Making Soup

Now that I'm nessled back into my apartment, I thought what better way celebrate being home than to make some vegetable white bean soup. Everything feels a bit bazar here, like re-entering somebody elses life. Yet for this moment, I couldn't be happier to be home after my first nibble of what India is. And now that I've had a taste I want more. I want to know India in so many ways, but mainly and always by heart. What I took from the experience of my travels is that my happiness and sense of fufillment isn't a little thing that can be left for two weeks on the shelf. No, happiness is something to engage moment after moment and there's no limit to how much of it I deserve. What ever lid I held over the pot of my happiness has been lifted, and now all that I keep as my main responsability is to remember that I am free and the world is my canvas. Tomorrow I teach my first class back in San Francisco at the Laughing Lotus and I look forward to taking the teacher's seat after my time away from it. Always, I am humbled to teach Yoga, the practice that has threaded seeker's on the path towards the direct knowledge and experience of their True Selves.
Namaste!

Full Circle

After sleeping in over 10 beds during my stay here in India, not including the sleeper train beds, I'm ready for my own bed. I've been having moments of recollecting the life I left in San Francisco and I'm curious about how I'll feel about it when I return. Leaving Hampi last night I felt like the whole town said good-bye. The STD conductor on the corner (local and international phone service provider) said, "See you next year!" I said, "Or maybe sooner!" On the train I looked at my 'Lonely Planet' map of South India, and followed with my finger all the places I've traveled. I remember the first morning I arrived in Bangalore, I didn't know what to do, everything was so new and daunting. Now back in Bangalore, I have my wits about me, and can manuver with the Indian through my day. Tonight I have dinner with an engineer who I sat next to on the first train from Bangalore to Chennai, what seems like eons ago. India has finally caught up with my belly, and I'm hoping dinner will successfully agree with me. Then I'll leave at the same time I arrived, in the dark hours of morning, only to extend the 13th of Febuary from here to the other side of the world.

Hump it to Hampi

When the realization that I only have a week left for my trip finally sunk in, I decided to Hump it to Hampi and skip Gokarna altogether. Let me explain that Hampi is a pilgramage site for Hindus all over the country becasue of the ancient ruins, but for others it's been long forgotten. In the 60's a bunch of Hippies discovered it, unpacked their sacks, and made a home in the ruins. Where the hippies go, the tourist follow. I suppose it's like any neighborhood in American cities made popular by a booming art scene and then the developers come to squeeze every drop of soul the place ever had all for a buck. Hampi has a village affect with hella cows. But there are more temples than there are cows, over 2,000 temples my Yoga teacher told me. Today I'll visit Hanuman's birth place, a hill covered with monkeys and they're vicious here. Don't worry, I left my bananas at home. Then I'll hit the water falls and visit my friends coconut, mango, and sugar cane plantation. Just a few more day to take in the unraveling affects of India. Just a few more days to plan my next trip back. When I arrived I had so much stress about how long I would stay, but now there's no doubt in my mind that I will be back, and soon. Bangalore on Wednesday, shop, eat, and fly baby!

Ride the wave man

I've made a few new friends, which my parents will tell you is something I've done since pre-school. I befriended a pack of gentlemen, three in fact. One is a 23 year old from Australia who cracks me up with his aloof demenour and incessant search for the best pesto pasta on the Varkala strip. The second is a third grade school teacher from San Diego, who after three days of flirting with him, I realized he's actually gay. And lastly a tender graphic artist from Zurich, who's in a relationship with a man, but prefers not to label himself as anything. We've had a hell of a time dining, dancing, walking to the Shiva Parvati temple in the middle of the night for the Katakali theater performance, and of course hitting the waves. We made up a game standing in the ocean and turning towards the beach. We use the other senses besides our eyes to feel when a wave is about to come and hit us on the back. The wave is first felt around the feet and ankles as the water from the oceans floor is pulled out to sea. The greater the inital surge out, the greater the wave is when it comes back towrds the shore. I can't help but think of all the times in my life when I've felt like I was running out of energy, when I was moving through some emotional low, or when I was unsure where the universe was leading me. The feeling of the wave beginning around the feet is like those times, the bottomless feeling of the unknown. And in those times aren't there little prayers that your soul utters to itself and God? "Please help me to see clearly," it says, "Allow me to know my purpose here," it continues, "Allow me to get through this day." And in the middle of a prayer, the inevidible wave of gratitude or contentment comes to carry you back towards solid grond. These are the natural cycles of life, and yet we cling to the known, to the ground with an intense fear that we may not find ourselves ever again if we really let ourselves go into the sea. But we are beyond ideas of ourselves, beyond the limited plot of land that we happen to be standing on. We are made of mystery, so may we practice moving and being moved through this life. Even now, as i hear the sound of the ocean I feel the waves pulling me in all directions. Tonight I go to Gokarna with my men, then Hampi later, then Bangalore, then home.

Alone alone, all all alone, alone on a wide wide sea

Before I left on my trip, everyone told me that I need at least a month in India to really sink into the dance which India is. I couldn't agree more. Every place that I've traveled to has had it's own rhythm and way about it. For awhile my trip felt like I was being lead in a dance with India, and the movements went from ackward to fluid only to become ackward again. But as my enviroment continues to change, so does the dance, and I've finally found one I can relax into for a few days. I've finally made it to the beach, and I couldn't be happier to play a cosmic beach bum. I bought the tackiest bikini I could find, and layed myself out before India and God. I'm now in Varkala, 4 hours South of Kochi on the Arabian Sea. I've finally had the realization of being alone, which after a month of traveling solo may seem like a funny thing come to now. But I've always had a course attend, or a temple to visit, a spice market smell, or something to do. This is the first time it's just been me, the beach, and God in the form of the sun. This is the time that I crave when I've been responsible for too long. Time to just write in my journal. Time to heal myself with pinnapple and carrot juice. Time to listen for the answers that just keep coming. And somehow this feeling that's here now is framiliar. Aloneness without the nessicity to respond to anyone elses needs but mine. I must go get some more pinneapple carrot juice, later.