Rhishikovery & Moksha

Aaron asked me if I was going to write about being sick.
I said I had started a piece while laid up in the Sant Seva Ashram bed last week- but I decided it was too depressive and morbid and threw it out.

Aaron reminded me that I am human and allowed to be sick and bummed out and scared... So now this morning sitting in a chair in the same room I've been a prisoner in, it 8am- there is a marching band for some reason on the street, there was scalding hot water for some reason, and I am awake, showered, burning incense as Joey and Aaron sleep in our big room, and I am here... Finally on the other-side of illness, elated and full of love and renewed joyous energy, I can attempt to recount the last ten days which have all but smooshed together in my mind like over-cooked oatmeal.

It began on the other side - literally and metaphorically.

Danny, Aaron, Mikey & I were staying in High Gate, across the bridge and up the hill past the big white kriya yoga dome and into the quiet, removed area of rhishikesh.

I started to feel unwell and we were all getting used to calling me the leper as I had continuous open wounds that rather resembled eyes on a potato coming out all over my body.

Finally freaked out enough to see a doctor, I went to see Usha- the ayurvedic doc who asked me about a million questions including how I walk up stairs and what side I sleep on and finally determined that I am overwhelmingly "vata" - the air Dosha... Even though I would have put money on it that I was 100% fiery "pita"... She said I have a fire imbalance but no, I am as airy as it gets.
Utterly confused by this I left her office with a slew of strange looking pills in unmarked plastic bags.
Aaron and the boys laughed at my confusion "what? Did you think you WEREN'T woo-woo airy fairy chick?"
I guess not.
I fell asleep that afternoon and slept for a solid 24 hours.

Danny left for Dharamshala the next day. I had convinced him to take the next round at Tushita.
Mikey, Aaron & I bid him happy trails, packed up our rooms and decided to change our vibe up- and find a guesthouse across the road.

We looked like a band of gypsy travelers with our backpacks loaded up, instruments out- two boys with fierce baba beards and me with all my woo-woo airy fairyness...

A sadhu stopped Aaron and gave him an orange tikka while a smiling American guy handed me a flyer for a tantra yoga workshop. Usually I decline flyers but was generally interested and chatted for a few minutes while Aaron haggled on the price of the blessing he'd just been given.

We crossed the monkey riddled bridge and met our new neighborhood, checking into the ashram Mikey and I had inquired about reiki courses on the first day.

We dumped our bags exhaustedly and went to get some lunchiedinner sing song time at freedom cafe before Mikey took off his next adventure leg to Goa.

A silver bearded indian man with white hands and magical eyes was drawn to our table by the songs we were singing.
He immediately took an interest to me and diagnosed me with anemia and gave me his email and phone number.
He said he was a documentary film maker but also a Brahman and an intuitive healer.
We called him Alok the Doc.
Feeling like I was going to black out, I left freedom cafe and came to the ashram to lay down.

That night things got bad and didn't get better for quite some time.


My overall weakness and exhaustion turned into fever, migraines, projectile vomiting, nonstop nausea and pain in every joint, my skin got worse on my feet, ankles and fingers and I was only halfway cohesive and coherent.

Aaron called Alok who came with medicine- crazy Ayurvedic herbs that I had to swallow powder and drink foul tasting bitter herb tea.
He instructed me to throw out Usha's medicine and only trust him. I did whatever Aaron agreed was best since I was 12 feet under a sea of dizziness and fuzzy reality.
Aaron was my guardian angel and  caretaker. I owe him so hard.

After a few days the symptoms changed and for a day we thought I was on the mend. I got out of bed, bundled up and walked down the road with Aaron towards Ram Julla on the other end of this side. (Aaron had been exploring to the Beatles ashram and stuff like that during the last few days when I was in bed)... He came in several times a day and told me stories giving me FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)... Then brought me colored pencils and I drew elaborate colorful art pieces to pass the days.

We walked for about two steps when we ran into a guy from Colorado who walked with us the whole way to Ram Julla. He told us about his adventure hike he'd just been on... The local gypsy Babas who caught a fish in the Ganga and made him fish soup. He told us about his job in Alaska as a wild land firefighter... Gradually I got fuzzier and dizzy until I got tunnel vision and Aaron had to run and get me orange juice and a jeep to drive me back to bed.

Then I got way worse.
Through feverish shakes and bloody swollen tonsils we laughed and called it "the plague"... 

Aaron took me to the Ayurvedic hospital which gave me some more vata pills like Usha gave me and instructed me to gargle with salt water.

It made me really think about western medicine treating the symptoms versus Ayurvedic medicine here treating the overall me- but it could take 6 months to make me better and swallowing would become increasingly difficult.
I really thought about how it could be possible to bridge the two.

The next morning, Aaron was asleep and I needed water, so I walked across the road to the market to buy some. The young boy who worked there looked at me and said "excuse me ma'am. Are you sick? Is your liver okay? I can take you to the hospital I you'd like."

I went back and conferred with my guardian angel who said yes. Do it.

We carved through traffic on my new friend muni's blue motorbike- almost hitting cows and Babas in orange pants...

The big hospital in Rhishikesh was unreal and almost something I can't really recount. There was so much illness, necrotic, blue rotting skin, women with deathly ill babies... My heart heaved and ached for all the suffering I was surrounded with and I kept almost forgetting about my stupid sickness in comparison to the pain and suffering of these people... Almost... Until I was being jabbed with needles, under an ultrasound and at a pharmacy getting 10 billion more medicines- this time western medicines treat the symptoms.

I definitively decided that I want to be a nurse.

It's been something that I have been thinking about since my meditation at Tushita when it just came to me that I could help the most number of people and be of service to humanity by taking a year or so and going to school in America and getting a nursing degree.

Then I could work for doctors without borders or peace corps even- while traveling and continuing to write.

I spent Thanksgiving feebly cheersing my lemon Ginger honey tea with Aaron's down in the ashram cafe- giving thanks for being alive- being on the mend- being able to laugh throughout the plague - and for my new intention to become a nurse... And of course, for my dear sweet caretaking brother, Baba Aaron.

I woke up the next day sick but not dying and skyped home, then bought a blue headband and started to think well.


I made it down to the guitar lessons Aaron has started down on the Ganges Bank Beach- he teaches a whole group of westerner and Indian students guitar at noon everyday for free.
The group keeps growing and Aaron is of course famous now- in fact, he made the Rhishikesh newspaper.

We went up to Pyramids cafe for dinner one night as i was getting better where we saw lots of friends including the colorado firefighter, Joey. every time we met I was sick but recovering.

We left dinner and went to the hilltop jam sesh that happens every night by bonfire. (Aaron have been going up and playing our younglove songs and now get stopped in the street every time we go out by adoring friends and fans who love our music. It's really flattering)...

Every day I was getting better.

