had mess inside, real mess, confusion,pain. In order to work that out the thing that worked the best for me was making peace with the outside. I need it to see happiness around me, beauty, memories, I need it to feel safe in the place where I was.

I started cleaning up the house, making the place look warm and not just like a temporary spot where to crush waiting for  the next move.

I need it to see colors and pictures of my family. My sister-in-law when I went home gave me the picture of my brother wedding and I make treasure of that picture where I could see the four of us ,me, my brother, my sister and my little niece dressed in funky clothes for the ceremony. I put it  that picture next to my bed facing me every morning , was like having them with me every day, was so powerful waking up the happiness of that moment where we were all together sharing love for each other.

I hanged my paintings in the living room, I bought nice candles and pure incense. In the morning and in the evening I was lightning up a stick letting myself go to the atmosphere, relaxing to the sweet smell of the burnt resin.

Juliette left he same night that we came back home from our holiday together, she was pretty much sleeping with her boyfriend every night, I asked if she want it me to find someone else for her room but she didn’t want to leave the house. She didn’t want to leave me. She was protecting me, she always did, she was like a sister to me and although I felt abandoned from her I know that was the best thing for me and for her, she need it to develop her life and I need it to be strong on my own. I knew that if I need it her she would have come,but that wasn’t the point. The point was that I need it not to need anybody.

I had the motivation to make my life better I just need it to start somewhere.

Yoga was where I decided to start.

The shala was helping me to discover myself. When I came back from holiday going on the mat was hard and painful, my muscles weren’t so used to those movement anymore, but I remember reassuring myself : “I will be fine, just take it slowly, you’ll come back to that place and it will be fine”. The first week back in the shala I was hiding  in the very left corner of the room, the one that as I’ve later discovered nobody like it, the one where Hamish could not see how crappy I was.

After the shala there was work, and that was hard as I hated it, I didn’t like having to act for the most of my day, pretending to like what I was doing, having to keep talking with people to make my day go faster, but that what I had to do, that was my learning of something I could not yet understand.

The summer was going to be smoother, I could feel that. The summer in London isn’t so bad, there’s sun,  there are people hanging around showing off smiles and there aren’t so many rich people  in the shop smacking  their misery in your face.

I was fine I think, starting to be at least, and in the end I had just two months to go before my next holiday, I had indeed booked to go home again at the end of September as soon as I came back.

Something was moving in the right direction, I was in control.

Still I wasn’t good enough to feel free but I was getting there .

Slowness and patience with myself, that was what I had understood and that was what my hurting knee was teaching me.

How to be gentle with myself, even when your thoughs are overloading your head, be gentle, give myself space and forgive instead of blame.

Sometime I was falling into the trap again but instead of making myself feel even worst with guilt and stuff,I would breathe through, repeating that I was fine,I was getting there, one day I would have been liberated from my own mental trap.

I was starting to believe in something as well as myself, in something beyond me, the universe, the signs, the people around me.

 

I broke up with my old family and then I’ve found my real one

New beginning, such a charming definition of endless pain.

I was ready for my “new beginning”, when for months I’ve been scraping the walls of my flat with my bare hands;was the time to recover. And it wasn’t easy, it was the hardest thing to do.

The summer was arising, I was feeling the need of a change but as I couldn’t get it within my job as I was stuck in the same place for years and it seemed like  nobody else want it to hire  me, although I had no idea of what I want it to do with my life;be a chef and think about food 24 h 7 days a week ?Wasn’t that going to be a recipe for disaster?surely it was and Sofia cleverly enlightened that to me when I got offer a job in a restaurant, was time to wait, to settle down and make peace, starting to know my new friend aka my own body.

I book myself a ticket to go home and I asked my friends to come with me, I want  my London family to meet my former family, I need it so badly to feel like I belonged to something, like I was part of a community. I need that warmth that I’ve lost in the craziness of the city. My sister especially, I need it to be next to her, to explain her why I’d left and why I was away in the last couple of  months, because the truth was that when I started to play with the pain again I was so scared to talk to her, scared she could find out the shit I put myself into again by the broken sound of my voice. She could always read me without seeing me, our relationship has always gone beyond words or contact.

Was early may, I was so thin as I never been before when I’ve gone home that time. I wasn’t getting my period from more or less one year, I was feeling really fragile.

When I arrived to the airport my family was there, my brother, my sister-in-law, my sister and my niece that wasn’t so little any more, my mum was waiting for us at home, she was preparing dinner.

