Travel is a part of my life as well. I travel to know myself better, to stay in touch with people, to enjoy life, to experience life. For me, traveling makes the world a better place. I meet people who make far away places real. The world becomes less one of walls and boundaries and more one of bridges and alliances. I think travel engenders peace in the world. Too, I get to see some really cool places and enjoy very fun times.

Sometimes my love for yoga and desire to travel seem to conflict. Travel shakes things up. I don’t always have all my stuff. I am sleeping on a friends couch or at parties most of the night and waking at 4 am to catch a flight or a bus or a ride. Hard to say if that hour of sleep isn’t better than an hour of weary yoga. Yoga seems to merit a calmer lifestyle. But I have found that yoga and travel actually compliment each other. The two help us know ourselves better as we answer those questions. What is better for you on this particular day? Yoga or another hour of sleep.

So I combine my two loves and they compliment each other nicely. There is some guidance that lets this happen and I will share that with you.  A sort of lay person’s guide to travel and yoga, shortened edited version.

First, make a commitment to “go with the flow”. That means that you try to practice while you travel but if it doesn’t happen, you practice loving kindness. You don’t beat yourself up. You don’t obsess. You enjoy whatever that day has to bring. You breathe deeply and let go of the need to control and perhaps you pop into tree pose while waiting for a friend or you roll your shoulders back and pull your navel towards your spine while sitting in the car. Maybe you move your eyes to the right and left and then up and down while in the ladies room at that fancy restaurant or that not so fancy taco stand. You allow yourself to experience the day and if you missed your formal practice, you incorporate a less formal one into your day as you let it go.

Second, develop a personal practice that is portable and manipulable. That means that you know it or you can carry it with you on a sheet or in a book. And you can pull sections out or add them depending on how much time you have. So you had coffee in bed with your mother or your lover and you only have 30 minutes before you leave. Take out the balances, leave in sun salutations, headstand, hips and abs and 5 minutes for shivasana and be grateful for your mother or your lover with that final “om”.

Third, seek out studios wherever you go. Explore, experiment, find new teachers, new influence and enjoy what makes each studio unique. Invite your travel partners or family to practice with you or revel in the break from both as you find a peaceful place to call your own.

Forth, keep it small. Practice in the space you have, in the time you have. That means between the beds in the Holiday Inn or in the space behind the sofa at your best friends house. It also means on that balcony at your friends villa on the south of France, if you are so lucky.  There is enough space to call your own no matter where you are. Be flexible in your body, in your mind and in your needs so that yoga and travel can be your two best loves.

And as you travel and share your yoga and flexibility with the world, you can be that certain extra call for peace and sanity that changes everything in whatever part of the universe you find yourself.

Oh and I nearly forgot, fifth, travel to a place just to practice. Come to a yoga retreat here with me in Tulum, Mexico.

But there is a ying and a yang to everything, no?  Two sides to every story.  Or like in my yoga practice, one open hip and one more closed.  So, as bad as Amador was, he did somethings right.  For example, one night when I had family visiting and he was still stalking me, he came to my house at 3 a.m. with a not even month old puppy in his arms.  ”Amor, I save this baby for you”, he said with his eyes red from drink and drug and a smile on his face that melted my resolve to turn him away every single time.  Then he put the puppy in my arms saying, “You take him for me today?” and as he opened the door to leave, “I be back tomorrow.  You the best.  I never gonna leave you.”  And then he did, thank God.  He walked out the door and left me with this adorable, blond baby mutt.  I held the dog in my arms and then looked out after him but he had disappeared.  I may have said, “But”, but I don’t think so.  

I went to the fridge (I had a fridge back then) grabbed the milk and poured a glass for me and a bowl for my new friend.  My dog Lakra, most wonderful dog ever, by the way, drifted into the kitchen and looked at me and then the new puppy and then back at me, skeptically.  I poured her some milk as well and sat down on the floor with my two new dogs.  ”What will I do with this?”  I asked myself.  After a moment, I stood up, grabbed the empty cooler from the porch, put a blanket into it and then put the puppy inside.  I called to Lakra, who was more and more curious, and we went back to bed.

