Image by EvanLovely

I have, briefly, when I was thinking about career choices in my 30′s.  I dreamt of living in some kind of sacred and serene Buddhist monastery in California, or maybe even a Hindu ashram in India, for some time.  The closest I ever came to it was moving to the Berkshire mountains in Western MA to live near and work at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health.  By this time, Kripalu’s ashram days were long over.  However, there was still an ashram-like feel to it, and to the people who lived and worked there.  People think I’m nuts when I say this, but I loved getting up at 4:15 a.m. most mornings, making myself a lovely green juice in my cozy efficiency apartment, and making the dark drive to Kripalu, where I was expected to be in the big yoga room by 5:30 a.m., lighting candles, checking my microphone and headset, putting on soft, contemplative music, and rolling out my mat at the front of the room.  My slow, creaky warm-ups would soon turn into fluid movement while half-asleep Kripalu guests slowly made their disheveled way downstairs to roll out their mats, too, in the soft, sacred environment I helped create for them.  By the final “om,” the sun would just start to make it’s appearance over the mountains.  I loved every bit of it.