The Rabbit Hole ๐ณ๐ issue no.38 [travel issue pt II]
Kerala art cafe's, Ayurveda Retreat, Italy
Hi lovely humans ๐,
I write to you from San Francisco ๐ as I metabolize and share experiences and ideas that enlivened me during the second half of my trip.
In the last issue i went over my travels across Delhi, Rishikesh, & Varanasi - alongside going down rabbit holes on Jyotish (Indian Astrology) and Traditional Chinese/Indian Medicine systems.
Today iโll talk about the latter half of my trip to Mumbai, Kerala, and Italy.
Ready?
๐ซ Varanasi ๐ Mumbai
Mumbai ๐ฎ๐ณ
Mumbai was a welcome reprieve of more modern comforts, relative to the more ancient cities of Varanasi & Rishikesh. Itโs probably the one city in India that is most similar to a US city (like Los Angeles), however still vastly different.
Iโm not gonna lie. By this leg of the journey I was feeling the edges of burnout - having pretty much neglected my usual rituals of daily exercise and consistent meditation for 2 weeks โ ๏ธโ ๏ธ
What people also donโt really talk about is the ambient sense of stress that comes with travel in India - whether thatโs going around solo as a woman, having to constantly assess food and its likelihood of contamination, taking daily anti-malaria pills, sleeping in a different bed every 2-5 nights, or trying to discern the trustworthiness of everyone you encounter. Itโs a lot.
And then you just have the overall intensity of the country - itโs assaulting heat, pungent flavors, high density of bodies, myriad of cultures, & energetic of rapid industrial development. Itโs no wonder this is the birthplace of meditation and yoga (ya need it).
Frankly, this all took a large toll on me by this point (the bay has made me soft).
As a coping mechanism ๐ I found myself longingly planning out my home morning & evening routines and consistently updating the list throughout the trip๐
I realized that no amount of spiritual learning could/should replace getting the basics down: sleep, exercise, chilling as a human being and not a human doing.
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