From Alchemy of Breath to Death Celebration

I have been very neglecting my blog… but not because of having nothing interesting to write… In the middle of the month, I did a breath group called “Alchemy of Breath”. It was quite unexpected, surprising, beautiful, painful…. With breath one goes from the physical body to emotional body and then all these informations, feelings, experiences we had in our lives come up. Some of them we do not remember but our body stores them all, amazing... Yes, there is definitely alchemy to breath… It was a five day group. We did all sorts of fun exercises before the breath sessions to prepare our body, to open our body to breath such as bio-energy exercises, dancing etc… I had so much energy during those 5 days. In spite of waking up at 5:30 am to go to dynamic meditation and then doing all these vigorous exercises and breath sessions and then Kundalini meditation, I would be dancing like mad during evening meetings. It was explosive energy! After the group I had a great sense of opening but of course it does not last as it is initially… but great to experience it.
Then ,last week we had Death Celebration! I had no clue what it was and my sister hold me from my hand and took me to the auditorium. There was live music and people were dancing, more people than I have seen in many meditations! Then I realized they were dancing in a circle and so I realized that the dead person was in the middle! I was shocked, frozen and my sister was holding my hand to make me feel that it is all right. After a while I began dancing as well. Then the body is taken outside, drums being played, people clapping, dancing, celebrating and we took the body by the river. The whole street was full of sanyasins in maroon robes. By the river the drums were mad playing and people were dancing. An old
Indian man came, wanting to pass by the crowd, he turned to me and said with a smile “ She is my wife” and then he went by the body. They covered the body with woods and light the fire. So we all danced to the burning of the body. It was a beautiful way of sending someone away… After the celebration, one has to take a shower and also wash all the close they were wearing during the burning, so we did accordingly. This morning there was another dead celebration as well for another old Indian lady who passed away last night. I only went to the dancing in the auditorium part because I had an appointment. These experiences all feel tranformative… I think I will extend my stay here, instead of leaving on February 10….