The Summer Tour
Based in Paris, I have been every week in a different place since May or June -or even longer, can’t really track when it all started… That makes me a semi-nomad, right?
Between festivals, teaching, learning, artistic collaborations, and the constant practice of being where we are, I passed through many emotions. Most of it was Joy and Freedom, Gratitude for what is, but also Loneliness among the crowd, chocolate compulsion and existential questions arising out of the surrounding. Then, it all compensates with moments of entire satiety, thanks to meaningful encounters, instants of bliss with no reason and beautiful landscapes.
Of course and after all, this scheme of fluctuations reflects actually what life is, a rollercoaster. But what is fascinating about those cycles is the aptitude to take a little distance to the emotion, observe the process and grow. This is what Yoga teaches me. Simply observe how I behave towards the situation, how I interact in the moment. And we know ‘nothing is permanent’, neither the euphoria nor the downs. Embracing the feeling with training the capacity of taking distance helps to relativise and suddenly everything can unfold to new heights.
I love wandering in those emotional landscapes, reflect and feel what i can do or actually not to do, not to seek and rather let go in order to find balance.
Nomadism is romantic, exalting and sexy, but requires a serious grounding to compensate the volatility. The circulation of Prana (energy in the subtle layers) at the end determines our state of vitality. Maybe a part of me is tired, but i never feel as good, productive and centred as when I am on the move, creating and feel free..
What makes you feel you are ‘on the right track’?
The Unexpected Burn
The opportunity I dreamt of arose, and I seized my chance. I couldn’t believe I just booked a ticket to fly away thousands of kilometres in the following hours. A jump to the unknown.
I just had the Whatsapp number of my “local contact” and I embarked on the journey, a beating heart full of Trust, eyes full of stardust already, and a smile with no borders.
What in the “defect world” is about ten days, is a captivating vortex multiplying the sensations turning the days in a lifetime experience there, the same feeling I have when I teach retreats- we are here only since 3 days and it feels so smooth that it is like for ever.
I had no expectations, a few friends to meet, a camp to discover (i knew no one there). I swap my flip flops for closed shoes and I could rely on the eco-glitters I always carry in my backpack.
I collaborated on a huge jellyfish art installation by Peter Hazel at the Bloom camp, towards the Playa, thecommon denomination for this mushroom built Black Rock- City in the vaste desert. I worked hard, danced more, did Yoga, taught the Jellyfish Organic Yoga (JOY), met my Destiny and flow in this land where strong ethics and core principles and higher values apply.
I know, it is a controversial event, yet I felt the call. And I had the disposition to make it a bliss milestone of my history. It felt so good to trust so much, that we wouldn’t have to worry about anything, because the feeling that ‘everything is gonna be alright’ wins in this wonder land…
About Cultivating Joy
Extase comes through many ways… In Ancient Greek ecstasy is the culmination of the human possibility, reaching a trancelike experience of the sacred. Christian mystics talk about ‘an ecstatic vision of God’. In current philosophy it usually refers to an “outside-itself” feeling, an expansion of our consciousness to some other states or being, in or out the body.
Can we guess Dali experimented those kind of states, to depict imaginary landscapes out of the limiting beliefs. He conquered his freedom and inspiration somewhere. I love how he illustrated so well unconditional imagination. He is such an inspiration to transcend limitative shapes.
No wonder Ecstasy became a name for a stimulating and psychedelic drug, the methylenedioxymethamphetamine, described as enhancing the sensations, making reality utterly pleasant in a sense of substantial touch, altering the state of mind. Ecstatic also became a trend of dance where the trance resonates sometimes with shamanic beats and the sound journey lift the spirit to those altered states of presence, realising and empowering the dancer to further light (bear feet, you can move freely with no other rule applying than not speaking on the dance floor). As for yoga, the texts talk about the Moksha – ultimate liberation, which is a state of ecstasy, when the material body merges into the essence of the Universe. While the buddhists refer to Nirvana.
We can access through drugs, movement, still meditation or breathing the Ecstasy. Religion, philosophy, arts, dance and yoga somehow can guide towards it (if they do not aim at reaching directly) a higher state of Joy, through devotion or resignation, transcending the state of the human experience. Extase is definitely linked to higher states of personnel research. Somehow to spirituality.