I was happy, happy to be with them, happy to be with the people who really loved me, happy to feel that warmth again.

My sister wasn’t really talking to me, she was distant and I was suffering of that, I couldn’t understand why. It was like she was jealous of us not being alone, jealous of my friends maybe?

She was pushing me away and I was feeling like exploding inside as I wasn’t able to talk to her.

Was when Sofia talked to her in private, with her “secret italian” that I understood what was happening, she was feeling abandoned and she didn’t know what to do, she didn’t know how to reach out.

No one in the house knew either what had happened to me in the last months since the last time they saw me, I’d disappeared to my family for almost one year, I was feeling so bad that I was just trying to reach the bottom to be able to see how vast was my loneliness, my pain, to be able to eradicate it for as long as possible is forever is virtually impossible. It was my path, I had to follow that isolation, it was the only way.

My sister though I was so happy that I couldn’t care less about her. The year before  when my grandfather died, my grandmother let herself go and started to embrace a figurative end. My sister was facing alone the loss of two keys figures in her life, my grandfather was like a father for her and my granma was a mother. They both grew her up and she saw him dying and now she was suffering in seeing my grandmother getting old on a speed rate. I wasn’t there when all of this was happening and I couldn’t be. That wasn’t my life, That wasn’t my path. That was a breaking point for me and my sister and my family in general.

I felt that in the past years and I do believe that it was another part of the abandonment that I’ve faced.

A breaking point in my life , a chance to build something stronger again.

Thank to Sofia  me and my sister we talk.

She was angry at me because she could feel how I was not there with her with my feelings.

I had to come clean in front of her, I talked to her about my loneliness, she talked to me about her.

My niece wasn’t talking to me for the time I was there, it was like she was mirroring  my sister deepest feeling and reversing them to me.   After that talk everything had come into place again.

I spoke my truth, I’ve been understood, I’ve been given hope.

The string between us had gotten stronger that ever after that talk.

It was a new beginning for both of us and we knew that. Our relationship wasn’t ever going to be the same as before, our relationship was now based on truth and honesty.

The breakage happened the year before was a necessary measurement to break something that wasn’t healthy for each other, a co-dependence with no truth with no exposed love.

Sofia Strike once again, in that brief holiday she shown me everything I need it to know about family.And my relationship with them started to grow in the right direction.

 

 

Quirking pain: a recipe for slow healing

Marichyasana D, for who is not familiar with this pose in yoga I will give you  little explanation of what it is, it’s a twist, basically, a pose dedicated to Marichi aka the vedic Adam, father of humanity. Does it say anything?Probabily it doesn’t, especially if you are very much as I was, a great unbeliever, but everything can change trust me. Sooner or later the faith arise,if you want  to of course.

However in this pose you are basically suppose twist the opposite side of your body while you are in half lotus and grab your wrist pushing down your hip. Very complicated to understand by verbal explanation (have a look at this link to understand more about it: http://www.ashtangayoga.info/practice/primary-series-yoga-chikitsa/item/marichyasana-d/).

When I got this pose, my first reaction was: “wow, finally some real action,some pain!”

After a couple of months of pushing and burning,finally I did it and it hurt it badly!

Everyday when I was about to get to that pose I would cringe my face badly, and start to push. My knee was burning and it felt like the bones where going to crack as soon as I was able to sort of twist a little.

Was like a proper hell,an unfinished business with myself.

One day I couldn’t really handle anymore and while I was holding my breath trying to get into the pose I saw Hamish running toward me.

“Does it hurt?” he asked pointing to my knee

“Yes it does” I’d replied tearful

“So stop it!” he said harsh

In that moment I felt defeated and I let go.

I couldn’t hide the fight anymore, He found out about the hate I was cuddling, he read my intentions: I was enjoying hurting myself.

Nobody could get my new way of abusing myself , but he did.

Suddenly I felt exposed to him, he was able to read me in a way that I cannot really explain.

Thank god was friday the day that my mask fell down, I didn’t have to see him for two days as I didn’t use to practise on Sunday.

That Sunday I got a call from Satirka.

He called from a number I did not know, and when I pick up the phone and I’ve heard his voice I was unprepared on what to say to him, I wasn’t expecting to hear from him.

The phone call was really quick, we talked about random stuff, he told me we might see each other again. I was holding those words tightly.