Polly, Aaron & I went to have lunch at Purple Dhaba when Joey walked by again. I realized that he is one of the most enthusiastic, positive, beautiful people i have met in this life. Seriously. He infects me with joy every time i am with him. We all group hugged for a long time and sat together with our new folk singing curly haired sweetie friend named Gaylen to eat Indian food before Polly took off to San Diego!
We stayed a troup all night- running into Alok who was happy to see me laughing and sparkling again... Then went to hilltop and finished the night jamming at Moksha restaurant.
I was lying on a bed with Joey and Aaron- playing the kazoo and making up songs when Aaron told me I could play guitar.
I thought there was no way I was already good enough to figure out how to play along with the group o guitarist and flutists... But next thing I knew, guitar in hand I was healthy, smiling at my new spirit enhancing buddy who was lying next to my guardian angel encouraging me to be amazing.


Moksha.

This word means liberation.

I was liberated in that moment. I felt free from the illness that has wrapped it's hands around me, free from destructive, negative thoughts that dance in my mind and tell me I can't...

I felt reborn and had so much fun that night.
I felt myself coming back and realized it's been a LONG time since THIS me was here.

The next morning I went to Trika yoga for a class and found what ive been looking for.

I can't believe this form of yoga exists. Incredible, intelligent lectures and subtle body, tantra/kundalini based asana interwoven with philosophy.
I freaked out! 

I also realized that Joey was the American who gave me the flyer when Aaron was being tikka'd the day we moved sides.

I think I was always coming here but I had to cleanse myself and shed some unneeded pieces of me in order to reach this moment.

I met Alok the Doc right after yoga and cried. He made me feel sick and needy. He asked me for 400 dollars for medicine he would go get me and told me I would look 80 years old in ten years without it.

I had just been feelig so good and crashed.
I paid and quickly left that yucky meeting and again, took two steps to find Joey in all his happiness and zest for life.
He was standing outside a sacred gem and stone shop where Aaron was sipping ayuredic tea and playing music for the lovely, smiling Indian man who's shop it was.
Aaron lead the intro to my song about choosing our reactions and I sang it for this man who grabbed a seat for me behind the counter next to him and proceeded to read all of our palms.

He was eerily spot on with everyone... When he looked at mine the very first words out of his mouth were
"you should be a nurse."

Our jaws hit the floor.

He told me some other amazing things and gave me a sacred red stone for free or good luck and hugged me tight. He said I was very lucky.

Tell me about it.

Joey & I walked across the bridge and found a hookah bar with a big wooden platform. I spread out all the yaks wool blankets I had just bought and we watched the sunset and talked about lucid dreaming, America, mullets and other excellent topics.

We met up with the rest of our friends for dinner and hilltop jamming - as is the nightly routine.

The next day followed our new pattern- yoga, guitar lesson, lunch, find joey on a street- dinner - and then we went to a healing sound circle meditation that blew us all away.

We were buzzing, elated and full of life like never before when we stumbled out of that session that had transformed all of us in one way or another only to come upon on Indian wedding.
Joey, Aaron & I looked at each other and nodded. Oh yes. We are crashing that wedding.

We skipped back to the ashram with bellies full of weird wedding food, adorned with marigold flower indian lais around our necks where we had a sleepover and stayed up late recalling the night.

I feel like I had to dip that low to fly this high and reach this bliss and moksha...

So I am grateful for the plague, for the suffering I experienced and saw, because now I get to wake up in a room with Joey and Aaron and marigold flower petals on the ground and remember like the palm reader told me... I am very lucky.

...learning guitar

(this is my 108th post by the way. i like that)

Rhishikesh, India



I decided in Buddhist Camp that the body is a container for the mind (soul) and the Ego is a container for them both.
As Leanne, my spiritual guidance counselor in LA would say - we can't actually be rid of the Ego. It is necessary in creating this reality we are in.

... But we can step back and observe

"Aham Sakshahi" - I am the eternal witness

What an amazing process this life is... of unwinding... stepping back... unwinding... stepping back... just to observe.

My meditation teacher kept saying that.
"Just Observe."

I wrote a poem wherein I say "well maybe i don't want to just observe. Sitting on the sidelines sucks sometimes."

But i met my ego twice yesterday and both times, like a rooster with its tail feathers spread and sticking up... I had to remind myself to step down and observe the habits, the tendencies, and the strands of deeper me it pulled on.

First was yoga...
It was the first day of a teacher training at that particular ashram (unbeknownst to me).... They of course took my drop in money and shuffled me through the building to my class.

After one full hour of Surya Namaskaram A - disecting how to do a Chatturunga (a pose i have done nearly one million times over the last ten years) - I found myself standing on my mat, arms crossed tight at my chest, one hip cocked out to the side with a bitchy, sour, "oh. my. god. becky." face on me...

I stepped back from my skin - from my ego contracting around that moment and from the moment itself.
It was as though someone tipped a glassy lake on its side and showed me my reflection through a watery rippling surface.
i saw me.

WHOA! yuck! i thought to myself, "what is your PROBLEM zani!? you're supposed to be a yogini and a teacher - you never practice chair pose or baddha konasana (a master of avoidance you are) and now here you stand SCOFFING at an opportunity to go slow and re-learn important things. WHAT a bitch you are!"

i stepped back again.

The lake tipped up and there i was with my fists clenched and furrowed forehead, grinding my teeth... beating myself up... contracting back the other way.

I closed my eyes
Dropped my arms to my side
Relaxed my face and jaw and the muscles around my eyes
and i hummed inside my head the first bit of "san francisco" by the Mowgli's:

"i've been in love with love and the idea of something binding us together you know that love is strong enough..."

Aaron and I have been singing that little diddy all over Indida.
I let the love i felt for life both here and in India and California too expand out form me...
loosening the grip of the ego around me.
I let everything drop to the floor.

I Rolled up my yoga mat, bowed and smiled to the teacher and skipped out of the studio smiling at the lesson.
I wrote poetry in my head on the walk home.

After a chai and a coconut cookie (or three) - Aaron told me that it was time or my 3rd guitar lesson. (and this is pretty much my 3rd lesson ever)
Aaron is a legit teacher and teaches me for an hour - strong and teacher-y, he doesn't let me fudge over stuff like the dreaded correct strumming. He is definitely challanging me.

KAW-KAW-KAWWWWWWWWWWWW. The rooster fluffed its feathers.

To our credit, Aaron has taught me Blackbird by the Beatles in one week, which is pretty inticate finger picking. But i love love love fingerpicking.
I f you play the guitar and re in my life, i'm fairly sure i've propositioned you to sit n the edge of my bed and play "finger-picky guitar" while i fall asleep.
(snapshot of 8 years i spent married to the finger picky master jamie.
...I would use an obnoxious baby voice and say ' play my song! play my song' clapping my hands together.

Running (imagine a lullaby of strings plucked in perfect soothing beauty)
'everything's fine today. everything's fine and dandy. i'm with you. life is so simple ya, livin out such freedom. ya i love you too. running. ya you know that i am running to you cuz you want me and i want you.'

I spent all my life handing the guitar over and saying "ooh! play such-and-such" for us.
My father, my ex-husband, Mikey & the Mowgli's...
I never lived in a home without a professional musician.
There was no need to learn.


