Okay, so the truth is I’ve been so busy I really haven’t had time for a post. Packing up the apartment, getting ready, get-togethers with friends, saying farewells.
Suffice for now to say, we’re back in California. With a ton of luggage. Staying with friends and planning the next step…
…my Mom just reminded me that I haven’t posted in a while. And by gum, she’s right — as mothers almost always are.
Been busy of late…but also some news to share: We’re gonna be moving back to the States in about a month. It truly has been great and an amazing adventure over here in India, but it’s also come time to recognize — with our Swami’s encouragements and blessings — that it’s time to start putting stuff into practice. To get the work done.
So…I owe a post on the whys and wherefores and all that.
It’s already 10:20am January 1st over here in southeast India. So happy new year!
Okay. Back in Penukonda. The experience of going straight through from SFO to Heathrow to Bangalore, then drive directly to the ashram was exceedingly gruelling. Allayed only perhaps in the “yank the band-aid” sense of getting it all over with in one throw.
Time to zombie-fy myself. Write more when I’m not so badly jet-lagged.
Safe & sound in America now. No problems with the flights (BLR to Heathrow, then on to SFO). The Baggage Goddess smiled upon us, with all four of our checked bags already on the carousel by time we cleared Immigration. Got car, remembered how to drive, and made our way to our friends’ house in Sunnyvale where we’re staying for the next few days.
Pretty massively jet-lagged though… More later when my head is no longer the size of a watermelon.
Oh, I should add: Post trip takeout pizza. Yum. Very grounding.
Well, it’s time once more for another journey homeward, a trip that if it goes as scheduled, will see us traverse a 36 hour day.
Literally — the flight leaves at about 6am from Bangalore, connects through London, and ends at San Francisco. On the clock, it’ll be around 4pm when we hit the ground, but actual flight time is 24 hours. (Of course, we reverse this on the way back east, leaving on one day, arriving three later, with a sun-loss of that same half-day.)
We love India…but we also miss our other home, back in the States. It was about this same time last year that we went back for about a month; this year, we’re going to stay 7 weeks. And instead of sticking almost entirely to one place, we’ll be wandering a bit more. A little time in Sunnyvale with some friends, then off to Albuquerque to visit family and other friends, then back to our favorite medium-term lodging place, Fern River Resort in Felton, CA. Then back to Sunnyvale, and finally back once more to India to continue our extended education in spirituality, meditation, and Indian culture (both ancient and modern).
Had anyone suggested three years ago (Oct ‘05), that I would spend the bulk of my time between then and now in India, studying at an ashram, I’d have said they were nuts. Sure, I’d always wanted to travel, see the world, experience new things — but for most of my adult life, stuff always got in the way. When I had time, I had no money. When I had money, I had no time. I’ll also admit to a certain timidness, worried that I wouldn’t know how to handle myself in strange new places.
So far, we’ve done all right though. Made a few mistakes; made more than enough friends to outweigh the lapses. For instance, the hotel staff at the Ballal Residency Hotel where we’re staying right now (in transit) calls us “family”, and not only ask after our health and well-being, they really take care.
Still, when you’re away from what you know, your home culture, for long enough, you begin to crave things. I want to be able to drive myself places (no way could I handle a car here — they drive like crazy people). To go walking deep in forests, alone. To eat familiar foods (for instance, I have a huge craving for a cheese omlette, maybe with tomatoes and/or mushrooms…Rocky’s Diner, here I come).
Today, we’ve been taking it relatively easy. Taking care of a few loose ends, such as getting luggage tags & straps. On a lark, we also bought a dozen premium donuts to bring back for the Ballal hotel reception staff, just to say thanks. (They’ve already helped us out in so many ways, the most recent of which being to get prints-outs of our BA boarding passes.)
This time tomorrow, we’ll be somewhere in the vicinity of London, approaching it, I think. A half an experienced day after that, we’ll be touching down in America. Even though we were last there in November of last year, it’s still going to feel strange, I’m sure.
The following odd ‘journal’ entry was found stuffed up behind an air conditioning unit, scrawled on a sheaf of mismatched papers and written in an ink of highly questionable origins. Copied quasi-verbatim:
…big-big feer time for we Monkee-Tribe. Big broun box come cupple days a-go, with EVIL Bunnee-God pikture on it. Bunnee-God grin like it alreddy know taste of Monkee-Tribe feer. Bunnee-God eyes closed to Monkee-Tribe big hoots for mercee. It wants blud, me shur.
Me rite this: It be the Bunnee-of-Doom.
Box be giv to mean nastee uglee pink Monkee-Warrier-Laydee. She-Who-Spray-Water. The Un-Afeered of Monkee-Tribe. Deestroyer of Monkee-Tribe Resting Playses. (We hateses Her, alwayz.)