The following Monday I felt sick as never before, my body crashed down with fear, my muscles were weakened and I could not move from my bed for the next 7 days.

For the first time in ages I had a shivering fever that seemed not to go away.

During that week I was alone in the flat.

Juliette just recently had fallen in love with what was going to be the man she would have married, she was always staying at his place and although that week she was trying to stay next to me as much as she could, trying to help me to get better, I was pushing her away.

I was angry with myself, furious indeed, I knew what all of that was meaning and I couldn’t accept the truth, It was hard to do so, hard to accept that the person you want the most wasn’t right for you, your body was a reflection of that, your sickness was a message from your soul. What the hell!How could I accept the truth of how bad Satirka was for me?How could I admit that my soul was getting sick after just hearing his voice and grow hope toward the idea of being with him again one day?

Why this was happening?

The shivering and the pain through all my body that week was unbearable. By the end of it I felt like I was dead and re-born again.

I felt like a real new beginning.

Now was time to recover, I knew that.

But in order to do that had to face again my monsters.

I went back to practise and realize that “be-here-now” was not there anymore.

I went back home and I found it empty.

Everyday more and more I could feel the walls whispering silence.

Juliette was never there and when she was I’d started to push her away pretending that I need it my space as much as she need it to be in Love.

In reality I was feeling abandoned.

It was the same feeling I had when my sister left my mum’s house when I was 15.

And I was craving loneliness in some way that I cannot really explain.

The more lonely I was the more I wished to be.

I was isolated. Going to practise in the morning, going to work afterwards and coming back home, inside my darkness, diving back in deeply.

All the sudden I felt like I was trapped within myself again. I felt the need of self sabotaging myself. The need for pain.

As I couldn’t get the ultimate pain from the practise I was craving for another way to hurt myself.

Before I’d realized I was doing it again. Back to the hold pattern of my longtime friend called Bulimia.

It was easier this time as I was always alone in the house, nobody could really see my pain exploding,nobody could hear me a everyone was so far from me.

My sister couldn’t surely read my through by phone and the people I had around me they had no idea that I had that seed sow in my past. I was safe to explore my pain, safe to hurt myself.

Every night when I was coming back from work, after making sure that Juliette wasn’t going to be back, I was finding myself crawling on the pavement of my small bathroom. I didn’t really want to tho but it was just happening.

Again and again, unbearably.

Sometimes it would happen before practise, sometimes twice in one night,when I was off from work especially was a nightmare splattered inside my brain.

I was crying silent tears and I really want it someone to come and help me, I really want some love but I didn’t know how to look for it. I didn’t know how I could have been loved.

I was lost. My reality was squashing me inside. The city, the distance, the friends I was afraid to call, the friend I was afraid to show my weakness too.

All I had was the practise.

Was hard waking up in the morning with my eyes puffed, my throat scratched and my breath shortened by the absence of energy within my body.

I used to sleep few hours and then once the alarm was going off I used to pump myself with coffee,get ready and go.

The shala was the only place where I could feel safe.

Hamish has recently given me navasana although I still was not able to bind in marichyasana, was in that ultimate pose, the one that seemed the simplest to me that I could feel the miss connection with my core.

My body was a stranger to me and I was treating it without respect abusing it and damaging it.

Somehow I knew he could see what was happening with me but instead of acting he was just there every morning looking at my body evolving, supporting me gently.

I knew he knew about the hate that I was pouring on my own flesh, he could see my face change, he could see my body changing.

One day especially I remember walking in the shala and encountering his eyes,full of kindness and support.

That day was when I decided to seek for help, that day was when I decided to get better .

Hamish and his kindness moved me so deeply that I though: “I don’t deserve this!I deserve love!”.

I ran in the arms of Sofia after practise and I told her everything, and I told her that I want it to get better, I was tired of hurting myself, tired of ll the violence and the hate I was feeding my soul with, tired of being scred to be alone.

Her words are still remarkable to me: ” I know what you are going through, I can see your pain, and I am glad you want to get better, remember that in a way is better to face it now that later because you are going to be so strong after you’ve been through this, you are going to be ready for anything, hold tightly, because you can do this and everything is going to be good, you’ll be able to be alone!”

I was starting to rebuild my life again from scratch and I had to do on my own,starting to know and trust my body, my ultimate discovery, my new friend.

Little by little, ready to forgive and to give time to myself.

Once again: ” Rome wasn’t built in a day”.