Before I left for Indonesia, Joshua John-Michael Hogan, my sweetest spirit-sharing partner in awesome and inspiration to be good and kind and also tenderly fearless... he gave me one of his guitars. A black takamini that I had played around in our house we all shared (the OM hOMe).
He spray painted it and puffy painted it special for me and made me promise i'd learn on the island.
I have since figured out bits and pieces and i wrote a few songs i played for Baba Glass, the first night at Shanti Guesthouse in Varanasi. This is what prompted real guitar lessons.

I am actually learning now and i'm terrified.

I get unbelievable frustrated and then abusive to myself, shocked that i can't play perfectly, flawlessly, immediately.

"you set your standards SO ridiculously high, Zani. It's not fair." Aaron said to me last night - creeping his compassionate eyes closer to mine in the cold candlelit courtyard.
"this is your third lesson and you have Blackbird down. That song takes most people a year. why do you expect to be perfect at everything immediately?"

I pulled back and observed my tendencies (this is exactly what i do with surfing too)...
I don't give myself the option of being a beginner. I surround myself by geniuses - masters of their craft - and then i insist on being at their level or else not trying at all....
I'd rather not even attempt to be good then to end up mediocre at something.


Scottish Mikey asked "DO you think you surround yourself by geniuses to give yourself an excuse not to have to try?"

whoa.

I want to be the master of every craft, but there is just not enough time in the day... so i have to chose what i put my mind to.
Aaron reminded me how writing, yoga & dancing are like Blackbird. On Lock.
Guitar & surfing are gonna take some time and dedication, like a new song - i need to put in the same amount of hours i've spent writing, dancing and practicing yoga (an exhausting prospect even to think about)

But i do-si-do'd with my ego twice last night and finally found myself lying in bed - my chattarunga muscles aching, my left fingertips calloused and my mind detached...
watching.
observing how lucky i am to be alive and to have something to work towards.

I'm (probably) not going to play guitar like a professional musician tomorrow and that's okay.

I'm here and that's good.

i (red heart) Rhishikesh!

Calling Bandari Swiss Cottages in High Bank our hOMe.
A calmness that moves through the trees reminiscent of Dharamshala... makes me understand why so many of my friends are here. All the amazing peopler I met at Tushita made their ways to Rhishikesh... It seems I am just running into people from the course everywhere I go in India.
I guess becoming close with 63 spirit seeking travelers will do that to you.

My Scottish BFF from the course, Mikey, arrived yesterday just a few hours after Aaron, Danny & I. We had left our stuff at a guesthouse a bit further up the hill while getting our breakfast, booking our white water rapids adventure and going to the internet cafe for that communication stuff we do.

At that time we thought High Bank was the heart of Rhishikesh and we already loved it.

We returned and found that we had to relocate guesthouses... So we walked down a skip and a jump and found Bandari Swiss Cottages.
I sat on my REI green backpack in the walkway waiting for a room to be cleaned for me smack in front of my new buddy Ganapth - the Self proclaimed vagabond snake charmer jewelry maker, music lover and generally smiley 60 or so year-old Shivaite from Rajasthan by way of everywhere.
Aaron & I sung him a song.
He threw his head back in joy and laughter and then returned the favor by playing his bagpipe-like snake charming instrument (though he didn't get his cobra out for a while)...
As Aaron, Ganapath and I were in the middle of jammin out somethin awesome, Mikey rocked up and pulled out his new wooden Indian flute, joining right in without even dropping his rucksack.
Aaron & Danny immediately understood why he is decidedly my favorite Scotsmasn of all time.
We all hugged it out and danced around, dumping our bags and setting out on a mission to find a Reiki teacher!@ (Not too difficult in a place like this, but we were on a mission to find someone recommended by Amanda, our Tushitaite friend and puppy saver)

Luckily and awesomely, Mikey is doing Rhishikesh Take 2 on his journey as he was sick during his first pilgrimage here... But now he has the lay of the land down pat, so we maneuvered ourselves down through the steps and streets that leak towards the Ganges Bridge - a rickety, swaying thin bridge that bazillions of people shuffle over along with cows, monkeys and motorbikes.
Duh.

The other side of the bridge is where it is popping in Lakshmi Julle... ashrams, yoga studios, funky fresh clothing stores, crystals, healers and yummy fresh eco-veggie style food places named things like "Pyramid Cafe"

Aaron & Danny had lunchinner (i just made that up... like brunch).. while i practiced yoga with Mikey. (A killer class! sadly i found out was a one off).
I had already signed up for the everyday routine in my head.



We sat by candlelight in the courtyard and sand our ever expanding repertoire of feel-good vibe songs.
AS per the usual, we made some awesome new friends.

Strangers are just friends you haven't met yet.

Its so damn true.

A warm smile goes so far in this world!

OH! big news! On our walk back up to the guesthouse we found this little market with western imports... I just stood in front of nature valley granola bars, V8 and Skippy Peanut Butter and cried.
It feels like lifetimes ago that i was home.

Something in me has been feeling fear about coming back to America. I'm not 100% sure what that's all about. Aaron and I tried to untangle the emotion on the train from Varanasi, but i still don't totally know.
I'm trying to not get caught in a tornado of nostalgia and homesickness, so i turn the other cheek and do something bold and amazing and fear-confronting... like a 26km white water rapid adventure! (p.s. it was freaking AWESOME)
Danny, Aaron, Me and Sandeep - our Indian guide. <3 him.
Such a cool guy. Great snacks.

We recovered (ALIVE! woo hoo) and then i taught the guys a yoga class.
Its amazing how comfortable & natural i've become over the years.
I just slide into the words that spill out from me as i teach... i ramble and share and dance the flow of the practice.
We all felt great and walked down to a hole in the wall for some delicious Thalis.
I ate a bit too much to be going to yoga, but lucky for me it was the first day of a teacher training at the ashram, so they were moving at a sloth's pace.
I left and found 5 Tushitaites at the bridge.
Amanda and Rainer had rescued a little sick puppy and were tending to it.
What angel sweetie champions, right?
Jessica and Margot would be proud!

I walked back up the hill, huffing and puffing in the pitch black night with my orange scarf around my head like a veil.
I felt like a vagabond gypsy woman.
I jingled and clanked as i walked.
I breathed deeply and felt the urge to chant and then totally did. why not?

if not now, when?
if not here, where?

(i gotta remember that.. like... always)

in other/not that other news
i am officially playing guitar. (see the next entry that is coming on this one)
we are writing songs constantly - sometimes just us, often with new friends and younglovers. New songs are born every moment it seems... Rolling them out like a magic newspaper press, printing poetry between blank lines and emotion saturated stanzas.
i don't even know what that means.
but ya.
that.

if not truly, fully expressive and honest then WHAT?
what if this is it?

well... hell... then i'm gonna make the most of today.
As Baba Aaron G wrote "I'm for today... i'm for the birds who fly away. Free as they came. Free as they came."

