Love comes to Town - Program in Dublin in 2005

I told you about the difficulties that I had with getting musicians for my program in Dublin in July 2005. I finally had my group together on time and was ready for the big event.

The musicians had not been my only responsibility, I also wanted to bring some more yoga teachers who would help me during the yoga workshop. I had already long before talked to a friend, a yoga teacher in Germany, who knew a lot of yoga teachers. We had agreed that we would pay their flights and their accommodation and food if they joined the program. They came and it was thus a big, international group surrounding me with the organizers, the musicians and the yoga teachers as well as many volunteers who had come to help with the event. Everybody was looking forward to the big day when we would start.

The event took place in the National Basketball Arena in Dublin. There was a big stage and the decoration team had created a beautiful background with posters saying ‘Love comes to Town’, a slogan which I had given as the name of the program and which I used for a long time after that, too.

It was two weekends after each other and people could book the complete weekend workshop. We started on Friday evening with a welcoming meet and introducing the program, explaining what we were going to do. Saturday we then started with the lectures, exercises, music and meditation and only stopped twice for something to eat and drink. As we were in the professional surrounding of the arena already, food was also prepared there and people could eat and drink without having to search anywhere else. The complete Sunday, too, was scheduled for the program and the public had time to ask me questions, too. The national TV channel came to film and reported about our program.

With such events you get to know a lot about the people who are around you, both old and new friends. One of the yoga teachers revealed a strange side about herself. The yoga teachers spread among the crowd to show the yoga poses I did to those who didn’t see me properly or who had difficulties imitating it. They had a group leader – which is just natural with bigger groups – who gave them advice. I felt however how her tone changed and she suddenly became very bossy, bordering rude and sometimes even crossing that border. It was a bit funny to watch for everyone else who did not belong to that group. She tried spreading this behavior onto others, too, but I guess she realized soon that not everyone was willing to accept her leadership! It was worth a good laugh however whenever we looked back onto the whole time – and a nice lesson in human psychology as well!

I got to know the English singer a bit better and she became friends with another singer, a friend whom I had brought from Germany. In the same way, several new friendships started and I was happy that people could connect.

It was a beautiful event, I enjoyed my lectures and the music was just beautiful. I took a lot of experience back with me though and yes, I had met some people, too, who would accompany me further on my way for many years.

But more of that another time…