Wun time, to get away from Her, Biter-of-Wirez jump from balcknee, but he miss tree, hit grownd. He look big stoopid. We teez, ‘Yoo like Big Monkee, cant clime! Fall down, go thump.’ Him angree, go hide beehind Trezure-Pile-of-Big-Monkee-Trash. Him now named ‘Ownlee-Frend-of-Cowz.’
The Un-Afeered of Monkee-Tribe open the box, & haz nu brite color thing. Old brite color thing shoot little water little-far. Befor, we a little afeered, runz away. We wait, then come bak. We laff, poop all over, make big happee stinkee. Monkee-Warrier-Laydee juss big dum-dum. Gud timez…
Nu brite color thing shoot BIG water far-far. She now angree Water Monkee Goddess, make us Monkee-Tribe wet, make us shake all afeered, and take off us all the good stinkee.
And Grunts-With-Nanners so afeered the big-big water, he pee hisself. Everybuddy laff at him. Then he took hiz nanners away and nobuddy laffs now.
Old Monkee shaman — Steeler-of-Shooz — say we must appeeze Water Monkee Goddess. “Find shooz. Giv shooz. Get food. All happee.” Steeler-of-Shooz so stoopid — we throw poo at him. Nobuddy giv food for shooz long-time now. Wuz juss crazee Big Monkee, not heer no mor. (Shoo fetish? Dunno…)
Monkee-Tribe try sneek…not work. Water Monkee Goddess alwayz there, never go away. Old brite color thing water end soon. Nu brite color thing iz big-big & water never end. Monkee-Tribe cant stay in good hi bilding playse, & hav Monkee-Tribe parteez no mor… We all sad.
Me rite dis so Monkee-Tribe baybee-baybeeze heer truth: Beware the Bunnee-of-Doom and the Water Monkee Goddess!
But Picker-of-Nits look at me funnee now. She no like me riting like Big Monkee, so me end. Monkee-Tribe go other end big bilding, mebee leeve — we be sayfe tonite. No Water-Monkee-Goddess there. Me rite more tomoro…
I post this ‘account’ with many thanks to my dear friend M (she of Bunnywarez.com fame)– who read one of my stories a couple months back, about our ‘epic battles’ with the packs of monkeys here at the ashram — and sent her own contribution to the arms race. I happened to mention that the ‘Super Soaker’ toy water-gun clones available here are really cheaply made and didn’t work all that well.
Two days ago, we received a package containing TWO genuine Super-Soakers, the kind with a separate pressure chamber, toggle trigger, switchable nozzles, and a 1.5 liter reservoir. That night, I took out one of the new water-guns…and the monkeys literally couldn’t scamper away fast enough.
Hee hee. I’m so easy to amuse sometimes…
There was a really huge lightning storm here last night in Penukonda, in the wee hours of the morning. I don’t mean merely a big storm. This one was scary-big. The kind where the lightning is so bright and the thunder so loud, you cower under the blankets.
I’m pretty sure we took some close strikes on the hills and low mountains right next to the ashram here.
When we got up this morning at around 7am, all three of our computer UPS units were down. Flashing red lights indicating major fault. Uh-oh. That is usually a very bad thing, and often indicative of the UPS itself being fried. We unplugged ‘em. I disassembled one, looking for a fuse (since pressing the circuit reset button on the unit didn’t seem to do any good).
After a while of futzing with them, all of a sudden, all three began working again. (Sometimes I feel certain I have some sort of technolophile siddhi.) Meanwhile though, yes, I do feel like an idiot for not getting up and unplugging everything. Bad me. But truly, I wasn’t exaggerating when I said the lightning was so big & loud, I didn’t want to get out of bed.
Today, of course, the power is going up and down like a jack-in-the-box. I have no doubt that the electrical infrastructure near the village and around this district took some major hits.
Okay… It certainly has been an interesting few months here at the ashram. ‘Few’? Hmm…actually, the interesting times date all the way back to Shiva Rathri (the Hindu new moon holiday dedicated to Shiva, back in early March).
To recap: My partner of 10 years (Stephanie) and I first visited Sri Kaleshwar’s ashram in Penukonda for about 4 weeks back at Shiva Rathri 2006. It was then we decided to go ahead and get an apartment, and to sign up for the inaugural year of the ‘Soul University‘ program, which ran from Guru Purnima (July, roughly) 2006 to Guru Purnima 2007. Although we’d gotten quite a lot of instruction on Sri Kaleshwar’s teachings from two of his senior students, Alx and Jonathan, back in the States, the first year was some repetition on that for us, but also quite a bit more that was new. Plus, we went much further in formal meditation programs (sometimes called ‘processes’) than before.
For our second year (again GP to GP 08), Stephanie and I opted to take the new 2nd year Sadhana (meditation) program — only those who’d completed the 1st year or had equivalent experience qualified for it. We found the experience interesting, but not quite what we’d expected. Plus, we’d both gotten involved with rather more ashram project work (seva) than apparently was expected of sadhana program participants. (More after the break…) (more…)
