Up on the Roof
By Colette Crawford

The clamor of a bell, very much like a fire alarm, jolted me from a half sleep where I lay on a grass mat on the cool concrete floor. Fire? I scanned the dusky lit room and saw a white sari slowly stirring on one of the other three grass mats, which filled the small one room flat. Krasna, an alumna of the ashram and fellow devotee of our beloved Guru, Mata Amritananda Mayi Devi, didn’t seem concerned.

“Amma’s on the beach! Amma’s on the beach! Come quick!” I heard an Indian woman shouting from the hall. “Come on, Colette,” Krasna said hastily slipping on her flip-flops,  “This is a once in a lifetime experience!” We dashed out to join the frenzy of bodies scurrying down the narrow stairwell of our 12-story building to the ground floor. [read more]

The Seeker: A Journey Toward Wholeness
By Colette Crawford

Yoga has been a part of my life for over 30 years. I remember watching my mother sitting on the living room floor folding her torso over her outstretched legs to rest her head on her knees. She looked like she was sleeping. When I attempted this forward bend in the first class my mother took me to, I struggled to reach my toes and yelped at the burning pain in my hamstrings. How did she do it so effortlessly? The yoga teacher seemed to hear my thoughts. "Look at your mother," she bellowed in a thick eastern European accent. "She can touch her toes much better than you, and you are so young!" I was 17 but that didn't seem to help me. With a fierce determination, I pushed harder to reach my toes only to be overpowered again by my tight hamstrings. Eventually my teenage defiance toward the teacher's mockery won me over and I stopped going to class. But this didn't stop my inquiry into yoga, meditation and spirituality. I continued to seek. [read more]

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