She was lovely. Really. But there was not much of a class. Lots of ethereal talk about "letting go" and "releasing" but not much teaching to support it. Also, I had to stop from looking around at other students cause the misalignments were so much that I wanted to jump from mat to mat and sprinkle some therapeutic dust. (Oh God, I'm sharing too much of my judgmental, dark side.)

I do have to say that Salma inspired me to look better in my classes. I look like Liz Lemon from 30 Rock whenever I teach.

She really was sweet and kept telling me and my boyfriend that we had a lovely practice.

It was nice to try something different but at the end of the day I'll always go back to Anusara. 

And so it goes.

Afterwards we very organically decided to go to the Lavender farm up high country in an area called Kula.

We went about 4,000 feet up and made it to this 13 acre lavender farm. It looked like it came out of a British movie with Colin Firth. There were tons of lavender- so many different kinds- all surrounded by a quaint trail that you could walk through. We were so high up that the view was spectacular, of the south of Maui and its Isthmus.

We also spent obscene amounts of money on the lavender store (they have lavender tea, coffee, salt, sugar, lotion, oil, shampoo, baby products, candles, it's CRAZY). Then we walked around and looked at the view. It's so nice to be on vacation and have time to rest and look around. We have no schedule, we don't really plan too well and things are happening mostly by accident.

Speaking of, we decided, on a whim, to keep driving up north to a National Park where there is a redwood forest (I know, in Maui! Go figure!). We got a little lost so we started to drive back down again and saw some cars parked around a forest. We stopped and stumbled into what might have been so far the most magical part of the trip- We stumbled into a magical forest! Seriously. There were all these fallen trees and someone made a trail, using steps and nets, over the fallen trees. We followed the obstacle course-like trail with caution and excitement. Some of the trees where high above the ground so we were really climbing over about six feet. It was a bit scary and fun. Suddenly I was transported to Bridge to Terabithia- that book I read as a kid. Hopefully I was not about to die.

We then sat and decided to meditate. My boyfriend seemed into meditating in the middle of a forest and was very present.

I kept opening my eyes because I wanted to look at the forest. How it seems so still and how alive it is at the same time.

Also, I didn't tell this to my boyfriend but I was a bit scared. 

I've seen to many movies where women get killed in a forest; or in a beach; or in their house; or anywhere. 

It was hard for me to close my eyes and let go in a big wide forest.

I'm realizing how much fear, immense amount of fear, really, I carry. I've been particularly aware of it since I started my three week mediation breakthrough course that I've been doing following Sally Kempton's book. 

I have SO much fear:

Fear about death. 

Fear about being killed. Fear about not having enough money. About not being a good teacher. About not being a good person. 

Fear that I went too far in my description of lovely Maui Salma. 

Fear. 

And so it goes...