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Help Hazel Travel to India!!!

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Hello! My name is Hazel and I'm raising funds for my upcoming trip to India! Just this December I graduated from Sarah Lawrence where I studied creative writing, "eastern" philosophies, and literature, so this trip is a graduation celebration but also an opportunity for me to dive deeper into my yoga practice and study it in its homeland!

To give some background as to why this venture to India is so meaningful to me, I'll tell you a bit about my journey with yoga which began during my first semester of college, in 2019 at Columbia College Chicago. In Chicago I felt quite lost, and ended up wandering to a yoga class offered at my college's gym. I notoriously hated physical activity (PE was the only class in my freshman year of high school that I got a B in), and in yoga class I felt weak and frustrated. But for some reason I kept going. I didn't fully know why at the time; it confused me that something so frustrating to me could also feel medicinal and necessary.

Fast forward to 2022, I had been practicing almost daily for two years and took Sarahjoy Marsh's 200hr yoga teacher training. This training changed my yoga practice from something more akin to a workout to a deeply meditative asana practice that transformed my life in many ways. To be succinct, the way yoga teacher training most influenced me was by growing my capacity for true presence and care-- for myself, my body, my family, friends, strangers, my school work, my sense of motivation, etc.
My daily practice has continued since I began that training in April 2022.

At SLC I took classes in Sufism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Chinese philosophies, but I haven't resonated with any life philosophy as much as Patanjali's yoga sutras. Studying "eastern" (I quote that because those countries are only east relative to a European focal point) philosophies academically is a bit counterintuitive, as the essence of many eastern philosophies are experienced through practice. In this way, this journey to India is an immersive extension of my academic endeavors as well as what I hope will be a heart-exploding adventure.

I'm going with two friends, Annie and Quincee, who I met last summer when I was living in a micro dwelling on my yoga teacher's property. We began dreaming up this trip on hot walks to the gym- with Annie's interest in Indian foods and beverages (she has a ready made drink booth at Shamansky and King farmers market in Portland called BhakTEA), Quincee and my shared interest in yoga, and all of our interests in kirtan, we thought it had to happen. All has continued to align, and my plan is to fly out on January 22nd 2024! I'm currently back in Portland for a month to work at A Cena, the wonderful Italian restaurant I've worked at on and off since 2020, to save money for this trip, as I'm pretty broke from attending one of the most expensive liberal arts colleges in America (Lol- 18 year old me was successfully bamboozled by the abstraction of money).

While Annie, Quincee, and I are arranging some awesome workaway stays so we can stay for as long as possible and really be immersed in the culture, I'm still in need of funds for flights and living when we aren't working-away but just enjoying traveling!

I'm so looking forward to this adventure. I've only been abroad once, on a trip to London with my dad when I was 15, and I've never been in the position where I don't know where I will be next Christmas. It's exhilarating and kind of unreal, and yet I feel wholly grounded by my practices of yoga and writing. I would be so grateful if you helped fund this trip for me-- I'm already warm just thinking about how many wonderful folks are in my life who I can send this link to and who might read the bits about my yoga journey that I've written above :-)

With deep gratitude,
Hazel
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Donations 

  • Anonymous
    • $100
    • 1 yr
  • Tiffany Carpenter
    • $75
    • 1 yr
  • Gillian Kennedy
    • $200
    • 1 yr
  • Matthew Moscardi
    • $150
    • 1 yr
  • Marc Blackstein
    • $50
    • 1 yr
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Organizer

Hazel Lucey
Organizer
Portland, OR

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