Christmas and New Year in Mazunte Mexico
by Pete
Welcome to 2009. I wish you all Prosperity, Peace, and Love.  Here is the sunrise I wake up to every morning. Before I start watering the garden, I usually sit for around fifteen minutes taking it in while drinking a cup of tea:  The meditation retreat continued into the new year. As the yoga school has only just opened only a few people knew about it and came to join us. Let me introduce you to a few:  This is Catalina who stayed for five days before returning to Mexico City where she lives. I hope to visit her there one day.  From left to right:- Geoff, Nancy, and Janos (pronounced Yanosh). Geoff is the head teacher at Agama Yoga Mexico and although I've only known him for a month, I consider him a friend. I think he's has taken me under his wing to groom me as a future teacher. Nancy is a visiting teacher from Montreal, Candada. Janos arrived just after Christmas for the last five days of the retreat. We got to know each other quite well. He is originally from Hungary but is at the moment living in Montreal, Canada. He teaches English and computer studies but spends some seasons planting trees in Canada. He made the tree planting sound very interesting & left a flim for me to watch called The Man Who planted Trees. Who knows, one day I may join him for a season! Bob, get your snow-mobile warmed up for me!  Here is Nancy, Janos, and Geoff doing headstands during a break between meditation sittings. I couldn't quite manage to take the picture at the same time, so my space is empty.  While sitting on the beach I finished reading a book which I started during the retreat. It is called The Four Agreements by Mexican writer Don Miguel Ruiz and is based on ancient esoteric Toltec wisdom. Here is a summary of the four agreements: BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love. DON'T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering. DON'T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement you can completely transform your life. ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgement, self-abuse and regret. I intend to adopt these agreements into my life. I mentioned in a previous post about The Intenders Bridge. Here is their Ten Intentions for a Better World, which I am also intending:   This was the schedule for our New Years Eve mediation. Basically, we meditated over a period of 21 hours for 25 minutes for (nearly) every time zone throughout the world, as that time zone hit midnight. It was a gruelling schedule, but we all survived, despite a surprise visitor:   Nancy teaches English and Yoga back home in Montreal, as well being an artist, writing poetry & articles for magazines. Nancy did most of the cooking while she was here and she makes a great beetroot soup. I asked her for the recipe so will attempt to make some now she's gone back home. We went to the beach yesterday to attempt bodysurfing as the waves looked great from up here. When we got down to the beach though, we found the waves were huge & the red flags were up so we contented ourselves with chilling out in the sun (or the shade in my case). Nancy managed to change from nearly white to nearly beetroot colour in the space of 90 minutes. I was writing some notes for my blog and asked Nancy a question or two about grammar. She was very knowledgeable & taught me a thing or two. A Canadian teaching English Grammar to an Englishman! Hmmmm..... Now I guess she just needs to learn to speak English properly ;-) The waves were stunning as were the birds soaring in formation across the sea. I got some great pictures, but somehow managed to delete them all while transferring them to my computer, so here are a couple of less spectacular ones I took today. The Yoga school is actually between the two villages of Mazunte & San Agustinillo, so I have two beaches to choose from.   Nancy is also a pretty good photographer. Here are a couple of her pictures:   Here is Janos's watercolour of Mazunte sunset from the yoga hall.  Hasta Luego Amigos Pete
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