 

 

 

 

Twisted mind unleashed

Late January, still scattered by the recent bad trip I was trying to get hold of my life again. Sometime I would walk down the main street for hours trying to find the courage to look up at the sky and said to  myself that I was fine. Wasn’t really a long lasting feeling.

All I was able to do was walking down to the park, have a little go around and then a soon as I would start to feel the emptiness of all those memories grabbing me I was running back into my safe spot, trying to watch a movie, trying to control my urge for food, for thoughts, for love, for everything that was making me feel warm inside and a little less lonely. Was all happening during my time off and luckily Juliette was single and was spending most of her time next to me. She was everything and I was loving her, loving being around her, loving her for being my friend. I was trying to be my best with her but I was not real, I still didn’t know my pain, I was just trying to make myself better feeding my soul with the though of Satirka perhaps coming back one day  into my life. I was getting ready for it.

Sofia however she wasn’t giving me hope. She was harsh with me, and I really didn’t like that, I didn’t like her making me feel judged but I’d found my way to go around that, I was just trying to hide my thoughts from her,avoiding her most of the time,she couldn’t criticise the way I was doing things,living life. Was like I was rebelling to my mother in a way, or more precisely to my sister as she’s always been the one that was able to read me through; and don’t forget that lately I wasn’t really calling my sister much. I want it to do things my way and I didn’t want no one to criticise me especially I didn’t want the ones that I knew were right to tell me what I was doing wrong. I like to break my head, remember? Kamikaze on.

Juliette was safe, she was never going to tell me that I was wrong, she was with me on everything, we both had our demons to feed. And we love each other deeply but It was not healthy. At least it wasn’t for me.

I was starting to anchor to her, relying on her without developing my life fully.

I started again to be a little maniac regarding food, but I smartly did it labelling myself. Healthy eating was getting really popular at the time and I couldn’t miss the chance.

I became vegan and mostly raw . Was there a better way to avoid public gathering and to justify my food in front of others?

Sofia didn’t discuss my choice however, she respected. In the end I was still  newbie and all this people life, none could ever wonder who was hiding under my thick builded skin. At least I though so.

The day that I came back to practise I was all cranky and sort of “shy”. Right, you heard that,the arrogant bitch had step aside!

Hamish was there and so was his new assistant. I don’t really know if she was really new tho, new to me surely but probably not new to that role. Whatever I never seen her before but that time I could not notice her when she came to adjust me.

Her foot tattoo was quite remarkable: “be here now”, every time she was walking over me I was feeling something arising inside me, a joy that I didn’t know before. She was soft, she was kind with me.

God that girl was doing something to me with her hands, she was pouring courage into my bones.

I was always sort of shy to find out more about her,but didn’t took me much to realize that was the same girl who talk to me when I went to the yoga dinner earlier that december! I remember the way she approach me in the dinner was so friendly that I though: “who is she?how did she even notice me in the shala? what does she want from me?”,(by now I think you got the fact that all the friendly stuff was the real big deal from me to get).

Her name I could not remember, Jeffa, Tessa, God’s  know, all I knew it was that she was Australian, at least that was what I got from our little conversation. But who cares about what was her name or where she was from, she was “BE HERE NOW” for me, that was how I started to call her from that day and funny enough she was one of the reason of why I stick to that place. She gave me hope,she make me believe that I could do that some day, I could get to be comfortable with all those movements, comfortable with my body changing and stuff.

Be here now was my friend, although she probably still didn’t know that I used to think we had a secret deal to practise next to each other, indeed the time she was on her mat before me I used to try to practise on the spot next to her or at least closer to her, and weirdly she was doing the same. Somehow in fact we’ve been practising next to each others for months, was like if some sort of magic was making this happening all the time. I need it that more than anything, I need it to feel some love in that place where I was learning how to open myself, but I need it some safe love, I was desperate to find a friend that helped me to understand all of that.

She was my friend and she didn’t know how important was for me the way she approached me while I was trying to fight with the posture.

When I started to do  marichyasana D  everything started to came to the surface and I began the biggest fight with myself, and with Marlene, my ego,still really present within my life.

 

Violence was my love.

Emotional emptiness VS mental mould overgrowth

It was a non-stop emotional rollercoaster everyfucking day.

Said my last goodbye to Satirka, I was walking along the streets in the night feeling some kind of strength inside me.Big bullshit! It was just an ego trick I should Have known that, but instead  I didn’t.

