Glamping for God

Okay…I’m a little embarrassed by the title of this post.  I mean, it’s funny, but…  It’s crass.  It’s a bit of a cheap laugh.  It invokes a certain image that conflicts all the way around with my persona, which is perhaps why I find it so amusing.  And it’s a laugh at the expense of something that is actually quite near to my heart – my spirituality.  It feels a bit like selling out, and that’s embarrassing.

Obviously not embarrassing enough to change it, though.  Besides, the alliteration was just too good to pass up.

Right.  So, what am I up to then?  I left Tahiti on Saturday night and arrived on the Big Island of Hawaii on Sunday morning.  I’m staying at Polestar Gardens, an “intentional spiritual community” south of Hilo on the eastern side of the island run by devotees of the late yogi Paramahamsa Yogananda, largely considered the father of yoga and eastern spirituality in the West.

I made the decision to come to Polestar to bolster my own personal spiritual practice.  I’ve been a casual meditater for years, learning meditation techniques through various spiritual texts I’ve read and putting them into practice as best I could.  But, I’ve never received any formal instruction in meditation.  After struggling with my meditation somewhat while in Bali, I thought perhaps now would be a good time to work on making my meditation as effective as possible.  Polestar’s vision and apprentice program spoke to my heart, and the finances spoke to my pocketbook, so here I am.

I don’t have a lot of pictures for you yet.  I’ll spend some time this weekend on that.  It’s just been pretty much go go go since I got here on Sunday.  My flight was a red eye from Pape’ete, just 5.5 hours, so I spent most of Sunday afternoon napping.  However, many people in the community worked late into the afternoon finishing up a house that had just been built on the property.  A yoga instructor and his wife and two kids were coming to live at Polestar on Tuesday and this house was intended for them, but it wasn’t quite finished yet.  I joined in the melee on Monday and spent all day Monday and Tuesday putting finishing touches on the place along with the rest of the crew.

Wednesday was spent in preparation for the weekly kirtan and community potluck dinner.  This meant cleaning all the common areas and setting up the temple for kirtan and the living and dining rooms in the main house for dinner.  Kirtan basically means “chanting,” and I was expecting a sort of monotone, repetitious uttering of words and sounds of which I didn’t know the meaning.  Instead, it was more like a church singalong, replete with ukulele, guitar, small lap harp, and a harmonium (a small, hand-pumped organ; kinda sounds like an accordion).  Kirtan lasted for an hour and a quarter followed by dinner.

Today was my first real day of normal work here on the property, and I got to get out into the garden.  With all the rain and warm weather to facilitate growth, the garden looks almost like a jungle.  Three other people and I spent at least 30 minutes weeding a garden bed before I realized there was an actual bed there, maybe 10’x10′, demarcated by thick tree branches easily 10 inches high!  Besides that, we cut all the budding branches of a hibiscus plant off to harvest the buds for tea and other things before hacking the entire plant down and returning it to the bed for mulch.  The rest of the morning was spent cutting the hibiscus buds from their branches while someone else separated the wine-colored bud husks (the usable bit) from the flower buds (the not usable bit).

Aside from the work, there’s the daily spiritual rituals to take part in.  Mornings start at 6am (unless you’re an early bird and attend 5:15am mediation) with 15-minute energization, a technique developed and promoted by Yogananda for drawing energy into the body and strengthening one’s will, followed by an hour-long meditation, which includes a bit of chanting (singing) at beginning and end and an affirmation at the beginning, as well.  There’s also a brief 15-minute meditation at lunch and a longer 45-60 minute meditation before dinner, usually preceded by energization.  On weekends, there’s 3-hour meditation in the mornings with chanting breaks every 30-60 minutes.  After breakfast, during weekdays, there’s what’s called “circle,” which is basically a daily meeting.  Circle always ends with a song and a reading or affirmation.

I’m digging the group spiritual practice.  I’ve never done group meditation before, and certainly no chanting.  It definitely steps up your spiritual game to be surrounded by people who not only support you in your spiritual practice, but who share it, as well.

And, yes, and I am actually (kind of) glamping.  I’m staying in a tent by myself with an actual bed, a couple plastic shelves, and a solar lamp.  The tents are set up on a wooden platform, off the ground, and are covered by a tarp overhead, so the rain doesn’t fall directly on the tents and you have some overhead shelter when stepping into or out of the tent.

TL;DR:  Getting my God fix glamping in a Hawaiian ahsram.