Remember me as you shine so brightly

(Title adapted from Ghostlight and the Parliament of Birds, Nick Evans 2009).

Nick and Katya at The Sanctuary

I was fortunate to spend some time getting to know Nick over lunches at the rather tasty Unithai supermarket cum Thai kitchen where we chatted away about yoga, Mysore, India, advaita, punk, pain, love, life and death (amongst other things!) To be fair, as is the way with Nick, I did a fair bit of listening but he’s gifted with a silver tongue so it wasn’t unpleasant in the least.

Nick sporting the classic
Mysore Gold

One of the low points of Nick’s visit was the theft of some of his personal belongings while teaching yoga at the centre on a Monday night. Man, the karmic consequences are serious! Nick’s Guruji style gold watch was stolen, so one of our farewell gifts was a large denomination note encased in a hand made imitation gold watch (made out of a toilet roll and gold wrapping paper!)

One of the things I really like about Nick is that he’s not one dimensional. He’s completely devoted to the traditional method of Ashtanga Yoga and adhering to Guru Parampara while being passionate and engaged in other aspects of creative expression and life. He is so very much alive!

This week we’ve been practising sans teacher at the centre and it’s a special time, there’s a little hardcore group of us practicing with 5 of us on Sunday and 6 on Monday. It feels like we’re keeping the Ashtanga flame burning brightly as we mark the Winter Solstice with the burning of the clocks.