Thanks for being here friends.
Have I told you lately that i love you?
I really really do.

Lassi dosa dosa lassi

"Rama Nama Satya Hai - Rama Nama Satya Hai"

Day of Diwali - Our friends on the roof of kashi guesthouse invited us onboard the boat they rented for the evening.

There was to be a celebration and all of varnasian friends told us through mouths full of paan (chewing tobacco), that a boat out on the ganges would be great idea for this evening.
"very big celebration. Lots of lights."

I had heard it all before and didn't take much thought but agreed to go- excited for an adventure.
Like a trail of gypsy ants we filed out down the narrow stairwell, past the yapping dog tied up in the foyer, and out the tiny door frame (that aaron invariably catches his guitar on when ducking underneath)- and out to the cracked, filth coated, cobblestone streets. A stray dog has her puppies right there among the trash and breaks my heart every day I walk out the door. They still nurse on her swollen nipples as goats, cows, bulls, monkeys and buffalo march up and down- oh- and the occasional person too.
We navigated our way to the ghat. Smoke billowed up to our right into the night sky from several cremations currently in progress.
The cremation procession that goes on 24 hours a day follows the small stones through the town (past blue lassi- our favorite place in the city) and spits out the bodies and families at the burning ghats. Everyone chants together the whole way down the path carrying the dead body high above their heads together "nama rama satya hai" over and over- if you ask someone what it means they say "god is truth" or "the name of
God is true"...
At the true God procession's end, we found colorful saris smashed together at the edge of the Ganges this night.
Tiny candles in impossibly perfect rows created sacred shapes all up and down the ghats. (something that must have taken hours or else vast manpower to set up).
Breathtaken and caught in this ethereal moment of beauty I heard nothing and felt nothing - floating in the beauty of it all... In utter peace staring at the twinkling ghat... until very quickly i was yanked out of the moment as the giant explosion of an M80 exploded next to my face. I felt the heat and the smoke stung my eyes and I went deaf in my left ear.
After a moment of being completely stunned, I shook it off as best i could and crawled on the little wooden canoe boat - there were 14 of us in all- the South Indian host Surinder, Simone, his German vacation girlfriend and trumpet extraordinaire (she's def a younglover)... Some Dutch and French friends, Aaron, Danny, and I... And of course the yogis.
The Belarus yogi dudes splashed the body riddled filthy sacred Ganges water on themselves and flicked it back on us in the canoe too.
I was moderately horrified until I caught a glimpse between our boat and the ghats  _ the shadow of a small boy rowing what looked like a gandola in Venice Italy.
The black outline of his body and long paddle glided across the backdrops of ancient, majestic, holy buildings lined with lights, people wading through the beauty of this city.
The image went "chh-chhk." and took a mental snapshot that I will carry with me forever.

I stopped caring that the Ganges water was on my face.

I was so moved by the moment.... Again.


We continued to float down and then back up the river pregnant with boats, people and little floating candles- holding prayers, blessings, dreams. Kind of like the temple at burning man, that we burn at the end of the week... Offering our prayers up in the smoke.
Varanasi has a lot of that energy.

On the other side of the river there was a neon lightshow that made all three of us convinced we were on the playa.

---

24 hrs later- back on the roof.
Our last night in Shiva's city. 

We spent the morning doing a sunrise boatride on the Ganges. (pronounced Ganga apparently)... Went to our friend raj's family's house and got a lassi.

After eating Malai Kafta on the roof I lay back and though how much I wish Babu and the whole of Kashi's guesthouse would just come with us to Rhishikesh.
I was being inspired.
I realized I want inspiration to follow me- like a procession down the streets of varanasi. I find that I want to run to the new and even though time has proved that I will always find inspiration wherever I go, I feel an urge like i want to drag the past along with me.
Why?
For fear of being uninspired? (no... Never)
It must be attachment.

The thought of bringing this world with me to the next destination is not only crazy bit kind of selfish. I would imagine that tearing them away from what they want- to come be uprooted and follow.

I think I just want the world to see what I see... Taste what I taste... Be where I am.

I forget to just Be. Here. Now.
...share when I can and let people be...  I can always go explore their "now" too.

It's both people and experiences I become attached to.


Before I finally called it a night and went down to my little cement room, my German Goddess girlfriend and International Younglover taught me some German and we called my Dad. Mein Papa!... We got to talk for a little until my phone ran out of credit (for a change)

I really really love these kashi friends!  We lay around on the roof and made music as per the usual... Until finally when it was already too late - I listened to Simone jam out one last song in German before calling it, tearing myself away and sleeping for a few hours.
I woke up to Aaron knocking on my door waking me up for the sunrise boat adventure.

We staggered down the alleyways we have become totally accustomed to at this point and wove to the burning ghats. I got speared in the ribs by a headbutting bull who was eating trash and obviously unimpressed with our coming through his hood.

Rude.

On the boat as the light was returning to the sky, we watched from out in the Ganges as the Varanasi locals were on the ghats praying and beating their clothes in the river, bathing, ringing bells, chanting, burning bodies and practicing yoga in the ones they still had...

Danny flip-videoed Aaron and I singing a song the three of us had co-collaborated on to create the night before.
It's called
"I'll meet you in Calcutta this September. (the Ganges)"

It was cool watching the morning ritual on the river we were singing about.

We spent the afternoon wandering, bumping into old friends, making news ones, hanging at blue lassi playing tunes. (the last day of our residency there)

We picked up train tickets that would be taking us away from Varanasi and to rhishikesh.

I felt the sickness.
The wave of deafening frustration.
It sounds like veruka from Charlie and the chocolate factory
"but daddy!!!! I don't WANT this to end!"

I know what Jack Keroac means when he says the mad ones are "desirous of everything."

Thats me.

----------

I slept to the sound of chanting... Incessantly playing through speakers for 24 straight hours.
Again, we woke up early.

I shuffled down the hall to the shared bathroom with no mirror to brush my teeth.

Then we bid adios to Varanasi and crawled through the city and traffic to find an autorikshaw that would drive us to the Varanasi junction

--------

I walked back up, squeezing into our nook in the sleeper class on our rhishikesh bound train.
Danny & Aaron were peering up over their books waiting to see my face.
"wow. We just said how it would be a funny story if zani wasn't on the train."

Nah. I made it.
A guy had tapped me on the shoulder as I danced around the platform, pretending like i was a gymnast on a balance beam while talking on my mobile to Shayno who was at Jakarta airport waiting to get to Singapore.
I crawled over the guitar case and bag littered nook in the sleeper class that would  ours for the next 20 hours or so...
Danny said he imagined that I was on my phone to Shayno dancing around the platform totally oblivious that the train had started moving.
Weird.
I was.
Exactly.

One week and he already knows me well. I like it. Danny is awesome.
Born and grew up in orange county, California, he finished college at UC santa barbara and joined the Israeli army.
I am so impressed with that.

