Having been brought to yoga by the Beats and the Beatles and having discovered Be Here Now not long after it was published (Quaker youth camp in New York in the 1970s—of course we did), this was a bit of history.
Tomorrow I go back into the office. I am grateful for my slow reentry.
Since arriving home, I’ve managed to do laundry, pay bills, shop for groceries, bring the tropical plants inside, and get a little exercise, but mostly, I’ve been sleeping. Uma is all for it.
How blessed I feel to be able to come home at the end of October to some bounty and to be able to eat it straight from the plant without worry.
On the way to Madhuban, we caught a rare glimpse of Trishula and Nanda Devi. It is usually too misty to see them from where we were staying, and they were not visible when we were on the drive back to Delhi.
In a few hours, I head to the airport for the long ride home, having bathed in the beauty of music and mountains, with, I hope, fresh perspective for the work ahead.
Today, instead of going with the group to visit a Hanuman temple a couple of valleys away (which entailed at least two hours each way of hairpin turns and going through a construction zone so dusty tying a t-shirt or scarf around my head would be necessary and having almost no opportunity to take care of biological needs), I chose to stay back. I honored the spirit of Hanuman with seva in the form of a morning helping tend the grounds.
In the afternoon I will walk into the village with two others who are in residence here. One a Canadian Indian who is a Kabir scholar, the other a Dutch woman who has been spending a month or two every year for the past decade.
There is a Siva festival going on. It is loud even up here on the hill. I will have my earplugs.
I am appreciating getting to connect to the space and the people who live and serve here in a way that I could not when surrounded by the rest of the group. It was very grounding for me, too, to spend a few hours gardening.
I am not a devotee, but I am enjoying the beauty and welcome of it and sharing the practices that resonate with my spirit. This spider (over my bed) however, is moved to stay close.
