The woman sitting on the yoga mat next to me smiles and raises her eyebrows. 

I nod. Then look around at the walls, noting the tendrils of green plants climbing them, wrapping around bare curtain rods. There are candles and little Buddha statues. Tones are hushed. My mat-mate is right, it definitely feels a little temple-like. 

Our instructor, Angela Connell, floats around the room in yoga pants and a light top, her calming voice dispensing careful instructions and words of infinite wisdom. Her arms, delicately laced with tattoos that look like prayer beads. She’d deny the temple thing. And the role it casts her in. But it is the vibe. Especially tonight. We’re here for a Tibetan Singing Bowls experience.

“You might find the experience a little overwhelming.”

Ange explains that each of the composite stone bowls corresponds to one of our seven chakras. They’re meant to connect with and represent different physical and spiritual parts of ourselves. 

I’ve researched this, so I know what to expect. I’ve also had a taster session before tonight. We sat in a circle. I opened my mind. We all closed our eyes. I heard the ding of hammer against metal and then an alien sound. A boomerang of tone. 

Tonight I’m eager to feel that thrumming again. Resonating in my bones, on my skin. Wrapping around and running through me. It’s been a tough couple of weeks. I need an escape. 

Ange explains that Yoga Nidra, or yogic “sleep” is a “consciousness shifting” practice, "releasing physical, emotional and mental tension by re-directing and re-creating new neuronal pathways through carefully guided visualisation techniques".

The workshop includes a “sound bath” of Tibetan Singing bowls to help harmonise the electric currents of the nervous system and to facilitate a deeper integration of the practice.

“We’ll begin our Yoga Nidra by raising our awareness.”

First she guides us through a meditation. I imagine every finger, every toe. I note I am most present in my right hand. My left sole tingles, but my feet feel very far away. Parts of me feel almost disconnected. I realise that I tend to live in my head. Here’s proof, apparently.

At one point I doze off. Just for a few minutes. The session is longer than last time, and it’s later. And it seems like the bowls aren’t singing as often. I wanted more of the eerie haunting tones that took on the shape of a twisted oval, or infinity sign in my mind. I wanted to be carried up and out tonight. To feel suspended above the form lying on the thin mat, under the wool blanket. Wearing my comfy jeans, wool socks and a warm sweater, I am a form still aware and awake enough to think, “I’m a little chilly” right in the middle of the experience. 

Higher consciousness eludes me generally. Except for a few magical moments here and there. And I’m so glad I can find them here.

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This “temple” is a yoga studio on the top floor of a building on Tarbert Street. It sits above the 2 Dollar Store. You can see its exposed steel beams. They’re painted the pale colour of the walls and wrapped in fairy lights. The scent of lavender and chamomile tea infuses the air. Complemented by a few essential oils. 

This other-worldly sanctuary is at the heart of Alexandra. Angela Connell is a local, but one who left, saw the world, and came back with a mission: to enrich and support the community in which she was raised. Even though she knows what she does isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. 

Ange created this space after leaving Australia, where she was working in a world light years away from what she does now: waitressing and bartending, climbing her way up the career ladder to managing a bar in Melbourne. She knew enough about herself back then to know that being able to suggest the ideal craft beer for each dinner course wasn’t in line with her values.

At that point in her life, her values really started screaming. She describes feeling “stuck, hopeless and even harmful to the environment” working in hospitality, “wasting massive amounts of food, milk, produce, packaging, and resources, not to mention encouraging huge amounts of alcohol consumption and less than optimal behaviours”.

So Ange decided to make a “passionate commitment to 'do good' in the world.” She turned her back on success as defined by external standards and chose to put her energy instead into quality over quantity. And to focus not just on her success, but on helping solve community challenges. One of her top priorities is sustainability. 

She’s kitted out her studio with driftwood art, homemade bolsters and op shop treasures (which also form the core of her wardrobe). Another is mental health, so she decided to include kids in her practice. She now teaches mindfulness in private sessions and in schools around the region. Other core values are contribution, creativity and community.

Angela Connell is the life force behind Alexandra's Flow Space. 

When she was a student, Ange wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to be, trying three different courses that would have prepared her to be a PE or Art teacher, or even a fashion designer. At one point she applied for Environmental Science and Psychology degrees. She even started scheming up ideas for a massive peaceful protest group.

But before any of that came to pass, she went traveling. First to India and Nepal and then to Australia. There, she ended up spending  six months in a monastery, where she says she was transformed.

“I shed all of my limiting beliefs about what I was (or wasn't) capable of...lifted the veil of the sham of society: the things that we go along with just because everyone else does (getting a degree, being this, being that, getting this status, following those rules etc). 

“This dramatic demolishing of self-doubt was absolutely essential in the fruition of my goal of reducing suffering in the world and made me feel limitless in my potential. I finally believed in myself and in the power of intentional living.”

Her daily mantra became “let life flow through me freely for the benefit of all beings”. With this intention in my mind, she knew that anything she decided to focus on would be supported. 

Her first yoga and meditation venture was in Queensland, but her heart was in Central Otago, where her sister and family had become rooted once again. In her heart she knew that this was where she felt she could change the world by being a “good human”. Giving back to life, to her home.  And she added to her daily mantra a quote by Mahatma Gandhi.

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

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Flow Space Yoga is what she created. It’s where people in Central can find solace and healing through massage therapy, trauma therapy, Reiki, workshops on mental health and mindfulness training. Where kids can learn yoga and meditation. Where writers can share their work at regular open mic events. And where women convene for monthly Moon Circle gatherings. 

It’s where people can connect as a community. 

Ange has also pushed past the walls of her studio. She created and hosted the first ever Holsym Festival last December. Her intention was to “celebrate and integrate creativity, culture and community by uplifting, inspiring and strengthening connections and hauora. To use the arts as a way to support wellness through a variety of creative forms”. Yet, she does this year-round.

As our Tibetan Singing Bowls class ends, we can hear the sounds of people laughing outside, leaving the bar next door. The idling of an engine, the roar of an unmuted muffler. I am so grateful. For all of it. To be here, with locals and transplants who fell in love with the energy in this part of the world. To find a community of people who are curious and open at the heart of a conventional small New Zealand town. 

To find a “good human” like Ange, who understands there is a balance in life. Even if it’s not always achieved by being in balance all the time. Who teaches us how to stretch ourselves. To step off the traditional path and onto our own. And to create our own temples, honouring and serving and nurturing our highest values and passions.