Once upon a time in an English village far far away, an intelligent ,sweet, quiet, bookish little girl was growing up. She was very very good and loved animals and ballet and school, then, she fell under a spell and turned a bit wild, dropped her books, and ran away to London for loud music and adventures. She met all kinds of people she would have never have met in her village, and had myriad jobs and heaps of fun, and a few scrapes..
She worked, selling pretty vintage clothes in a busting street market, then thought she'd try something new. Apart from silly hairstyles. So she looked around and made an application and worked for a corporate airline for many years dealing, with complaints,and commuting and even wearing a suit. She could be awfully nice to grumpy people on the phone. She got so fed up with the grumpiness, and skedaddled, went on a new adventure teaching English in hotter more exotic places than London.
At this time, this young woman was leading a pretty hedonistic life outside of work. her lifestyle was not terribly healthy, her body rebelled, she got ill. The Universe and her strong body and soul knew she was made for bigger things so, with a horrible illness and a hospital stay, they made her stop, and think.
She recovered this illness, but, listening to her inner wisdom, for maybe the first time, she visited an Ayurvedic magician. On his advice she made sound lifestyle changes, became vegetarian, clean living, and swiftly fell in love with yoga, and went to India, as those 2 things often do go hand in hand. She grew healthy and stronger.
The old spell had dropped away. Whats more, she had realized how big her heart was.
With her renewed good health and firmly beating heart she traveled with a backpack, meeting enlightened people, riding a motorbike, dancing in moonlight, working on farms, spending many days in silent retreat, seeking the mystery schools, creating art projects from rubbish, reading ancient texts, traveling far and wide, drinking potions of healing master plants in jungles, climbing mountains and volcanoes and so on, for years. Learning all the while, growing, changing, becoming a wee bit wiser step by step. Visiting different yoga teachers, ashrams, and wild places, stopping sometimes to ask herself the question "who am I". Learning that less is more, learning to trust in the universe.
One summer evening in India she recieved her new name... AZIZA...for she felt she was reborn. Aziza means beloved.
After quite some years on the road, she longed for a place to put down her backpack, and to have a place to call "home". Through a tangle of beautiful coincidences, she found her heart home in Spain in a beautiful wild valley full of good witches and dragonflies and nightingales, joyful children and blue skies.
This is where she now lives, not a little girl any more, not even a young woman any longer, now Aziza is a mature woman, wise even, sometimes. She still loves animals and reading and dancing, and most of all she loves practicing and teaching yoga. She is also fond of drinking tea, adores living in a round home using energy from the sun, drinking her water from pure mountain streams, and eating fresh figs and pomegranates.
She doesn't rest on her laurels here though, beautiful paradise as it is, she keeps going away to give a bit of help to people who fled their homes because of war, or horrors, and she makes them tea, or food, or sorts t-shirts for them, and tries not to have her heart broken by their incredible stories.
Now, Aziza wants to write some things about her life...because she really wants other people to be inspired. She wants everyone to know that however thoughtless or careless or reckless you might be in your life when young and foolish, things can really turn out amazingly. Especially when you love yourself more and more, and if one practices yoga this very much helps everything, in mind body and soul.
She will live happily ever after, and, as she does keep going off on new adventures, it's NOT THE END OF THE STORY.
Yes, I cancan.
I never thought that being in my 50's woyld be so epic.
Life is the dancer and you are the dance.
Above, me and my massage teacher and all round most inspirational being, Krishnataki of Sunshine House Greece.