Last updated on November 5, 2022
I have a long, long history with all things “Kripalu”. A search using the name will return a majority of posts that were the result of my activities in that weird pink brick building on the most beautiful piece of land I could get to, easily. The blissful 3 hour drive on the NY Thruway was and still is a welcome diversion from the hustle/bustle jersey shore environment dominated by water., …everywhere. I live in a town called Interlaken named such because it’s and surrounded by lakes. When I turn onto the street that leads directly to Kripalu Center I am on Interlaken Ave, in Massachusetts. You can’t ignore or not see these markers when they show up. What do they mean? That’s a different conversation. Needless to say, it’s been a special place for me for a long time.
One of the (many) reasons I fell in love with Kripalu is that I got to experience myself differently. (nature vs nurture) (fate vs free will) When I first walked thru the doors I was a stressed out, spiritually starved single mom selling real estate to get my two kids thru college. My mother had died, there was no other family nearby, and I just charged on. What else was there to do? My local yoga teacher urged me to visit Kripalu.
At the desk I remember them asking me to fill out some simple paperwork. One of the questions concerned employment. I stumbled on that one, which as I write this was a sticky question from the earliest days of my childhood….but that’s another story. Although the world saw me mostly as a real estate professional, I had also started a side gig as a time and space consultant which primarily involved astrology, feng shui, and yoga. Standing at the desk at Kripalu for the first time, I wrote in Astrologer as my occupation. It really hadn’t thought it out and in the years to come it was fascinating to see the differences between my NJ-self and my newly born Kripalu-self. There’s a couple bf memoirs in those experiences and maybe I’ll even write them?
So, taking on the persona of astrologer rather than realtor I experienced what a spiritual community looked like. How they interacted with people like me. How they interacted with those who they knew. By the end of that 2 night stay I was hooked. I needed Kripalu and began to reorganize my life to allow for frequent trips up the thruway into the Berkshires.
As a volunteer, one of my most favorite assignments was to work with the audio/visual team which was headed by a guy named Bob. He was kind and very patient in teaching me about the all the technical aspects of Kripalu programming. These were the days of analog, digital anything was far off. The AV team was always around the musicians and that’s where my heart really wanted to be, with the musicians. The music that I experienced live at Kripalu moved me in a way the Rolling Stones never did and they moved me too, truth be told. Being an ‘assistant’ at most of the musical venues at Kripalu was heaven on earth for me.
Here’s a story I wrote about one of those times.
Kripalu has re-opened and another incarnation of this community is about to be birthed. So many changes. Everywhere.
I’m curious to see what’s next.
