Ametisse Gover-Chamlou’s first Yasodhara Ashram stay at age 18 included the 2013 Yoga Development Course and Karma Yoga. Next step was a year of Liberal Arts at Quest University near Vancouver. She returned to the Ashram for Karma Yoga and a month of teacher training. In September she returns to Quest.
The power of experiential learning – Swami Radha’s mainstay – shines forth in the summary written by Ametisse after completing her 30 book reflections required for teacher certification.
Push, rest, go, stop, do more, do less, tense, relax, inhale, exhale – walk the line of my limitations. The place between I can and I can’t is the Sacred Ground of Learning. It is a resting ground and a battlefield, a place of both work and reflection.
I have grown. My voice grew deeper – more personal, more abstract, more irrational – when I was speaking from my most vulnerable. That’s where I was my most sincere, and that sincerity carried me into unknown places within myself.
There are symbols and themes that thread themselves throughout my papers: Mountain, battle, fire, Mother, feminine, breath, birth, water, harmony. As I read over my reflections I see how these themes were given space to mature the more I opened myself to inner and outer intimacy. I see how in giving more of myself to the reflections, the deeper I was able to go.
Learning does not happen in shallow ditches. I needed to dig the well and dig it deep. I needed to reach the water in order to drink from it. This was a process of healing – a process of getting real and a process of change. The Sacred Ground of Learning is where healing takes place.
Comments are closed.