Glastonbury Detox & Spiritual Healing Retreat has left all 13 of us attending on such a natural high that I feel pretty confident we will be coming back for more.
Difficult to put into words quite the 'unique experience' we all shared. Described by one as 'being in the 'parallel universe' and another's response on arriving home was 'I'm finding it hard to describe to my family quite what we experienced, my description just does not conjure up the atmosphere!'
We arrived on Friday in time for our first vegan lunch, an incredible array of vegetables and salad. Even though I'm vegetarian, I never realised how different and varied going vegan would be. No dairy products, no wheat or bread and no stimulants including onions, garlic and chillies - only pure Sattvic food. I felt amazing and the difference was that my body felt much stronger by day two. I noticed this in my yoga postures and also noticed a loss of water retention (as well as a headache) not drinking coffee - a revelation and felt much better for giving it up too!
Friday evening we took part in the kirtan call and response chanting for two hours - quite incredible and fascinating. Never believed I'd end up chanting 'Hare Krishna', but we all got drawn into the hypnotic buzz of the crowd and simply following the sanskrit chant. I think they realised we were new to this and kept the script to Hare Krishna - as you can hardly go wrong with few words!
We got to experience first hand the path of the Bhakti yogi - the branch of yoga which denotes the spiritual practice of fostering loving devotion to a personal form of God. Yogis who develop this branch express and develop tolerance, acceptance and love for all living things. Life on the ashram and life in Glastonbury offered us more than we had bargained for and left a lasting impression and a deeper connection and understanding on what the true purpose of Yoga is all about.
