A Day in the Life of a Yoga Farmer
photo by Meghan Kathleen
The sun begins to rise over the mountains and howler monkeys call in the distance. Our Yoga Farmer rolls out of bed, stretches her hands feet and face and groggily walks out to the composting toilet. She comes back inside the yoga house, washes her hands, and gets ready for yoga class. She saved a bit of time to make herself a cup of tea from the tea garden outside her room to enjoy before and maybe during class. Others begin to mill around the house as well, quietly readying themselves for their morning. Some other Yoga Farmers are walking back from an early morning coffee and banana stop in the kitchen. Most of them will come to class today, some may do their own thing. Guided by an in-house yoga instructor, they breathe, move their bodies, focus their minds, and expand their spirits while looking out over the rainforest and Pacific Ocean below.
Content and open to the day’s possibilities, our Yoga Farmer makes her way to the communal kitchen where Ana and Esther have prepared a simple, healthy breakfast of scrambled eggs, fresh tropical fruit, and oats with chia. She’ll indulge in a cup of coffee with rich coconut milk that her new friends squeezed just yesterday, and enjoy a bit of coffee talk before getting ready to go down the hill.
Photo by Meghan Kathleen
After breakfast, our Yoga Farmer, along with a few yoga farm friends, surfboards, sun hats, sarongs, and swim fins in tow, will head to the beach. They’ll walk down the hill together, and the good company makes the ten minute walk fly by. They play in the waves for a couple of hours, and then when the tide drops they head to the tide pools, and finally for some time in the shade in the cool of the river. Once their body temperatures have dropped sufficiently and their tummies start to rumble, the amigos make their way back up the hill, again grateful for the company – this time because the walk up is hard! It’s a good workout and walking together is motivating.
Photo by Scott Martin
The friends roll right into lunch – again the ladies have put out a hearty healthy spread. Black beans, brown rice, plantains, a fresh salad, and some fruit juice greet the hungry bunch. They enjoy their meals, clean up their plates and help tidy the kitchen a bit, and head back to the main house for a cool shower and a siesta.
After the heat of the day abates a bit, our friend sets out to do a little work around the farm. Today she plans to rake the paths clear of leaves so that folks don’t step on snakes in the paths should they slither onto them. It’s a big job but she shares it with a buddy so they finish in good time. They bring a few tarp loads of leaves to the compost area so the folks in charge of composting can use the leaves as brown matter to balance out their compost layers. When they finish up, they swing by the kitchen to see if the chefs, fellow yoga farmers, need any help. The cooks ask for lemongrass and ginger from the garden, so our friend heads to the garden with a bowl, a knife, and a spading fork to make dinner just that much tastier.
Photo by Alexis Lassman
She heads back to the yoga house afterwards to snuggle up in a hammock with a book. Some people are headed down to the beach to watch the sunset – it should be a good one – but she decides to stay and see how the characters in her novel are doing today. The colors in the sky begin to intensify, and the clouds turn pink. The howler monkeys start their evening howling, and as the sun goes down, fireflies begin to rise up out of the valley. She counts fireflies until she can’t keep track anymore, and decides to walk over for dinner. She sits down with her 15 newfound friends over a pot of Thai hot and sour soup with garden veggies, rice, lentils, and a garden salad and they eat to their hearts content. After dinner she plays cards for a bit, and then decides to head to bed before the thunder rumbling in the distance gets any closer. She takes a quick shower before bed, and snuggles up to the sound of the frogs and insects and now falling rain. She wonders what tomorrow might bring – hopefully more of the same! – and falls asleep happy.
