Throughout the week we ate like veggie kings and queens. Besides Yoga, Mathilde and Cristiano have another passion – vegetarian cooking. Their abilities have reached celebrity status, recently having appeared on Portuguese national television On Porto Santo, they passed seamlessly between Vinyasas on the mat and stunning culinary acrobatics in the kitchen, often producing five or more delicious dishes between Yoga sessions.

As a group freed from our daily duties and brought together with a common purpose, when not practicing, we had the needed time to share stories, reflections and insights. We also often made music together – Joao brought a synthesizer and mixed improvisational electronic sounds to my bansuri playing and Julie’s percussion, a unique and unexpected mix which seemed to work! We all got so comfortable we even danced to Michael Jackson together 😊 Indeed we danced our way out of the door before sailing back to Madeira on the same ferry. Getting back to Funchal at 1 a.m., three of us non-residents moved directly into Matilde’s flat. It seemed like the natural thing to do.

 A profound human longing is to belong to a collective, not to belong because of allegiance to some religion or politic, but simply to be in our natural state, and to share with others as that. We long to be accepted, witnessed, and that other beings may be in their natural state in our presence. The belonging of our longing is not conditional, it is not the need to fit in or to adhere to a chosen stereotype. On the turbulent seas of Samsara, the feeling of belonging is an anchor. It allows you to drift with currents and lift with big waves, knowing you will be drawn back.

Such a collective in Yoga is referred to as Sangha.

For 10 days after the retreat ended, I continued to see many of the same people daily, giving Yoga classes in Cristaino Yoga school and sharing life together. There was a levada walk, late-night downtown Fuchal jam sessions, a musical recording at Joao’s studio, many shared meals, a few Ponchas (for medicinal purposes!) and of course, dawn Ashtanga sessions in Cristiano Yoga Shala. The retreat had ended, but Sangha continued.

Julie says we are a gang, and that too feels right, exciting in a way that throws me back to early teenage years, years when friends discovered and tested limits together – which is what we were doing on the yoga mat each morning. As a gang we are bonded by what we went through together and we will understand and forgive each other’s Yogic mischief, familiar as we are with each other’s intention. Sangha or gang? We have decided we are the SanGhang.

To practice Yoga correctly implies embracing all that you are and embracing all that you are not. The process of Yoga reduces us to our authentic vulnerable selves. To share that in community is to share oneself – the only authentic sharing that is available to us. The other possibility is sharing the façade of something we feel pressured to be, something we think we are supposed to be but are not. Such behavior ultimately leads to isolation, because we believe what we really are is inadequate and what we hold up is a mask. Yoga does not define what you are supposed to be – the Sutras define Yoga as the process which returns us to our natural self – whatever that implies. And when that is shared, shared with others in the same process, bonding and heart opening will surely occur.

Living in Asturias Yoga, people arrive at the garden gate from all over the planet and we proceed directly to shala. I am used to saying goodbye from the same gate six days later, half an hour after the last formal meditation session. Despite sharing significant time and experience with the people who come, I am bound to the role of ‘teacher’. And the moment that role has served its function, it is Namaste and Adios. While this is all fine, in Madeira, I discovered another ingredient of the great Yogi Pie very alive there –  day to day Sangha.

In Porto Santo, the final meditation was not the end, it was more an interlude, a last opportunity to connect through technique, to ourselves and each other. Then technique was abandoned, and off we sailed together, starting on the waters of the Atlantic and from there into the turbulent seas of Samsara, knowing that a safe port awaited us whenever we chose to return to the shore of Sangha.

Leaving Madeira, my Yogic challenge was non-attachment – harder than a one armed peacock pose! But blessed as I am to be part of endless Yoga retreats, I have been through this before, and I understand the process – Practice, and Sangha will come! Some of the faces will be known, and others will be new. 

Practice, and be who you are in your practice, not someone better, because better than You, there is not. Already you are a member of the gang.

Viva a SanGhang!

Simon

p.s. We are already considering holding more Porto Santo retreats in November 2024 🙂