I woke the next morning wondering if it had been a dream.  But when I walked into the kitchen and heard a wimper, I knew it had not been.  I looked into the cooler and had to smile.  Lakra came to my side and looked in too.  I don’t think she smiled but she didn’t seem too annoyed.  I patted the sweet dogs head and shook mine.  Again, I asked myself, “what will I do with this?”  Just as I did my cousin came into the kitchen.  ”What ‘cha got there?” she asked as she looked over my shoulder.  ”How adorable!” she shrieked when she saw him.  ”Where did he come from?”  I responded, “Amador”.  ”Oh no.” she said, “when was he here?”  And I told her the drop in/drop dog story.  She laughed and said, “So like that train wreck.  He brings things he saves for you to save.”  And then, because my cousin is from California and should be a therapist, we broke into a litany of codependant themes and how abusive the whole thing was.  Then I said, “shall we go look for a home for him?”  ”Let’s just go to the beach”, my cousin said.  ”And”, she continued enthusiastically, “Lets take the dogs!”

What remained was peace, the sound of the wind and the waves on the shore and deep desire to share that sensation.

“What is it?” I asked the manager at Maya Tulum.

“I am not really sure.  But this is your opportunity to find out.”

“I will let you know, ok?”  I assured her. I got on my pink bike and rode home thinking, “NAAM Yoga, why not?” one minute and then “NAAM Yoga, another fad that I don’t really have time for” the next.

Having just installed internet at my house I happily googled NAAM yoga.

Naam Yoga ^TM is a style of yoga developed by world renowned yogi, mystic and universal kabbalah master, Dr. Joseph Michael Levry (Gurunam) that incorporates the practice of the Divine Word (Naam) with yogic movement, stretching postures, breathing, mudras, and meditation.  It is a spiritual science and art that merges Eastern Yogic practices with the practical esoteric teachings of Universal Kabbalah. The philosophy within Naam Yoga ^TM is aimed at revealing the hidden truths of various spiritual traditions and mystery systems so that humankind may draw from both Eastern and Western practices to ultimately conceive the true nature of the Divine.

Naam Yoga ^TM was first taught at Universal Force Healing Center in New York City but is now being taught all over the world.  Naam (Sanskrit) means “word” or “name”, specifically “the name of God”. The holy scripture of Sikhism, the Guru Granth Sahib, stresses the importance of meditation upon various names of God (also known as mantras) so as to vibrate in unison with Universal Harmony. Naam Yoga ^TM asserts that through the simple practice of working with the word, personal and universal healing can take place.

I don’t know too much about Michael Levry and a when I see the words, “world renowned” and “mystic” in the same sentence I tend to back off. But, I would consider it, try to keep an open mind and see what Wednesday brought in terms of commitments.

Wednesday brought nothing so at 6 p.m. I went to see what NAAM yoga was all about.  I snuck in the back as the participants were already dancing and chanting.  I took a deep breath, not feeling comfortable backing out now that I had entered, grabbed a mat and a blanket and joined them in moving my hands side to side and stepping one foot in front of the other while repeating some words I did not understand.  I hate saying things when I am not too sure what they mean but I smiled in resignation and let myself open to the experience.  “Just an hour an a half”, I told myself as I prayed I was not calling the devil.

I remained skeptical through the class but enjoyed it.  It was fun, if not profound.  And then we entered shavasana, the moment I had been waiting for since it signaled the end.  On my back with my palms facing up, I listened to the chanting on the cd.  A warmth entered my body.  I relaxed as I continued to listen to what gave me a comfort that I believe was bliss.  I felt light enough to fly.  We moved to seated and completed another breathing meditation, this time to the same words that the music had been playing. It was so beautiful I wanted to cry.

I hugged the instructor when we finished and she gave me the mantra on a card as I floated out of the room.  The mantra is called the “Mantra of Light”:

Love before me, Love behind me, Love to my left, Love to my right, Love above me, Love below me, Love in me, Love in me eternally, Love to everyone, Love to the universe.

Peace before me, Peace behind me, Peace to my left, Peace to my right, Peace above me, Peace below me, Peace in me, Peace in me eternally, Peace to everyone, Peace to the universe.

Light before me, Light behind me, Light to my left, Light to my right, Light above me, Light below me, Light in me, Light in me eternally, Light to everyone, Light to the universe.

I chanted the words on my bike home in the dark and then again this morning as I lay in shavasana.  And it gave me the same feeling.  I felt peace and a security that warmed my soul.  So I thought I should share it.  I may not practice NAAM yoga every day, probably not even every month.  But the mantra I may use more than once a day.

The slap of a wave on my leg brings me back from my day dream and I look for my dogs who are playing in the sand in front of me. I know where my dogs walk but other beach dogs, hungry for whatever they can find, often attack the turtles or their eggs. The coastal birds in the same hungry circumstance and other nocturnal animals like raccoons and foxes searching for sustenance can do the same. In the wild there is no discrimination regarding endangered species.

