On days when my dreams don’t wake me first, an electronic DING! DING! DING! does the job. I rise without resistance (except for mornings after moonlit canyon walks), swallow a vitamin and pull on my rose linen sweater. It smells of ginger, Palo Santo, Burts Bees bug spray and resurrected love.
I leave my little cabin and step into mom’s black-strap Merrylls, which sit expectantly on the door mat. A stop ‘round back relieves my bladder and offers a chance to admire purple flowers opening under the pink/blue sky.
I shuffle the short journey to our canopy and practice the Tibetan Rights. This series of 5 stretches originates from monks in the hills of Tibet who often live well past 100. The practice – known as “youthing” – is said to stimulate mental, physical and emotional health by activating the 7 key chakras and the body’s endocrine system.
Naomi, the sanctuary’s 83 year-old co-director, completes the prescribed 21 sets each morning. I can barely finish 10. It’s a process, she assures me. Am I humbled? Certainly. But Naomi’s not your typical grandma. Spritely and wise she spends her days with a revolving group of young seekers from around the world.
Fifteen minutes of bridges, bends and leg lifts lend peace to the following hour of meditation. Thoughts still bounce ‘round my brain though – as I move through the 3-tiered process of quieting prescribed by Yogananda: equal count breathing, mantra repetition and ultimately, stillness.
On a good day I leave the temple feeling clumsily light, heart swelling with gratitude and wonder. I notice new details of the garden: the wood grain of a fence, the slight expression of a statue, as if they’ve just emerged.
A walk to our outdoor kitchen, an island amidst flowers, fruit, veggies and herbs yields a fist of fennel, rosemary and mint. A few slices of ginger and a squeeze of lemon complete my concoction. I sit across from Zoe as the first streams of sun warm our book-wielding forearms and await the kettle’s fit.
We share the morning’s discoveries and warm our palms on the porcelain ‘til 7:30 when she leads our community in asanas. We summon father sun to our hilltop canopy with salutations. He complies, warming our expanding hips and brightening our egos with laughter as we topple from dancer pose.
An hour and a half flows swiftly until waves of release are rolling through my body in shivasana. I awaken my fingers and toes with little wriggles and roll left, toward the strengthened sun, strong and hot. Yogananda believes we lie on our left side to receive divine goodness.
I breathe in the warmth, trying not to let breakfast’s foreshadow eclipse this final fetal rest. But the neighbor-gifted nectarines, beds of bursting kale and farm-fresh eggs sink steadily into awareness. The food here is incredible and the tribe’s knowledge of it inspiring.
Vegan chocolate mouse, Sweet potato hash, heirloom and avocado salad, banana, walnut, maca smoothies, tomato corn curry, apricot jam, cauliflower mash, pesto filled zucchini boats… (I have to stop now, I’m getting too excited) are among the daily kitchen endeavors. This city, grab tacos on the way girl, is learning a lot.
After the feast, elbows deeps in bubbles, we talk of tasks for the day. Seva (selfless service) looks like weeding, harvesting food, clearing trails and building straw bale huts. Because of my experience on the interweb, I spend some time on the computer too, editing the website, writing blogs and creating facebook content.
We work until 3 or so – with the occasional musical interlude. A couple hours of free time finds me writing, reading, singing alongside our growing percussion section or – if it’s a squelcher – “we go down to the river to pray, learnin’ bout the lord and that good ‘ol way…” (Ever heard that soul-song?) We sing it on our trek to the Yuba, where we dive off rocks and float our faces to the sky.
The duo on dinner duty convenes for a creative pow-wow ‘round 5 while the rest take turns showering with speckled frogs whose hind legs jiggle when they jump. The water is solar heated, the hilltop view luxurious. I scrub my calloused feet with a pumice stone stolen from a trail on a Butte in Bend and remember the hour Ali, Logan, Yoann and I spent soaking in those Oregon hot springs. 
Dinner is alive with Zoe’s puns, Patrick’s gourmet sauce and stories of otherworldly adventures. We sit long and savor the wind-down before rising for Satsang – the formal learning chapter of our day. Jamie teaches us of Chakras and we read about Ama, the hugging saint. Often a joyous & inspirational youtube clip caps our session – EX: the 80’s all-star collaboration of We Are the World.
Our clamoring rendition stretches the manzanita lined trail back from Jamie’s cabin. We teeter over lichen covered rocks and dodge sprigs of poison oak to return whence we came – the temple. Jamie usually beats us, (his footsteps the original trail) and by the time I slip my shoes off, the harmonium is breathing sweetly, inspiring our Sanskrit song. I close my eyes and straighten my sway-back, then offer my love to the Big Love. “Thank you,” I say. “This is perfect.”