Last night we sat on the rooftop and drew a tattoo for Danny - a Ganesha made out of sacred symbols.
(a star of David, an OM, the word LOVE with a peace sign in the O like many of our tribe in venice and around the world have)

It's weird how much time I have been spending thinking and talking about Venice and back home. In august, my best friend Jessica and I travelled Indonesia and Thailand together and then after that I spent two weeks with my soul sisters Laura and Cary in Bali and South Thailand, and we really didn't talk about California all that much.
But Aaron & Danny had just been to burning man before coming to India so I think the flavor of that consciousness and group of love beings still lingered on them.


We definitely look the part, I realized earlier as we walked down the steps of the Varanasi Train Station to find the train I almost missed.
We all three have baggy, floaty, fabricy pants on and haven't showered in a few days. Our flip flopped feet are blackened and we smile and sing all the time.
Burners.

I can't wait for Mikey, my Scotish Buddhism camp buddy joins our troup.

----

We slept like champs and arrived at 4:30am in Hardiwar. We got chais in the dark and tuk-tuk'd to our new guesthouse up in highgate.
Aaron and I wrote a song while Danny slept and now it's time to explore!!

Rhishikesh- hold on to your samosas. We are here to love ya.

Varry noice-y....

I woke up this morning in my dark jail cell room at shanti guesthouse and reflected on all I had experienced so far in the insane, magical, chaotic, psychotic city of Varanasi.

I was humming the tune of a younglove song we wrote on the roof the other night and have since played for numerous people across the city. (most notably at blue lassi- pretty much our most favorite place here.)
Btw- younglove is the name for josh, aaron & I... So we are technically 2/3younglove here in India sans brother j-ho.



I found myself at blue lassi three times yesterday. After our  last lassi before the rooftop jam sesh we orchestrated for the evening at kashi- another far better guesthouse that we would be moving to later on, Aaron tried to give the lassi guys a tip.
Mind you this is India... And Varanasi is India at it's rawest.
Everyone wants your money.
The children selling little candles stuck in a ring of marigold flowers on floatable banana leafs down by the ghats... the touts trying to be your guide and show you the way through the mazes of broken alleys and footpaths around the city... The Babas perched on rocks chanting low, eerie sounding "om namah shivalya's" and extending their often fingerless hands to receive your change...
Everyone wants your money.

The guys at blue lassi last night straight up rejected Aaron's tips, smiling and joyful, they touched their hearts and said that they were so happy we were regulars and they knew we had been telling our friends to come indulge in one of their masterpieces.
And I mean- seriously- this place would make a killing in the states.

There is so much love in their little terra cotta pots of yogurt and fresh fruit with pieces of pistachio delicately sprinkled on top.
Aaron and I wrote an impromptu song about blue lassi and sang it for the smiling men.

As we walked past wildly colorful necklaces hanging from nails and incense shops trying to pull us in to buy ayurvedic oils, street food sizzling and spitting oil onto the dung coated cobblestones, back through the burning ghats to kashi i felt like skipping... (realizing of course I would be immediately coated in filth and fluids of the foreign kind... I chose not to skip. Just let my heart do the dancing)

Checking out of shanti this a.m. I looked at the grumpy angry faces of the men working there and just sent them love- imagined myself skipping with them.
I don't know if it broke through the cold exteriors but I sent it nonetheless.

Walking into kashi was like coming home- an old woman with bright orange chalk in the center of her parted greying hair greeted us in the foyer. She flung her sari over one shoulder and called up the steep staircases with steel grates in the center, for someone to come show us to a room.

My room has no bathroom and is just another cell-like room- but it has character and love in the walls somehow.


I dumped my bags and came to the roof- the location of last night's short jam out.
I found my friend sitting on the mattress couch drawing in a sketchpad with charcoal.
He is South Indian and sits with an effortlessly regal-like energy... His orange floaty pants and open chiffon vest... His hair cascading down in the morning sun. He oozes peace.
His Dutch girlfriend was gone this morning. She, a beautiful blonde with a bindi and bright enthusiastic eyes carries a travel-size trumpet and kills it! (as she did last night).
Instead beside him was a bearded, long haired yogi from Belarus who sat on the mattress in similar orange pants writing the Hindi alphabet in a journal.

My South Indian friend and I talked about Varanasi. He said in his soft cooing voice juxtaposed to the speaker blasting someone shrieking over the burning ghats something emotional and intense...
"there is a harmony here. Everything has it's place... Everything gets used and serves a purpose and it's beautiful."

He has been here for a month and a half.

My Indian by way of DC by way to Brazil friend from yesterday that walked with Aaron and I to Assi Ghat said "people either hate it here and leave after 2 or 3 days or just get sucked in."

Aaron and I turned to one another and said "we love it."
Then we stumbled onto some wide stone steps like stadium seating looking out at the Ganges.
There was a street food vendor selling something spicy. We ordered it and sat down on the steps.
Instantly Aaron's guitar was out and we were singing "San Francisco" by the Mowgli's.
A troup of little candle selling girls that couldn't have been more then 8 or 9 yrs old, filed in and sat on the steps above us listening and watching with their chins perched in their palms. Immediately there was a crowd of locals surrounding the steps listening and smiling.

No matter the culture or country, this sound- this song- touches people and lifts their spirits.
I think it's the energy from when it was written. 
I remember really clearly for some reason driving in my car up Venice Blv near tito's tacos when Mikey texted me those lyrics from San Francisco.
I pulled over and re-read them two or three times.

I loved moments like this- existing among beings who spoke my language on such a lyrical, soul shifting level.

Being with Aaron has made me reminisce so hard- diving back into old memories as we sing songs that I watched the birth of... My mind is called back into the recesses of memory to pull song words that I once recited like clockwork and now struggle to find.
When I reach the lyric, it pulls  with it a crumpled up memory or image that brings tears to my cheekbones. (not all the way to my eyes but they certainly get misty nonetheless).


Sitting in the sun on Kashi's rooftop "night bar" looking out over the harmony of this place, I realize that Aaron and I were always meant to meet up here- created harmonies with our voices that I used to know in another lifetime...
Here in Shiva's city- the place of death- and thus... Rebirth.

I feel at hOMe... Once again.

Jammin to Varanasi

Traversing India - Dharamshala to Varanasi... 

I left Tushita meditation center after 10 transformative days in silence in a taxi with Alex- the Danish 21 yr old guy from Copenhagen and my Scottish giggle buddy and Karma Yoga partner in crime, Mikey.

Our taxi pulled up to Seven hills guesthouse and we got a couple rooms - running into our friends Polly, the English Montessori school teacher and Rainer, the extremely interesting German hippie musician. They had walked and beat us there. 

I love these people.

We all headed off to do various errands... Mikey and I stayed together- going to pick things up around McLeod Ganj and running into various friends all over the place.

We all met at Carpe Diem restaurant on the roof for dinner that night.
There were probably 30 of us up there laughing and getting to know the friends we had been sharing time and space with, locking eyes with, sleeping next to and knowing nothing about their regular lives somehow.