And it is still wild here in Tulum, Mexico, despite the solar panels and windmills and elegant bars and restaurants lining the beach. There is the savage, untamed side of Tulum. Summer is the time to find it. The beach is nearly empty by day and by night, if you walk towards the biosphere, you can witness the elegance and near cruelty of nature as some turtles find their way while others turn back discouraged by noise or light or attacks from other animals. And within the miracle of the turtles journey and birth is a magnificence rivaled only by the natural wildness of the place itself: Tulum, Mexico in summer.

Find your yoga, your bliss, in Tulum, Mexico.

But when I need someone to listen, I go to her and walking on the beach she takes whatever burden, whatever mystery, whatever illusions or questions I have.  She doesn’t give me answers, she lets me figure those out.  Generally, I knew the answer anyway. But against the back drop of her charming white curls, I can hear my inner voice speaking.  It is magic that she allows me to perform.

My worker brought them to me.  ”Conejos” is the Spanish word for rabbit.  I wasn’t listening too clearly or I heard what I wanted to hear when he asked me about them.  I thought he wanted to bring me some chickens, “galenas”.  So when he interrupted my yoga practice one morning with a closed box, I was excited.  Finally, I would have my chickens, fresh eggs every day.  But he opened the box to show me 2 rabbits.  I smiled.  They were cute I had to admit.

“What will we do with rabbits?” I asked him.

He just laughed, as if everyone knew what to do with rabbits.  And the next day he brought two more.  I enrolled for a Spanish tutorial that afternoon. But I still had four rabbits.

Carlos built a make-shift cage in the make shift place he pieced together for himself out back.  Mosquito netting, stray pieces of wood I had been saving for art projects, the odd window frame that had not yet been placed together.  All my someday treasures were put into action to keep the bunnies in line.  My dogs were crazy for them, always crying at Carlos’ door to get in. When the rabbits would escape the dogs would go wild.  They needed more exercize, I told myself.  And the bunnies were fast.  And my dogs are fat-ish, and not so fast.

So we all started living together.  And I started to like it and to love the bunnies.  I would feed them carrots and beets.  I started to put little water dishes everywhere for them so they could drink when they escaped, which was often.  Actually, they broke out every day.  I checked the cage one afternoon.  They would eat through steel practically to get out.  So I let them live outside.

My yard is fenced and the dogs never seemed to catch them.  I liked waking up to bunnies in my yard and Carlos would feed them and clean up after them, marginally.  Their poo is good fertilizer.  They played with the cat and the dogs calmed down around them.  And of course they gave me the odd show of their reproductive skills.  ”There are going to be more rabbits, you know.”  My tenant Linda told me one morning as she held a carrot out to the white bunny with the pink eyes and he trotted up to her to nibble it.  ”Think so?” I asked, never having been too good with reproductive issues or anatomical issues at all.  ”Oh yeah”, she said with confidence.

Then Carlos quit, just like that. One weekend he asked me to feed the rabbits so he could visit his mom.  ”Of course”, I told him.  So on Friday he left and he never returned.  I called him several times looking for their food.  He never answered.  I called Carlos’ sister to see what was happening with him.

“Would he be back?”

“No”, she told me.

“And his rabbits?”  Silence on the line.

I started buying lots of carrots.  I also tried lettuce.  They loved it.  And I did try cabbage, but they never ate it.  It would turn brown and get old there in their dish.  Then I gave them bread. They seemed to like that as well.  But so did the dogs.  I hand fed it to the rabbits. “Try cheerios” one of my yoga clients told me.  I couldn’t find Cheerios but I tried granola and they loved it.  They started to eat my plants as well.  And suddenly, the dogs started to chase them again.  We had these races around the yard that inevitably ended under the house with dogs crying and me shouting and every so often the cat would start to cry as well.  It was becoming too much.   But, they were mine now and I liked them and I adjusted my life to make them comfortable.  I met more people in the vegetable line.  The check-out woman started to notice that I was buying a kilo of carrots every other day.  Four rabbits eat alot.

Then one afternoon I came back from my yoga class to find the dogs exhausted. As I patted my yellow lab and looked next to her, I found the white rabbit.  He was dead and his head had been torn off.  It was a bloody mess just a meter away from her.  It was horrible.  I vomited over by the trash, scolded my dog and wrapped it in a cloth to get it away from her.  Linda and I buried it and lit a candle and some copal for it.  I cried and couldn’t talk to the dogs.