New years eve I brought my big ego to a rave to prove to myself that I was indeed able to stand alone, honouring my  independence.

Was a tricky one,  a lot of parties were being cancelled that night, you could have either gone for the techno rave or for the commercial psy trance one in Hackney which ticket have been sold out although overpriced to 30£ !

Well, no way I would have gone for the Techno one, those skinheads ketch addicts were my biggest nightmare as long with Techno music which I couldn’t really feel inside me. So I though I might as well hang around a little and try to find someone to go with and see if it’s meant to be I will get in somehow.

I picked up a couple from Italy at a friend house. They had no ticket either but they were positive indeed. I was too, and I had a dalai lama to consume with me. Everything was just fine.

We went to the party with the last overground, I was leading this time, so weird as the year before I was just in the opposite situation, Satirka was leading us, me and M we were following him. I was feeling a little melancholic that night and I was also hoping to see him. Was he going to be there?

The party was in a big sort of warehouse not far from my house actually, nothing as I expected,especially for the price people were paying the location looked indeed really small.

The queue looked infinite and they had no more tickets.

Was 1 am I was already pretty fed up by all of that and ready to go home.

The couple had come all the way from italy for the party that has been shut, which was as well the one I was looking forward too, they were not ready to give up on this. Whatever I told them, let’s wait,perhaps somehow we’ll get in.They liked my positive attitude so we sticked together for the waiting time.

Trusting the universe we sat down outside for hours.

All the sudden the gates were closing and we were kicked out, I mean they guy was, we girls weren’t as we were sat down on the pavement and the security didn’t really notice us or if they did they didn’t care.

We didn’t really know what to do so we were just waiting there.The girl was getting pretty agitated by the fact that her boy had been kicked out.How could I blame her?

After a while we saw her boy coming along with a couple through the gates, they had tickets for themselves and they were really drunk and german,and everyone know that they tend to get really funny and quite “agitated” under certain circumstances. The guy gave us a sign to follow him and pretend we were with them too. The german couple was speaking their language waving off their print out tickets. they were loud, was almost 3 am and the security couldn’t really be bothered to deal with them so they let them in and they let us too, in the confusion created nobody notice us.

We were in, and was time to celebrate!

I left the guys heading to the psy room to get a bit of energy in before licking off the surface of my blessed jewel.

The place looked a bit like a labyrinth with scary low ceiling, it felt like being in a box a little.

While I was heading to the main room I could not notice the queue of people waiting to get inside the room.

They weren’t my normal people, my silent rave crew that I used to keep an eye relationship with. Mostly they were kids full of booze and cheap ketamine.

I didn’t like it but hey, isn’t that part of the journey as well? Apparently I was very much on this path of doing what doesn’t feel good but somehow will be good for you indeed.

Inside the room the air was boiling, the ceiling was again so low to make me feel squashed like a flawless piece of meat. None of that really matter reallywhile I was licking of my “Pandora’s box”.

Yeah, let’s get this party started, I was so proud of myself that in the end I make it! Once again in my loneliness proving my strength, my independence bla bla bla.

I was trying to be cautious so I just went for half dalai lama.

After sometimes, as usual, I lost my patience and I swallow the rest. Let’s start again, going down again, down the rabbit hole of wonder, squatting down jumping up let’s move the acid thought the body, let’s give it space to show himself.

Didn’t take long before I start to feel the emptiness.

Emptiness so vast to feel like I was being ripped apart from the inside.

My body parts splattered on the face of those people I didn’t know.

Nobody around me could hold my hand and bring me back, nobody inside me could hold my soul with a lovingly care.

I knew since I took the rest of the acid that something great was going to happen,and it did.

I had my first proper “bad trip” and I was by myself canned with thousand of unknown people and none to belong to, nobody was thinking of me either that night, everyone was gone from my life, my family was away and as well I had lost the connection with them lately, especially with my sister to whom I hadn’t talk for months.

I was landed on a new place in the universe and I didn’t know where I was.

I was looking at myself like I was standing in front of my embodied form. I was ALONE. I never felt so deeply scared, so fucking sad. I didn’t know what to do. I was so desperate that I really want it to call someone and ask for help but I couldn’t as I had nobody to call, nobody that was close to me enough to give up whatever they where doing to come and help me to get out of that horrible tunnel were I was crying loudly, desperate to find the end of it. I felt like I was not worth the love of anyone on earth. I felt the person I’ve been for the last years, the selfish bitch yes, her, the one that didn’t care about anything apart from herself,I suffered her acts, facing the damage that I made to others people life, to M, to Satirka and to all those people to whom I just took away without giving  anything.

