Kerala calling

In exactly 2 weeks I SHOULD be on a plane to India. Thursday the 1st of September. Can’t quite believe it… I’ve not received my passport yet, so I’m still waiting for that to be my ‘ticket to freedom’…

At times I‘m almost afraid to NOT focus on India, because I feel something might come along to disrupt my intentions and it won’t happen. I know it’s because nothing feels to have been secured in reality yet… like the visa. As well it’s because things have happened so fast and it’s all ‘last minute’… And I have to keep believing and being patient; if now is my time to return, then it’s going to happen.

So, what are my ‘plans’ for when I do finally get there? It’s to first go to an ashram for a month. I need to refuel, to chill-out and to do as much as possible that involves doing as little as possible… apart from yoga and writing…  I’ve nearly got my heart set on a particular place, just in contact with them at the moment and checking out availability and train tickets for when I get to Mumbai so I can travel down south.

Of course I’ve been thinking about whether or not to continue teaching once I’m feeling grounded again. And, I already know, that yes I do want to teach. For some reason I want to be with these kids. I don’t know who I’m referring to, when I say ‘these’… but that doesn’t matter… Kids are kids everywhere in the world and I want to be around them…

3 weeks ago when I first realized I needed to move onwards to India, there was one person who came to mind. I hadn’t thought about him for months. It was the chairman of the Art of Living association. This is the association I worked for, when I first started teaching in Kerala (the southern state in India) and he was the one who gave me the job. That particular teaching experience, which only lasted 5 short weeks, was the one I’ve wanted to go back to, ever since leaving. It’s the experience I’ve compared THIS current teaching job to, as well as the second teaching job I had in Kerala (which was the boarding school called Ebenezer). Even when I was back in Ireland writing my book, the chairman would ring my mams house in ARKLOW to see if I wanted to come back to India to teach for his schools again. This I always felt to be the strangest thing… Because my time in India felt, and still often feels, to have been a dream, but home, in Arklow, is…. reality… and for him to call from a place, that I never classed as being apart of the ‘normal’ world, was many many things that I can’t put into words in this blog. Anyhow, I was always tempted to go back. I actually knew I would teach for him again. But then the China opportunity came along, and I jumped at the chance of experiencing something different.

And so, the chairman stopped calling my mams house. He thought I’d not get in touch… Until 3 weeks ago; lying here on my couch in my ‘perfect’ little life, in China, in floods of tears wanting to break free, feeling that my heart was actually departing Jinzhou in that one particular breakdown… and wishing so badly to be free. And who pops into my mind; the chairman. After so long, he was the person I needed to connect with.

And I did. I emailed him within a few days. I set the ball rolling. He replied, delighted to hear from me, stating he had a few positions in Kerala that he needed to fill. And one of them was mine, if I wanted. That’s when the relief came and I couldn’t believe my luck… The world started to feel open again…

Right now, we’re still emailing back and forth, but nothing has been set. I’ve said that if I start work, it won’t be until mid or end of October. Because I need to properly distance myself from China and gear myself up for India, whilst being in the ashram. I figure, as the weeks pass, I’ll know if I’m meant to be teaching for his schools again. Either way, it’s an environment I’ve always wanted to experience again. And if it’s something I simply need to do, then it will happen at some point along the way. If there’s anything I’ve learnt over the past weeks… it’s that, no matter how down I feel in the office environment and how withdrawn and isolated I’ve become, once I step into the class… I’m me again… I’m open, I’m happy, I’m appreciating my job and I’m loving the kids. So it’s something that will travel with me and I know that the opportunities DO stretch beyond every boarder and that they are all only temporary, but all for the purpose of moving me forward… even this current experience is proving to have been for that same purpose…

Movement requires us to be static or stationary in a certain place for a certain length of time, until the time comes to take the actual step.