The next day one of my workers found the brown one’s body, “totally eaten” out behind the house.  The other two have disappeared.  I don’t really need to find them.  It seemed something had found my rabbits. “It was inevitable”, a friend told me.  ”You live in the jungle, for God’s sake.  You can’t just have rabbits running free.”

Well they weren’t exactly free.  I had a fence.  And I had four rabbits, “cuatro conejos”. And in case you ever get some, Mexican rabbits don’t like cabbage and they don’t always reproduce exponentially.

We started at about 10 in his van.  There were no seats in the back, so I sat on two sleeping bags and just peeked out the window as I sat on the floor.  I felt like a kid. Actually more like a teenager when I think about how we packed two coolers for the trip – one full of beers and the other full of ‘healthy snacks’.  That is my friend Antonio’s specialty.  He does kayaking tours and always brings food he calls, “healthy snacks”.

It was Sunday morning and early for all 5 of us.  Yet, early or not, I love driving out of Tulum.  Somehow it seems like an adventure.  I am not sure if it is the way the jungle opens up just a few kilometers from San Francisco Supermarket or if it is the impromptu police checkpoints along the route where the officers decide whether or not to search your car based on how you look and whether or not they feel like it in any given moment.  Regardless, for me there is always a mild adrenalin rush as I leave my ‘pueblo pequeno’.

After we passed the town of Coba, home to another great archaeological site, the landscape changed.  The jungle forest became more cultivated.  We passed fields where they were burning the remnants of last year’s crops, the black smoke rising into the clear blue sky.  Roads veered off the highway in what seemed like an endless line, stretching miles to nowhere.  I gazed down those roads as we drove by and wondered what could be at the end. No doubt some wild west rancho, at least in my imagination.  But we didn’t investigate the back roads. We were actually on a back road even if we had a direction and purpose.  Ek Balam is definitely off the beaten track.

So we continued to the village of Tizimin.  I love that name. But it gives you the impression that there is more to the town than there really is.  It is a small pueblo full of little shops selling whatever they can, many nearly nothing.  We passed through happily without stopping and arrived at Ek Balam less than half an hour later.

As you enter, you feel the weight of the place.  It is heavy.  Or perhaps it was just the day but, as I entered, I started to slow my pace and my gaze was drawn to things around me, like the trees and the birds and the incredible buildings that line the way to the pyramids.  It helped that Antonio kept reminding me to look and that each question I had, Octovio could answer, but it was a different rhythm.  “Chichenitza is a masculine place’, Octavio reminded us, “and Tulum is feminine.  But Ek Balam is both. It is a balanced place.”

I could feel it.  I didn’t feel pulled in either direction.  I just felt a call to investigate the site and to listen to my inner voice.  We climbed one pyramid in serpentine fashion and blew into the conch shell that Octavio carried with him.  “To honor the deities here”, he explained.  Then we lit copal to make an offering to the essence of the place.  I felt grounded as I looked out over the surrounding acres of forest.  From the top, we could see the outline of the ancient village Ek Balam and as we descended we scattered each walking to the place that called us distinctly.  Then about half an hour later, as if on cue, we regrouped to climb the large pyramid.  I was afraid.  The steps are narrow and it is nearly 30 meters high.  I don’t like heights that much but I was determined not to be left behind.  So I led.

There is a monument about half way up where we stopped and looked at carvings dating before Christ.  The age of the whole place baffles me still.  The middle part where we rested, and I hoped we would stop, was a place for their dead and there were huge faces representing death carved into the walls.  There were also guardians carved all around the enormous square.  The two at the upper right as you face the monument have wings, calling to mind angels, not common in Mayan culture.  I was very happy to see them, especially since the group wandered up the rest of the stairs to the top of the large pyramid.  I forced myself to join them.  Again, walking in serpentine fashion, I willed myself up without looking either up or down, just at each step in front of me, while praying to those angels of death to take someone else.  It was the yoga of walking, very much in that moment.  And when I got to the top, I was in another world.  But I still couldn’t look down.  I didn’t need to.  From the top you can see nearly back to Tulum.  There was only green and the occasional spiral of smoke from a fire the farmers set to their fields.  I could trace our way back.  And of course, I could look across the city of Ek Balam again, this time from another perspective.  I imagined the place full of colorful people, each person doing his or her thing. Imagined the rituals and the daily life of people there.  It was tranquil.

Suddenly, I wanted to go down.  So I descended first, moving step by step in serpentine formation, again something about the sacred serpent and the fact that the stairs are thin, forcing you to walk that way.  I rested halfway.  Just to control my fear, not because I was tired.

