If you wander further south on Mazunte’s main road, you will eventually find yourself in the San Agustinillo, the next town down the coast. The little community sits away from Mazunte's tourism hub with a more local-feel. It is a beautiful beach with crystal clear waters and super friendly locals.
Just between the two towns sits Hridaya Yoga Retreat Center, our home for two months. As we travel facilitating participatory audiovisual workshops in coastal communities on marine and culture conservation - we are blessed with local partners who support us covering our housing and food. Hridaya was our local partner for our stay in Mazunte and San Agustinillo. A modest collection of palapas as yoga halls nestled into a towering cliffside overlooking San Agustinillo and the Pacific Ocean, Hridaya was a space to breath and center ourselves. During our two month stay, we cultivated an amazing little family of heartfelt souls traveling through space and time just like us.
An alter to spiritual leaders practicing loving kindness and living with an open heart.
Meditative mornings. The word Hridaya is Sanskrit for Heart. This style of Hatha Yoga and mediation is meant to bring us all back to our divine spirit that resides as a kind of light in our heart centers.
The international family of soul warriors, from Romania to Spain.
We slept in a dorm space and did our work on the patio below the sky's belly full of stars.
Coast 2 Coast produced two videos for Hridaya in the spirit of the school’s teachings.
Hridaya offered us to participate in a silent retreat… for ten days, we could not speak, make eye contact with others, read, listen to music, take photos, or write, beyond taking notes during lectures. With more than 6 hours of meditation each day, we learned to sit with our backs straight and our minds clear (for a few seconds at least). It was an experience beyond anything we could have ever expected.
Quieting the mind promotes an overall attitude of awareness. One begins to notice the beauty in everything surrounding oneself amidst the chaos. As ocean lovers, we especially became aware of the remarkable elegance of waves and San Augustinillo’s crystal clear waters made it possible to study their “anatomy” from beyond the surface.
Bodysurfing was a daily activity, playing with energy… another form of meditation.
We also facilitated photography workshops in the nearby fishing village of San Agustinillo on self and community identity with local primary school students. Students photographed themselves, their interests, and their surroundings, asking themselves the question: “Who am I?” and presented their photos to their peers and teachers.
As part of the presentation, Coast 2 Coast played short films made by other youth from across South America and Patagonia’s The Fisherman’s Son. Students resinated with Ramon’s upbringing and were inspired by his surfing and travels while maintaining a deep-rooted connection to this community.
From our previous workshops in Mazunte, Coast 2 Coast is embarking on a grassroots campaign to cut down the use of plastic drinking straws in coastal communities. We started with friends at our local Sunday hangout, Un Sueño de Frida.
