Juliet Bennett's Blog

And now, I relax

4 Jun ’10 1 Comment Written by Juliet Bennett

6am “knock knock” my revolting tasting medicine (of who knows what) arrives at my door… 630 yoga; 730 walk and feed monkeys; 830 breakfast (fruit and random-looking-but-delicious Indian vegetarian goop); 10am reflexology; 1030 continue reading “Holy Cow! An Indian Adventure” (awesome book btw); 1230pm massage (naked – completely naked); 130 vegetarian lunch and more gross medicine; 230 massage (thumped with hot pounds of herbs); 3pm intermediate yoga (soooo hard); 4pm ginger tea; 5pm medicine then walk (and twist my ankle… f***); 530 ice ankle and read; 7pm vegetarian dinner; 830 my allocated turn on internet; and very soon (around 9pm) take bedtime tablets (what the HECK are they giving me?) and go to bed. This AYURVEDA retreat high up in the Indian mountains in Coonoor is HARD CORE!!!

After ten days of it I am feeling GREAT!!!

I’ve been exfoliated, oiled, pounded, massaged, steamed and scrubbed – each simultaneously carried out by two sets of from hands, from head to toe. I’ve stretched, balanced and put my body into postures I never thought possible. I’ve swallowed tablets and liquids bitter, sweet and ambiguous. I’ve managed to do without chocolate (besides a Sunday-is-our-day-off binge) and coffee and alcohol, and even gone without meat (by no choice of my own). I’ve had points on my fingers pressed while I clench my teeth in pain. My ankle (still swollen from February and no thanks to my little slip on my first day here) has never has so much attention with it’s own oil press treatments, herbal mud-masks and Reiki.

I leave feeling smoother, skinnier, healthier, and stetchier, than I have in a long time.

Here is a quick glimpse of my time here: my new friends (monkeys and more monkeys), my treatments (I’m not actually about to have my head chopped off), and the lovely mountains and people of Coonoor. Click on a photo to see bigger, and then click through slide show…

 

 

I am as ready as I’ll ever be to hit the busy city of Delhi, and (try to) enjoy a three day manic tour around the golden triangle: Delhi, Agra and Jaipur. Wish me luck.

Adventure, Random Life Stuff
, , ,
Similar posts
  • New life: reflections on being a new ... — Every year I seem to have less and less time for blogging. This year has the record for the least number of entries, but for a very good reason: motherhood! Oh. My. Gosh. What a new appreciation I have for all the mothers of the world. Maternity leave is not a holiday by any stretch of the imagination. There is no time for reading. I certainly [...]
  • 2015 in review — ‘Repetition produces a gradual lowering of vivid appreciation. Convention dominates. A learned orthodoxy suppresses adventure.’ [1] “Without adventure civilization is in full decay. … in their day the great achievements of the past were the adventures of the past. Only the adventurous can understand the greatness of the past.“ At the start of 2015 I was writing an article on [...]
  • Havana: Aesthetics of an old city in ... — My partner and I recently spent a week in Cuba in June, mostly in the apocalyptic-like old city of Havana. My research supervisor asked if we speak at a “soiree” at his house, and in preparation I gathered some of my thoughts here. While I reveled in the history and politics, my partner is an artist and conversationalist, leading him [...]
  • Reframing your mind: changing negativ... — “Whatever you want to succeed at, you need to replace any negative scripts you might have with positive ones” (Ash and Gerrand 2002: 7). We need to reframe our minds, changing negative stories to positive stories, one micro story at a time. Eve Ash and Rob Gerrand’s (2002) Rewrite your life! is a book full of tips on how to [...]
  • Taming the beast: technology, corpora... — Have we reached a point in the processes of industrialisation, globalisation, and corporatisation in which we have lost control over our culture, our lives and our shared future? Looking at my life, the lives of those around me, the media and global politics and economics, I think we have. It seems to me that technology controls us, rather than us [...]

1 Comment

  1. Donald
    5 Jun ’10    

    It looks like heaven (or should I say, “Nirvana”?) on earth! What an extraordinary place.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Adventures with Ideas... on Facebook

Archives

Categories

Constitutional Recognition

Rights of Indigenous Peoples: A Personal Statement

As a "non-indigenous" Australian living on what was once the land of the Cadigal and Wangal Wangal communities, I wish to acknowledge the inter-generational responsibility that I feel toward the colonial past. As a beneficiary of "White Australia", to the Eora people of Sydney, I request your forgiveness. I stand in solidarity with your rightful demands to self determination and active participation in governmental decisions, and I hope I may learn from your eco-spiritual connection. May we, as Tom Trevorrow of the Ngarrindjeri puts it, learn to 'respect, care and share' the gifts that our planet offers us.

Donation