Once down, I wandered into some of the open tombs at the base of this the large pyramid and rested in the shade.  It was hot.  Yet the tombs were cool and the stone was comforting, grounding.  I left as I got the eerie feeling that they were pulling me in, somehow and escaped to meet the rest of my group nearly at ground level and we gently wandered back to visit the cenote that is close by.  First we stopped for coconut water, cool and fresh.  A man in the parking lot cuts the cocos with a machete and then hollows out the meat for you and serves it with chile.  It is actually quite delicious.  These coconuts are different from the ones we have in Tulum.  They are greener, the water a little sweeter and the meet softer and less dry.

After that “healthy snack”, we had energy to visit the cenote.  We rode bikes, with Alejandro carrying the cooler full of beers (and a little tequila, I forgot to add) down a trail that was not well groomed at all.  After we dismounted the bikes, we climbed down layers of not so well made stairs and over a walkway that was reminiscent of something from one of those fantasy action flicks like my personal favorite, the “Mummy”.  This cenote was deep into the jungle and not horizontally.  It was a vertical drop into mother earth.  To enter, you jump.

Octavio took the rope that was hanging in front of a slight overhang in his hands and ran and then let go.  He yelled as he plummeted at least 8 meters into the water below.  Antonio followed and Alex waited to help Jennifer and me.  I took the rope in my hand and reminded myself to repel far enough over the cenote to drop into it.  My heart was beating fast.  I was afraid again.  But I  closed my eyes, moved back two steps and ran forward three and then let go of the rope to plunge into the cool, clear water.  I landed right on my butt and it hurt.  I knew my ass would be black and blue the next morning.  No worries.  As I surfaced, I smiled, looked up at Alex and Jennifer and waved.  “Lastime mis nalgas pero, bien”.  I meant to tell them I hurt my butt but was o.k.  They smiled so I think they understood.  Jennifer jumped with the same hesitation I had and then Alex followed with a shout.  I let the echoes of their happy cries rest in my head and floated.  I was cool, I was balanced.  I was at Ek Balam.

It was true.  Of the three years I had been teaching at what was not too many years ago an out right Ashram, I could easily count the number of times I had some power yogis.  Mostly, my students were more serious about their basic practice.  They were learning meditation and breath work.  Many were new to yoga and I took great pleasure in introducing them to a practice that I hoped would stay with them.

“Let me know how it goes”, was the manager’s response.

That first day I was excited and, to be honest, curious about who the title would attract.  I imagined a group of “power” people, ones who would jump from crow into plank and come through their sequences lightly, ready for the next.  I planned the class with series upon series of movement to the rhythm of the breath.  We would dance through our practice.

Then, as I prepared, insecurity crept in. “What if they are not even challenged by the class?  What if I have been practicing in Tulum for too long with the same teachers and students.” Sometimes I felt stale.  I attributed it to not venturing out from Tulum often.  Why leave paradise, right? Twice a year, sometimes more often, I go to Boston or New York and practice at studios there but I rarely go to classes in Playa del Carmen or Cancun or other people’s classes in my own little pueblo.  I hadn’t been to India for more than 15 years and I try not to pay attention to the “yoga rock stars” that grace the headlines in Yoga Journal and who come to Maya Tulum with their groups.

I had come to yoga to avoid these things:  the push, the competition, the desire to do more than perhaps what your body should do.  I prefer to stay mostly in my own yoga world with my books and video’s and favorite teachers.  I motivate myself and try to listen to my body and hope to motivate a few other people to do the same.

Planning that class, my mind started to run. I changed my plan to include more challenging series so everyone knew it was a power class.  To some degree, I also wanted to be certain everyone knew I was powerful.  Then, in one moment of sanity, I observed myself and stopped, inhaled and exhaled deeply and let the voice of my guru enter my mind: “the most powerful thing anyone can do is breathe”.

So true.  I felt tension leave my body as I remembered that simple fact: finding the breath is our power regardless of our physical ability.  I let go of the class redesign and stayed with my original outline.  Reminding myself to be motivated by who came to the practice, I took a deep breath and felt the power.

Now at each power class, I share that message with the practitioners:  without the breath there is no yoga; without the breath there is no power; without the breath there is nothing.  I begin the class as always, reminding people to check in with your breath, appreciate it and enjoy it.  And like on that first day, each day we have a “power class” I remind them that wherever they are in their physical practice,  the breath is your “power”. So, breathe.