Queen of Cashmere Daybook

I’m a city gal born and raised.  Although I love Chicago, the city in winter is a harsh picture rendered in salty black-and-white.  It grinds on even the hardiest of souls.  Around this time of year, I long for a getaway  as far  from the big city as I can get.

Right on cue, three years ago at the end of January, I decided to bolt.  Craving an experience that would be life altering, therapeutic and authentic, I found myself an ayurvedic clinic on a hilltop in Tamil Nadu.  Yes, India.  I wired almost $4000 to a retreat that I hoped would really be there when I got to the end of the road.  My husband, always the skeptic, was aghast. 

One week after I had found the retreat online, and two days after I kissed my family goodbye at O’Hare,  I climbed out of a 4×4 in the middle of the a chilly, starry Indian night.  My leap of faith began to pay off in spades.

The retreat, set in the middle of the rolling  tea plantations of Coonoor, was made up of round buildings.  This architecture corrals the positive energy and keeps in within the retreat.  Looking down the path from the yoga studio toward the center of the retreat you can see the tea bushes that paved almost every hillside for miles.  Let me say now that this was not a a five star, western-style spa.  Far from it.  Thankfully.

We were awakened every morning at 6 am for our ayurvedic tonics and the first of our three daily yoga classes began thirty minutes later.  Sun salutations were begun just as birdsong announced the sunrise over the mountains.  The retreat is perched on a mountainside 6,000 ft above sea level so mornings were cold and the yoga studio was heated by 2 wood-burning fireplaces.

The kitchen was completely vegetarian.  We all gathered in the garden for breakfast which was my favorite meal – the organic fruit came from the retreat’s farm and was accented by healing coconut chutney.  I’ve dined in some of the finest restaurants in the world but nothing tops the memories of this.  I also lost 20 lbs in a month!

Neela, Vimli and Lali administered my treatments.   Billed as healing “massage” (oft times that was a misnomer) the treatments involved a lot of oil while being laid out on the teak table called a droni and abandoning your modesty for a muslin loincloth.  Chanting in Hindi emanated from the box on the wall.  Ohhhmmm, shalla walla, ohhhhmmm.

The steam pump you can see in the lower right hand corner attached to a sweat-box.  Almost comically, you sat in it with your head sticking out while they increased the heat until you couldn’t stand it any longer.  Many times, the best part of the treatments were when they were over! 

During the day, between the yoga the aryurveda treatments, we would hike through the hills, feed the local monkeys the kitchen’s leftovers or read books in the garden.  The month I spent at the retreat was idyllic, mind expanding and life changing.   In a quest for that same sense of peace and well-being, I would go back  in a heartbeat but think that my impulsive journey is beyond replication.  The constraints of my current western life and responsibilities make a return trip but a dream.

Namaste.

Next post:  Small dose.  What to do when a voyage to the other side of the earth isn’t possible.