A smaller group of us went to Oliver's house for an after-party jam sesh. Oliver is this amazing Jim Morrison-esque musician who has been living in McLeod Ganj for a few months, teaching guitar and is friends with everyone.
His studio/home was beyond amazing and we made some really special music sitting around...
At one point the group dwindled to just oliver, Rainer, Mikey and me... And I recorded two fifteen minute portions- where the four of us are all just in the zone... Making sounds and music, singing, reciting words... Being so utterly expressive and creative and authentic
It was an hour of my life I'll never forget.

Then alex walked in and said "hey! You guys are still up! There are nine of us. Can we come in?"

In walked more amazing friends from the course... Changing the vibe drastically but as we all know- nothing lasts forever!
We've spent ten days recognizing impermanence afterall.

Around 1:30am I had to leave, as my bus to Amritsar was leaving early early and I had to be up at 4am. Alex, who I was sharing a room with volunteered to stay up til 4 so we'd definitely be up (and because it was just so hard to pull ourselves away from the group)...
I almost started to get misty eyed saying goodbye but kept reminding myself that nothing lasts forever and to be grateful for the time we had.

As I was hugging my last friend goodbye- Luca, the tall German kid that beamed sunlight every day next to me in the Gompa and never stopped smiling... Mikey came out of the blue with a headlamp on and announced "I gotta walk my sister home."

We laughed about everything (for a change) the whole way back to seven hills and then sat in the room and listened to the recording of what we just created at Oliver's hours before.

Just as it finished the entire group from Oli's arrived outside the door, coming to party in Polly's room- which shared a wall with mine.
I didnt mind at all.
I slept for two hours to the sounds of these amazing people, my friends and Dharma buddies on the other side of the wall drinking and laughing and singing, staying up with Alex...

Alex came knocking at the door at 4:15. My alarm was going off but silent to my sleeping ears.

We rushed down to catch a taxi from the main square escorted by our two friends, Ahshish, the Indian who lives in Dubai and was in the advanced course while we were at Tushita... And the other Polly, who we call Polly Pocket- a tiny little mini hippie who lived in Cambodia for a year and is fascinating and gorgeous... 

We said goodbye, jumped in our taxi and made it just in time for the bus.
The journey down the mountain away from our beloved Dharamshala began at 5am.
Alex slept like a wet noodle on the window and I did my best to rest and relax for the 6 hour bus ride.

We finally arrived in Amritsar- a pretty decrepit city by all accounts, though it reminisced Padang to me a little bit and made me smile. It was missing the ocean though... No, we were far from the sea- in fact we were on the Pakistan border.
I didn't get a chance to go- but apparently at sunset when the border closes, the guards put on a whole show and do the Monty python high step and dance around.

I only had time in Amritsar to go to the Golden Temple- a Sikh palace and the most efficient way of feeding people I have ever seen.


After leaving all shoes and tobacco products outside, you enter this beautiful temple and sacred pond- and there is a food hall where you get given a free meal. I watched thousands of barefoot, cross-legged people getting fed... At least 300 people doing the washing up- throwing the metal plates and bowls to one another.

It was incredible.

Alex and I posed for about 25 photos. (the token westerners)... I actually didn't see ONE other tourist there the entire time.

Alex and I left, took a nap at his hotel - I did some yoga and then we had dinner at a swanky restaurant which felt nice to pamper ourselves a little after that bus ride- up and down and side to side shaving the sides of cliffs and bouncing around on the stone cold rock hard bus seats.

After dinner, alex escorted me to the train station and helped me find my first class cabin I would be sharing with a Finish man named Aleksi.

Aleksi had a Cal (UC Berkeley) backpack and had been in LA in march... He was also an opera fan and knew of my dad's friend Marty who is a famous bass in Finland.

He had been on the bus from Dharamshala too and was exhausted, so we both just made our beds and slept...

20 hours on the train went by in the blink of an eye.

I slept so well and dreamed vividly... Woke up and meditated, stretched, re-read my notebook from Tushita and before I knew it we were in Lucknow.
(nearly to Varanasi)

An older Indian woman came on board and sat with us chatting and before I knew it we were in Varanasi.

My Finish cabin-mate, Aleksi and I decided to share a autorikshaw down towards the burning ghat.

Here we were. It was no joke. Varanasi takes "intense" to a level I didn't really know existed.
I felt this overwhelming calmness in the face of the Varanasi energy, almost like going totally calm when someone is having a freak out... Just holding the opposite somehow. 
Varanasi is far from mellow.

The dead bodies draped in sparkling orange cloths being carried above the heads of the crowded streets. The children, the cows, the touts, the babajis, the honking motorbikes coming down supposedly pedestrianized alleyways that are just covered in poo.
Yea... Poo.
Everywhere.

Our autorikshaw driver parked, grabbed our bags and walked us down an impossible maze of alleyways. 
A huge cow came charging towards us. I jumped to avoid it.
Minutes later a mellow cow lifted it's tail and peed on my leg as I was squeezing behind it.

I laughed and just told myself it must be a blessing.

Finally- days later I walked up the cracked cement steps of the Shanti Guesthouse, bid adieu to Aleksi and saw my friend Aaron in the lobby, beaming his sunlight spirit as ever.

I got a small room- just a bed- threw my stuff and went to sit at the rooftop restaurant to catch up. Within minutes we were singing mowgli's songs to all of Varanasi- laughing, talking and smiling so big my cheeks hurt for 6 solid hours.

We made calls to friends in venice until i ran out of credit and then I slept like a baby.

I woke up first so I meditated for a while and then walked down the hall to Aaron's room- waking him up and leading him to the roof to give him a yoga private.
Then we walked down that maze I talked about and finally found his sitar lesson... After sitar we wandered a bit, came back to meet Aaron's friend Danny- went to meet the hand guru- a channeler who was incredible. He's too expensive for me, but Aaron is going to do a session. When I walked out of the Baba's chanelling house I got shit on by a bird. (again I referred to the old "it's good luck" idea to make me feel better - had the best lassi of all time (blue lassi) and then went to see the burning ghats (amazing) - watching a dozen or so cremations on the river all at once.... 
We stood in an old decrepit building to see from high above. There were sadus and junkies asking for money and it was pitch dark except for the embers flying around from the burning bodies and a couple candles lit next to an alter.
Eerie and beautiful at once.
Then aaron took us down the gaht to have the best chai in Varanasi and made our way back to the rooftop resto at shanti.
After/during dinner Aaron and I got infected with some kind of highly creative bug and just went off- we wrote 3 songs, read poetry to one another and just were buzzing.
Satisfied in our very full, unbelievably creative day... We called it a night around midnight.

Varanasi so far- ya.... Worth that journey already within 24 hours here eventhough I've been covered in cow pee, bird shit and human body embers.
I love it.
I'm not sure why I love it, but I do.

Thank you universe!

10 days at Tushita

10 days at Tushita

I trudged up the steep hill through the monkey forest from McLeod Ganj up to Tushita Meditation Center... The little zen zone that seems to hang above all of Dharamshala like a prayer hovering over the head of the Dalai Lama's hometown.