I felt how I was in the practise, My ego was  towards me.

The way that Hamish had behaved with me was like the way acid was behaving with me in that particular moment,with the sharpness of reality.

That was what I had to face in order to get clean to get humble.

I had to feel scared to loose everything included myself. That was my way, Violence was my love, my salvation glory.

I was drowning down far.

I manage to get out of the party by grasping here and there. On the street I could barely recognize the sunlight. I was hallucinating hard and I was in the real world trying to find a way home.

I followed my sense keeping a strong gazing point towards me.

I was blind, following the sounds of the street I’ve walked in the crowded high street pretending some sort of quietness.

I manage to get home,luckily.

When I got inside I run in my room and cried. I never felt so shit about myself, about my life. Juliette woke up and came to try to comfort me. So I grabbed her, she was all I had. She helped me to get in bed, to recover, to find peace again.

I’ve spent my new year day looking at the ceiling thinking a millions thing about my life and about how I want it to be a better person.

Was really important to me to face the reality of what I thought I achieved already but indeed I did not.

I was now aware of my sadness, and I decide to go with it and see whatever that would have brought me to.

It was a cold day,I could feel my frozen bones crackling and I could feel that sobbing sensation of fear mixed with anxiety for something unknown to come.

I could not wait to go back to practise now I was ready to surrender to whatever need it to happen in whatever way need it to do so.

 

 

 

 

 

When the practise took everything away from me

Well finally we got back where we began, In the yoga part of this blog, which was indeed supposed to be the only part of it but whatever.

I believe you have to know the past to discover the future.

It’s always been like that for me, starting from the roots of things, understanding their evolution and evolving myself through them.

It has been like that with Nick Cave, I refused to listen to his newest album till I had a full understanding of his past music, of his voice maturation as well as his writing evolution.

That is the way I like to do things, I never like to hold the final product without having handled the raw material first. I am a weird animal, I like to get all dirty before realizing that perhaps  a shower will be useful. Sometimes this attitude has been my greatest gift and some other times has worked against me leading to hurt myself badly before realizing that it wasn’t necessary all that work and that pain, it could have been simpler but HEY,ROME WASN’T BUILD IN A DAY(Satirka told me this along with his last kiss).

However all this mess I hope has been useful for you, the reader (if you got bored and gave up I can understand,it’s a messy business down here); I hope you got to understand where I come from, who am I and maybe you have as well start to sympathize for me a little.

I need it to write my story, especially because people need to understand that yoga isn’t what it looks like, a happy people business or a flexy people entertainment.

Look at me, I was pretty messy, pretty wrapped up in my beliefs and shit,but I make it!I make it to a yoga “class”,and I got mesmerized, the attraction to it was stronger than any drugs I’ve ever tried and you know when I say that is because I’ve tried it pretty much everything.

For starting a yoga journey you don’t need much.

Forget the expensive lululemon clothes and the fancy manduka mats,they are both great but honestly, at the beginning a 2.99£ top from hm and a pair of old cheap lycra leggings borrowed from your flatmate are more that enough,(I still practise in them by the way) you can borrow the mat from the shala you are going to, I dare you’ll be practising at home but if you do (WELL DONE!) get an eko yoga and you’ll have fun (and you’ll love the yoga mat crumble on your clothes afterwards!)

Then you need a teacher, and you won’t have to look far for it as every astanga practitioners know, the teacher will find you,of course you will have to plant a little seed in the universe meaning =  you’ll have to have the will to start to practise.

Where was I?

Right, I was at the part where I was trying to get Hamish to like me in a very unreligious way. Let’s go back there.

The day after I had this big realization, I mean, the day when I decide that I was going to try to get Hamish to like me; I went to the shala quite confused/anxious/weird. Was like it wasn’t that easy anymore to do that ,Marlene’s behaviour was against what Satirka was trying to teach me while sleeping with me in a “bed made of flowers”

If I was there, in that shala was as well to develop Satirka work on myself further and In my head I was as well-doing that to be prepared to live my life with him one day. He was alway at the back of my head, everyday really present like I could almost talk to him.

The last thing I want it was going back to my “normal” behaviour, going back to act.

