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Guru Purnima?
I had forgotten completely about this full moon holiday named “guru purnima.” But last night when I was getting off the bus after evening Spanish class, i was greeted by the brightness of the moon and I stopped and bathed in it. It was a few minutes before I took the picture. I love it when the camera adds something not visible to the naked eye.

Happy New Year
This pilgrimage is shortly coming to a close. I do not know what it will bring nor what I will bring home (I actually wrote this entry on December 16th). What I do know is that I will be eager to share all the learning and visions and use them to seek more peace and joy, fairness and health, love and compassion. May your most heartfelt, true wishes be realized in the new year.
- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
Devotion (Bhakti)
Much is said about devotion in yoga, and there is a great privileging by many of the path of devotion — bhakti. With no clear answers, I contemplate often what it means to practice bhakti, to be devoted in a religious or spiritual sense. Witnessing those on pilgrimage when I was in India (it was “pilgrimage season”), I was flooded with memories and ideas for contemplation about what it means to be devoted and how people express devotion.
Among the thoughts and memories were having observed the operaphiles in their expensive clothes swoon and gasp and applaud at the Vienna Opera House on the opera level where I had paid a dollar for standing room; having been literally swept off of my feet in the press of the crowds heading to the tube at Wembley Stadium after seeing the Rolling Stones in concert; watching the people do the standing wave thing at ball games while hollering for their team as if their whole view of the world was dependent on who wins; having taken, standing room only, the third class train from Florence to Rome during Easter week (a different pilgrimage season), on asking who is that woman on the billboards, discovering that India, too, has a habit of electing movie stars to political office.




