Bearing Witness

"To show,  by your very existence, the Truth of a thing." Thank you Neil Kramer (Initiation to a Mystical Life on Gaia.com) for this life affirming piece of wisdom.

With thanks to all the teachers I've had the great good fortune to have had. May you all be liberated. 

Raj and Clare's Homestay

Dear Friends and Family,

After quite a long break, I would like to share with you the latest developments, in my creation of a 'Place to Meditate':

It's been interesting for me to re-visit some of the writing I did about the project and it's hard to believe that more than 4 years have passed since I wrote about my ideas to make a home and garden, based on permaculture design principles that welcomes a family of travellers, seekers and those in need of a refuge.




http://claresadventuresinyogaland.blogspot.in/2011/09/theres-new-world-coming.html
http://claresadventuresinyogaland.blogspot.in/2012/08/a-place-to-meditate-part-two_16.html
http://claresadventuresinyogaland.blogspot.in/2013/11/a-place-to-meditate.html

Since 2013, when I last wrote about the project, I have taken another yoga teacher training course at Yasodhara Ashram in British Columbia. I've taught yoga in Swaziland, Spain (on the Camino de Santiago) and here in India, building up my experience of working with individuals and small groups. And I've haphazardly attempted to continue my two main areas of study: 30 book reports (I've only got 8 left now) on a selection of yoga texts which is a requirement for my continued studies in Hidden Language Hatha Yoga, Dream Yoga and Kundalini Yoga. These are areas that were adapted and developed by the founder of the ashram, Swami Radha, and they are quite unusual topics in modern yoga, which has a great emphasis on the physical. (check out the ashram website in the side menu). The second thing I've been trying to maintain some continuity with, despite moving around as much as ever, is the Diploma in Permaculture which is definitely on the back burner until I have a place of my own.

Which brings me to the latest plans. Having reached another dead end in my search for the right place to start, after quite a lot of travelling in France and Spain, I decided to take a break in 2016 and headed back to India, to apply myself to some yoga self-study and to dance and party- for the first time inviting fun purposefully into my life. So I chose Goa, having avoided it for years, hoping to find somewhere easy, social and stimulating.


After a month of serious yoga and singing training, when I began to feel very lonely and a bit miserable, Raj and I met, outside his shop and very quickly fell in love . We were both spending 'the season' (the time when tourism is busiest) in Arambol, which is one of the northern most beaches before you cross into the state of Maharastra, capital Bombay. Arambol is still suitably hippy to attract my prolonged attention; I came here for ashtanga vinyasa yoga with Balu but since then I've seen workshops for everything, from permaculture to contact improvisation, past life regression to Tibetan massage.

It's not by any means all clean-living here either: Goa was once the mecca for full moon parties and acid-taking seekers and, despite a nationwide attempt to clean up tourism in India, which means discouraging those without money, Arambol still has the essence of that freedom of thought and action that attracts a wide range of peoples; a very cosmopolitan crowd of partiers, musicians, artists and wasters from Russia, Nigeria, Israel, Europe, North America principally but to name a few.

Raj has worked the season in Goa for the past 5 years and successfully ran his shop, making a good profit that could support him and his family back home in Srinagar, Kashmir. Sadly the climate for certain types of business has changed and shopkeepers all over India are struggling to make ends meet as foreign tourists, particularly Russians and Europeans, have a much smaller budget than in the past. These days tourists are looking for accommodation and food and less and less have cash for gifts, jewellery or luxury items such as those Raj stocks.

This season Raj and I rented a 2 bedroom apartment with a shared garden and set about setting it up as our first homestay. Due to one thing and another, we've had only 5 guests this season, but this  has been enough for us to see how we work together and if running a homestay or guesthouse would suit us. Feedback we've had from our guests and friends has been extremely positive and people really appreciate the love and family feeling Raj and I create together in our home.

So we plan next season to have a guesthouse, here in Arambol, north Goa. We'd like to run it on a small scale (max 10 guests), as a homestay, with breakfast, 1/2 shared evening meals a week and yoga classes. We'd like to have good connections with a local ayurvedic practitioner and masseur who can visit guests at home. I would also like to offer picnics and local trips including introducing guests the joys of sea-swimming and body-surfing!

During the monsoon (May- September) Raj and I will be in Kashmir where Raj's family has a bathing boat (the Honolulu) for water-skiing and other water sports on Dal Lake. We'd also like to guide visitors coming to Srinagar and trekking in the wonderful countryside and mountains here.

Not only is Kashmir one of the loveliest parts of the Himalayan range, it is still one of the less visited and therefore unspoiled parts of India. Often called 'Jannat' or Heaven, the romance of the lake and the lush countryside, with its horses, gypsy people and flora and fauna is unique in my experience. And the welcome and friendliness of the family and Kashmiri people in general make you feel like one of the family in no time.

In the winter skiing and snowboarding are popular and the snow is much more reliable than in Europe these days. In addition the cost of a skiing holiday here, is a fraction of the price of most other places. It just takes a little bravery and faith to use the lift at Gulmarg! It's all part of the adventure.

Raj and Clare's Homestay

Hi everyone!

Wow I can't believe it's been so long since my last post! 18 months at least! Looking back on some of my blog posts over the past 6-7 years or so, I'm so glad I have persevered in following my dream, even when it's felt that it's carried me to all manner of places in the world (from Swaziland and Brighton to Catalunya and British Columbia and many trips to India in between) without offering up somewhere called home where I felt I could start the 'Place to Meditate'.

Finally when I gave up looking, I found Arambol. Much like Brighton with its big open heart, full of esoteric workshops and people who talk about permaculture, and decorated in many of the sub-tropical flora that feels so familiar to me from my childhood in Zambia and Zimbabwe (hibiscus and bougainvillea, frangipani, plumbago and morning glory). People call Goa 'India Light'. I'll take it: There's just enough chaos and heat (from May onwards that's anything but light!) and the ocean is perfect until the monsoon season.  

I also met Raj and we are happy together, planning to run a guesthouse on the outskirts of Arambol from next season. The search for a place and the negotiations have taken us the best part of 6 months. We've made a spoken agreement to rent a 7 bedroom place which we hope to call Raj and Clare's Homestay. I plan to make it the subject of my Permaculture Diploma Portfolio for which I still need to produce 8 designs. As I progress with these, I hope to share my processes and designs with people coming to our place. 

We have a small garden and a restaurant (which we hope to sublet to a chef who wishes to spend a season or more with us, offering a menu of something a little different). We also have space for a yoga and meditation room, where I would like to display art by local artists. If you know anyone who might be interested, pass on my details. I'm also looking for volunteers who'd like to work with me on implementing some of my designs in the garden/ space.

The next few months, I'll be completing the next part of my yoga teacher training, learning how to market our place and our brand and researching treks and activities in Kashmir, where Raj and I will also lead trips and host visitors during the summer (June to September).