I cannot forget the disappointment on the face of Satirka the first time he took me out for dinner and he said to me clearly,and in a very harsh way : “If you wanna be with me you have to leave the actress at home when we are together, I like to speak with you not with the mask you put up when you are scared to reveal your feelings.”

How could I go back there and disappoint him again? The reason why he left me was as well because I was not able to speak my truth in front of people.

I decide it I would have ignored the instinct to spellbound Hamish somehow, I was not there for that and however he wouldn’t have never let me go anywhere with that attitude, if I wouldn’t have given that up he would have not let me stay there.

Hamish was harsh with me, was really strict and not very much a talkative type of person with me. One day I left the shala in tears, run to Sofia, still in tears and told her that I hated that place, and I want it to go somewhere else, her answer was clearer than crystal and sharper than diamond: “I think this man will be really good for you!”, sobbing my way trought her words I understood that was my shit reflecting on him and I just had to deal with it. So I did, biting my own tongue of course.

However I was feeling pretty lonely in my life at the time.

And the worst still had to come.

After my first month in that place, exactly the 28th on November Satirka had come back, I knew it because I dreamt about him, and you know that was our special way of communicating.

But it wasn’t just that, after a week of his return,and his still not having contacted me, M decided to play the card on his side.

One night at 9.30 pm I received a phone call from his flatmate, begging me to go to see him. I was very much reluctant, I had to do my “things” but he sounded pretty desperate so I took a cab all the way down to south London and I saw him.

He had smoked some changa, an herbal mixture containing DMT, (a quite enjoyable strong but not long-lasting hallucinogen) and he was out.

I couldn’t understand what had happened to him, he was behaving as he was deeply under the effect of some psychedelic compound.

I thought at some point he would have come down from that bad trip but as the following morning that hadn’t happened I got worried.

I decided then to call Satirka, such a sweet way to see the person you care the most and you love,after sometimes they’ve been away isn’t? I know, but I wasn’t experienced enough to try to get him out of the darkness.

M had not enough knowledge regarding the drugs he was using but he had a lot of ego upon it.He always tought he could handle it but indeed  he couldn’t ;that was one of the reason why in our journey together I’ve always make sure that I was next to him every time he was using any drugs. He had some much unresolved darkness inside himself and he need it someone to hold his hand when things were getting pretty dirty inside his head, that was what I’ve always felt about him and it was true.

When Satirka saw him he was not happy at all, he was really concern indeed.

He told me he had friend that sometimes they were “loosing it” and  they would come back after a while sometimes enjoying the journey as well, learning from it; with him, he didn’t know where he was.

M was different in his look, was like he was 8 years old boy and he was behaving likely too.

I didn’t know what to do.

In the following month I’ve tried to be with him as much as I could, trying to let him talk about what he was experiencing, what he was feeling and hearing inside his head.

Sometimes when I tough I got him back I was seeing him drowning again into that deep unknown world of voices and child behaviour.

It was difficult to focus on the practise developing in the meanwhile but I was still managing to do it, I was going everyday, 5 days a week. Was the only way I could cope with the guilt arising and the pain of seeing him like that, vegetating upon a cloud. The practise was weeping off the thought of his madness for  a little while,the practise was making me sleep as well, stopping my thoughts in the night draining them off me.

Around Christmas however, M went  home in Italy and never came back, when his mother saw him like that she didn’t let him leave.

M had disappeared suddenly from London leaving everything behind without a goodbye.

In the meanwhile the shala had closed for the Christmas holidays, I couldn’t practise = I could not breathe.

When you don’t practise you feel the practise working on you, with the practise you dig down open wounds and you start cleaning them off.

I was just a beginner and my wounds were hidden under layer of callous skin, I had to dig down pretty far down to start to open them.

My wounds were bleeding deeply that christmas and I had nothing to help me drain them, I had nobody.

Satirka had disappeared completely after what happen to M, he couldn’t handle the guilt of feeling responsible for it.And  ican’t blame him as I was feeling the same although I was still able to hide it to myself.

Juliette was there with me. I was holding tight on her, she was the only thing I had.

Sofia was too strong for letting me suck some love out of her, she was trying to help by talking to me. She wouldn’t have let me attach unhealthily to her, she was there for me and she wasn’t  when she thought it was time for me to develop my strength.

In december 2012 for the first time in my life I was alone with no one to feed from.

That is when the practise started to work, taking everything I didn’t need away from me.