Parito Coastal Yoga Retreat

So before I went on this retreat, my idea of yoga was something for mystic people in out of the way places in India, contortionists who could move their bodies in impossible ways, charming snakes and chanting constantly while meditating 5 ft in the air.

Of course what I found was completely different.

Parito means "New Beginnings" in maori and started off as a house built for a couple who wanted a simple life. They found it, not far from the west coast town of Raglan about 8 years ago when they started opening their home to practitioners of yoga.

How did I end up there? Well thats a whole other story. Each morning we were awakened by pretty chimes, then started off with 1 1/2hrs of yoga meditation, relaxation and exercises. After a delicious healthy breakfast we undertook some chanting, followed by karma yoga (service to each other) morning tea and more classes, lunch and more classes, afternoon tea and more classes, dinner, meditation and relaxation following which complete silence was undertaken until the following morning after breakfast. All the food was amazingly delicious, organic vegetarian and mostly prepared from ingredients grown on the property.

There were no tvs, radios, no cell phone coverage, just the sound of birds, insects, the occasional car and the ocean. It was the most beautifully peaceful place I have ever been.

I found out a lot of things about yoga while i was there, some applied specifically to questions I personally had and others were more general. It seems to me that yoga is about learning to focus oneself and ones mind in the present, to be more aware of what is going on around you as you are carrying out the events of your day, and to be in a relaxed state rather than one of constant tension (where very little can be accomplished.) It was a shock to me, that i could do exercises and stretches so much more effectively while relaxed and peaceful rather than the "must do must do" usually parading through my head.

The dreams I had while there were some of the most vivid of my life, and i remembered the whole thing when I woke up (and quickly wrote them down so I could hold on to them).

I'm very grateful to our hosts who made our time there such an enjoyable and stress free one, and to my sister who talked me into going with her, though truthfully, I didn't take much convincing, I tend to like new experiences.