Memoir Excerpt #2

background, country-crossin', park sleepin'

From there, from my comfortable, pleasure-filled, academically heady upbringing in northern New Jersey (heady, save for practicing Tae Kwon Do for a number of years as a youngster, something I am oh so glad I did), I began college somewhat halfheartedly, and, feeling fairly done with academia (though this did not translate into being a slouch of a student, by any means, just disillusioned, ‘over it’), and feeling like I’d worked my way through and wore out ‘continental’ or European philosophy, the philosophical traditions of the West, I turned my body and mind to meditation and yoga. They quickly became what I would call, and so strongly felt were, the ‘realest’ seeming part of my day, a day otherwise spent talking, thinking, and writing about things, where here I was just getting more and more interested in my own direct experience. So, as my yoga and meditation practices continued, I naturally became more interested in places for their study, exploration, instruction and advancement. I rejoiced in the serenity of the Wallkill River valley and the forested Shawangunk mountains nearby, biking into them when I had time, finding what I would call ‘power spots’ and meditating in them. And eventually I started to look up places of explicit instruction: monasteries, and for yoga in particular, places called ashrams. I became, strongly and rapidly, more interested in these places than in the lecture halls of the academic experience my family was funding, what my ‘job’ was, at the time: a student in pursuit of a bachelor’s degree. Instead, and with my family’s concerned yet ultimately graceful and loving acceptance, I gave up on that bachelor’s degree three semesters in and went to live at the nearby Sivananda Yoga Ranch, a remote ashram yogic retreat center a couple valleys west, in Sullivan County, NY.

I lived there, working as staff for my room, board, and sundries, for most of 2012-14. I did go home for the holidays, Thanksgiving, birthdays and other family get togethers. I also took trips to other monasteries and ashrams to compare and contrast, see what different traditions and lineages had to offer. Though I was foremost committed to staffing the Yoga Ranch and continuing my spiritual practice there - which started with meditation but became so much more as I lived and learned there, including breathing exercises, traditional Hindu worship like puja and arati, chanting devotional hymns or kirtan as it was called, and doing for the first time what would became my forte for years: landscaping and gardening - my staying there was also fluid and open. Despite some family members’ concerns, I had not joined a cult that sought to entrap me. The ashram and its parent organization at large (The International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centers) are, blessedly, a well-intentioned and pure-hearted yoga tradition. They are a force for good.

Also while there, in the summer of ‘12, I had the massively important experience of participating in a permaculture design course. If you’ve never heard of permaculture, it is, in short, an all-encompassing land-stewardship philosophy that seeks to embrace a piece of land’s unique features and micro-climate in order to create a ‘culture of permanence’, a way of thinking antithetical to the ecosystem decimating mono-crop agriculture that’s fed the world by and large since WWII…fed the world as it’s stripped its topsoil, poisoned its water systems, and ravaged plant and animal biodiversity.