The trail is tough to walk up and I was weighed down pretty heavily with my huge backpack and other bag that holds all my shoes and the big hand-made Tibetan singing bowl.
I kept telling myself like the little engine that could... "I think I can... I think I can..." and visualizing all the friends I've met who have been trekking- including Aaron Glass, who I'd be heading to Varanasi to meet the day that this course ended.

I had finally made the decision to come the day before.
I booked in, packed up, bid adieu to my monk friend, and emailed the world letting them know I'd be crawling inward for 10 days.

Scared of being silent for so long, before I started the walk up the hill to Tushita, I bought an Indian SIM card spent well over an hour on the phone with Shayno who was in Padang at the time, using ALL his pulsa and most of mine. 
We didn't even talk about anything that exciting but he laughed at the prospect of me actually staying quiet for 10 days.

Though I chose the course deliberately (albeit totally last minute and on a whim, really)- I saw the sample schedule and aside from the last two days (a fully silent, sitting in meditation only 'retreat within the retreat' as venerable Rinchen, our meditation teacher would say) - the first 8 days we had lectures on Tibetan Buddhism for half the day and would break in to small discussions groups - which turned out to be my second favorite part of the day- just so I could ramble!

But I was almost unable to speak my name I was so out of breath walking up the path, sweating, exhausted and nervous looking up the hill- wondering why on earth I didn't get a taxi to take me up and around through Daramkot....

Just then a guardian angel walked up behind me- his name was Yoel- an unbelievably friendly Israeli man with bright green heart-chakra eyes, t-shirt and energy, who just took my bags off my shoulders and then put his hand under my backpack and literally pushed me up the stairs leaving absolutely no weight on my body and making it completely effortless to skip up the stairs and into the 'silence please' zone.

So grateful for his help I totally ignored the silence signs and whispered to him- chatting for about a half hours about yoga and lightness and the lack of suffering we felt - sitting at the plastic picnic tables... The rest of my 63 person course trickled in and either sat in silence or also whispered to new friends and strangers that we would all be falling in love with over the next ten days.

Yoel left me, giving me his cell phone number and offering his hotel for me to leave my stuff or shower after the ten days.
Ya... Like I said... Guardian Angel.

So, I opened the new notebook I had just bought and wrote on the first page 

Tushita Meditation Center
Day#1
(I left two lines and then wrote Day #2.... to 10... I figured every night I could sum up the previous day...)

This works well for re-telling the story of my adventure at Tushita too- because if you just want the cliffs notes version... Here it is:

Day #1:
 OVER-THINKING
(also... I don't like the way Glen writes the letter "p"... Really irritating)

Day #2:
More monkeys in my mind then are running around Tushita's property... And they are EVERYWHERE!


Day #3:
illusions, delusions & karma
*I got to spend a solid 30 min mindfulness meditation on loving-kindness tonight with my daddy- surrounding him in light.
ALSO- my ears popped like I'm going UP!

Day #4:
mindfulness is space...
the mind is the sky...
Buddhism is a science of the mind...
attachment is a belief in permanence....
i believe that WE are microcosms of the universe & it's cyclical big bang existence.

Day #5:
.   .   .
TONG-LEN. LOVE WITH WISDOM. (monkeys too)

Day #6:
Mind-blowing!
- the nature of reality according to Tibetan Buddhism. (and I mean wowie wowie stuff and also the Prana wind energy associated with the very subtle mind - the tiny white light that gets blown from one body to the next... One realm to the next... Or for high level practitioners who are like wind-surfers- their minds get BLOWN!!!!)
Everything is so unreal and so re and just M.I.N.D.B.L.O.W.I.N.G!!

Day #7:
Divine Gratitude & a stroll to Stupa Land... 
(buddhists... Koo-koo!)

Day #8:
Be. Here. Now.  (well don't mind if I do)

Day #9:
using the mind to investigate the mind.
AWARENESS OF AWARENESS!

Day #10:
Hello. Goodbye.
(I love you)

---

I wrote exactly 100 pages of notes, poems and thoughts in my notebook journal.
I became known (I found out) as the bendy girl who was always writing...
I like that.

So I will just pick little entries to share and recap as I see best. (but FYI- if you want Buddhism through my brain- just ask to borrow my journal an read it. It's amazing.)

Day #1:
 OVER-THINKING
(also... I don't like the way Glen writes the letter "p"... Really irritating)

So Yoel left and I started writing a little- looking up to see a pretty blonde girl and a bearded guy- I recognized their accents through their whispers- she was English and he was Scottish.
I caught both their eyes and smiled.

The German nun was calling out names to come inside the diningroom and register, get your rooms and karma yoga jobs, and put all electronic devices and instruments and anything remotely distracting (shock horror)... In their safe.
The group seemed like a very mixed bag of beautiful young people, some Indian locals and some elderly people - one guy was 75!

The names were getting called depending on when you signed up.
(I knew I'd be one of the last so I just sat back and relaxed in the chilly afternoon.)

Tushita is about 7000ft up in the hooting and hollering red-faced monkey forests. We all started bundling up as the temperature dropped and dropped and the German nun told us we could rent a duvet.

The bearded Scot and I were last. He whispered that he wanted two duvets and i agreed! He introduced himself to me in the line as "Mikey"... Oh Jesus I though to myself... As if I don't have enough Mikey's in my life.
I didnt realize just yet- that this Mikey might be the best one yet. Truly my brother from another mother.

We got paired up as Karma Yoga buddies to clean the plastic picnic tables we had just been sitting at waiting- every afternoon at 1pm. (this, by the way, became my number one favorite time of day)


I glanced over as I was waiting for the room allocation table to clear out and I saw a Tushita brochure that said, 
"real happiness begins when you start to cherish others." - Lama Zopa Rinpoche
(I didn't know then that Lama Zopa Rinpoche would be coming to spend the week at Tushita while I was there. He is a really big deal- he is the founder of the FPMT- Foundation for the preservation of the Mahayana tradition)

In Bed night #1
Made it!

We were able to talk until 8pm-- the Scotish Mikey and I had to split ourselves up in the Gompa because we kept cracking up-- I mean fully coming unglued- especially when Vladmir, the Russian would talk in his resounding stereotypical Russian voice. Mikey gets to room with him and the quintessential German who had cycled from Germany to India.
You couldn't script this.
(Mikey and I decided we needed to write a screenplay on this cast of characters)

I was put in Dorm 3 with Alice-the beautiful French yoga gypsy, Jo- the little Australian with the soft voice and Doe eyes, Maria- the fiesty Israeli who I ended up sitting next to in the Gompa, and one more Israeli girl I never got a chance to speak to.

Very weird introducing yourself an then hitting the mute button like "okay-talk to you in ten days" and them sharing a room and sleep space and co-existing in silence (I hope).
I also decided to record my dreams each morning.

Glen, our teacher seemed extremely intelligent and thorough. He writes the letter p weird which irritates me- but I guess I could have worse complaints!

