The Traveling Yogini Chronicles - Vol. 2

Ok…I think I’m ready. I’ve been home from Maui for two weeks, and have been resistant to “get my blog on” since returning to Toronto. I think, in part, I was feeling that in writing about my experience, I’d have to finally accept that it was over - or at least that this chapter has come to a close. So here is the first installment of the Maui files…

I left Toronto on December 2nd and flew to Vancouver, where my wonderful friend Talia and her fellow yogis at Babylon Yoga were waiting with open arms. My first morning in Vancouver, Talia and I went to Mysore practice at Babylon, arriving at the studio at 5:45am - needless to say, I was only there at that hour due to my internal clock being set on EST. Talia is indeed one to admire for her persistent dedication, starting her practice in the dark everyday all winter long, always the first on her mat before others arrive and fill the room around her. There is something magical, however, about practicing at that time of day, waking so early that it feels like an eternity before the sun makes an appearance. Anyone else who knows the feeling of practicing while watching the sky get lighter knows what I’m talking about: that stillness, the quiet, the anticipation for the day ahead.

My practice that morning set the perfect tone for the couple of days I spent in Vancouver, wandering the city and slowly getting acclimatized to a new time zone. Then December 4th arrived - the day I’d been looking forward to since August, when I first booked my trip to Maui. That morning, I found myself sitting at YVR with four others - Talia, her husband, and two other Babylon yoga peeps - who over the following two weeks I would come to think of as my “Maui family”.

After an uneventful flight (my favourite kind!) we arrived in island paradise. We stepped into the open-air airport, where I was hit with that tough to describe feeling you get from breathing in warm, tropical air for the first time, after weeks of nothing but cold, damp weather at home. I felt instantly at ease, relieved to have finally arrived and excited for what the next couple of weeks had in store. Fast forward through baggage, car rentals, a quick Whole Foods stop, and finding our way up Haleakala (Maui’s amazing volcano), and we arrived at the doorstep of our accommodation at The Grand Villa, overlooking the rest of the island. Our vacation home left nothing to be desired - if you or someone you know is traveling to Maui in the future, I highly recommend it. Amazing views, room to house at least 6 guests comfortably, a fully stocked kitchen…and best of all - only 15 minutes to The House of Yoga and Zen…a modest shala owned and operated by Nancy Gilgoff, nestled away between the towns of Makawao and Haiku on an organic tomato farm.

Practicing with Nancy was by all means everything I’d been told it would be - inspiring, different, informative and enlightening. I’ll go into more detail on this in my next post, as I’m still marinating in everything I was exposed to under Nancy’s guidance, and how what I learned there compares to how I’ve practiced and taught in the past. For now, I’ll say that there is no better way to start the day than in a room of diverse yoga practitioners - some of whom have been practicing between those four walls for decades - focused on breathing and moving through the traditional Ashtanga sequences.

Regardless of the series one practiced, from start to finish nobody was in the shala any longer than two hours. Most mornings, we were finished in an hour and half - sometimes less on led class days - and we would drive home feeling totally yoga-satisfied and sated for breakfast. After what typically amounted to an epic morning meal, we’d be off to the beach until our house in the clouds called us home for evening cocktails and a dip in the hot tub. Just writing this makes me wonder if those days were figments of my imagination - they sound too good to be true!

Our schedule became routine: yoga practice, breakfast, beach, dinner, sleep. Repeat. Perhaps this pattern of blissful indulgence would become tiresome if carried on for longer, but our threshold for hedonism had yet to be reached by the time two weeks was up. But reality came calling, and I returned home to holiday shopping and the rude awakening that my real home is in fact quite far from any ocean. After two weeks of settling back in to regular life, those days on Maui are feeling more and more distant. But I’m hoping that in sharing my experience you’ll be tempted to take your own adventure.

There’s always a reason NOT to go somewhere - it’s too expensive, there’s too much work to do at home, the fear of unknown is too great to take the risk - we’ve all reasoned our way out of new experiences before. Yet when I was sitting in the departures lounge in Maui, I had no regrets. I watched with envy as all the Canadians arrived off the plane we would take back to Vancouver, who were only just beginning the trip that was likely going to be the highlight of their winter, maybe ever their year. So don’t let yourself get too comfortable here in the bustling bubble we call home - get out there and do something that you’ll want to write about too.