
Om free
By Lisa Gregoire with photography by Steve Ogle
Three days in a yoga ashram on the shores of British Columbia’s Kootenay Lake turn an exhausted mother into a blooming lotus
I saw the light.
Now, I’m not sure how it happened, but there I was, in a
shower of white light, just as the instructor had said, and slowly
that light penetrated my head and flowed down through my
body until I was saturated, and a rolling euphoria washed over
me. I know what you’re going to say: "OK, hippie, who let you
out of the flashback ward?" But I felt it.
Wait, is that your phone? Quick, text someone. Blog, jog, do
lunch. Tired? Go grab some quiet time in the office bathroom, or
plug your ears with headphones and squeeze onto a crowded bus
at rush hour. Better yet, confess. Your shoulders are permanently
hunched, and you spend more on ibuprofen than gasoline. Your
stomach is full of rocks, you’ve just turned 40, your work is uninspired,
and you’re wondering, Is this really all there is?
Step away, then, from your personal digital assistant, and follow
me to Yasodhara Ashram, 50 hectares of blissed-out peace on the
shores of Kootenay Lake, a half-hour drive north of Nelson, B.C.,
and a 40-minute ferry ride away from the world as you know it.
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