And I already love our meditation teacher Rinchen.
Every time he does something funny I crank my head around to catch Mikey's face and we both get the giggles.

Thank God we are separated. I can't stop laughing once I start and in silence its not cool.



Day #2:
More monkeys in my mind then are running around Tushita's property... And they are EVERYWHERE!
(p.s. There was definitely asparagus in the soup last night. That is going to bug me all day)

Woke up to the gong in the dark - flicked on my light. I can barely remember my dreams. Something about india and having missing limbs.

I almost said something to my roommates about how hard the beds were but remembered I was in silence. Weird.

There was definitely asparagus in that soup last night. I HATE that. Makes my pee smell for the whole day. So annoying. And apparently some people don't have that. Uggggggh.
Also- I totally want to borrow my roommates moisturizer but I can't ask.
Shit!
Oops. Can I think that word here?

Relax.

I emerged into the dark morning. No clue what time it was.
Who cares.
It was a foggy and beautiful dawn- mist danced between the pine trees the way it would in Carmel.
I felt Aunt Devon.
Knowing I would be sitting for a few hours, I skipped down and back up the 118 steps to the stupa at the entrance to Tushita and then back up.

Trying to be all Buddhist and respectful, I slowed my roll and walked around the stupa reverently, only to come to a screeching halt half way through. I was going COUNTER clockwise. (big faux pas)
I quickly did 3 clockwise circles and headed up the path envisioning prayer beaded monkeys in the trees shaking their heads in disapproval.

6:45 gong means morning mindfulness meditation was about to start. I felt achy and ready for yoga- not sitting cross-legged for an hour.

Such bad monkey-mind in meditation.

I think I have too many
expectations or something.
I could not relax. I kept having to draw my mind back.

I realized that I have a habitual thought pattern of living in the future.. In fantasy.
Maybe that's why I like to write about what just happened- tell the story of the past to balance the scales because my imagination and thoughts are always in the future it seems.

It seems all over the world, wherever i go, I attract people who want to, or need to talk.
I act as a sounding-board for friends and strangers and impart my advice, what I see...
Though sometimes i get overwhelmed and burned out... So I am loving this idea of being alone and undisturbed so people can't tap me and ask for things.

Interesting unintentional word-play there... 
"so people can't tap me" - I meant referring to someone tapping me on the shoulder to pull my attention back to them, but it could also subliminally mean to TAP me, like you tap a keg- and take my energy out of me.

Being in silence is amazing.

...

Beautiful rural india sunset through the monkey-filled forest and vines draped off branches hanging down like tears suspended in time...  Distant sound of left-over Diwali bombs being lit off and some bells or birds. Can't tell which actually.
There are pastel colors smeared across the sky as I watch with a mind full of mindful thoughts left over from our lesson on the Scientific materialistic view vs. The Tibetan Buddhist interpretation of what the mind is.
The gong sounds that it's time to go in to the Gompa for our pre-dinner meditation hour.

Mikey and I had a secret chocolate eating party and communicated by writing notes (illegal but totally worth it to laugh a little)



Day #3:
illusions, delusions & karma
*I got to spend a solid 30 min mindfulness meditation on loving-kindness tonight with my daddy- surrounding him in light.
ALSO- my ears popped like I'm going UP!


Back to back breathing meditations- really good.
The morning sunlight creeps in the windows as the monkeys giggle and remind me to go back to the breath.

Yoga for breakfast on the roof. Amazing way to start the day - one hour meditation followed by one hour of yoga alone before I even have tea or look at a person.
I wish I could do this every day of my life.

It's amazing how quickly we forget... Everything!

But mostly how quickly we forget positive routines that serve us! Living on bay street with Jamie I would be up at crack of dawn and down to yoga. I loved it and felt the best ever.
I fell off.
I fell into old, destructive patterns of staying up late- I even left my nest and created and moved into a house that didn't sleep.

Lessons on the 3 poisons - ignorance, attachment & aversion.

Glen said artists are often afraid of letting go of attachment because consciously or not, we believe we have muses and like our disturbing negative thoughts are the fuel for our creativity somehow.
Very interesting thing to consider.

Another thing we talked about was "cognitive fusion" - if we identify a person with their behavior, we will either attack the person or accept bad behavior if the person is close to us.

Instead, we can identify a person engaging in a harmful situation and find compassion.

A resentment or grudge comes from this cognitive fusion... Holding someones behavior against them- carrying aversion or anger and it ends up harming US!

I zoned out for a solid half hour during lecture, day dreaming about climbing trees.

When my attention came back to the room I was so angry at myself- before I saw the way I cognitively fuse myself too!

We had a fantastic discussion group. Everyone started by saying how much they were loving the silence.
I had a moment of high drama zani-ness and said how I kind of hated it and totally wanted to get to know all these beautiful people!

In every moment, we are having an experience and a reaction to that experience... Often we react out of habit. The goal is to strengthen our mindfulness and slowly we have the option to respond in a different way and steer our lives in a different direction.

A life without mindfulness is a life of ignorance where we believe that everything is pre-determined

We are the masters of our destiny
We are accountable for our actions!

Meditation on the kleshas- my ears popped like I was going up. As though i was re-acclimating.
So weird.
I have been at this altitude for a week.
Maybe I was acclimating to the course.

Finished the evening with meditating on the four opponent powers and did a "loving-kindness" meditation.
Holy glowing orb of golden light in my heart! Wowie.

We were told to visualize someone we loved very much to start... Someone who's attributes were totally lovable and easy to find.
I saw my dad.
I saw him so clearly- like I was looking at a slideshow.
I felt his eyes... The way the one eyelid twitches a little when he sings a low note... The tiny beauty mark on his cheekbone... I could feel his reassuring hand on the back of my neck... I saw him young and old... Wearing a white tuxedo an goofing off... Wearing his big black leather and mink coat with his serious professional face on... I saw him sitting at his desk surrounded by stuff we made him as kids... I saw him bouncing me on his knee strumming the William Tell overture with his voice... I saw him playing with their new puppy I haven't let yet. I saw him eating dinner by candlelight with my devoted and beautiful mommy.
I surrounded him in light and I held it there and said "May you be well. May you be genuinely happy. May you be free from all suffering and it's causes."

I came out of that meditation buzzing and shining with joy.


Day #4:
mindfulness is space...
the mind is the sky...
Buddhism is a science of the mind...
attachment is a belief in permanence....
i believe that WE are microcosms of the universe & it's cyclical big bang existence.

I woke up remembering my dreams vividly... Lots of vehicles... Belief... Confusion...
Beautiful symbolism woven through the words and images my mind wrote as I slept.

"love with wisdom" echoed through my head as I woke up.

Our lectures began and immediately drew me in.
Glen said "we've been looking through green sunglasses our whole lives... Strengthening our ignorance. Believing the world is green. Someone says the world is not green... You say they're nuts. The same way a Buddhist tells you their view on the nature of reality... We start by thinking they might be crazy. It seems impossible. Until you take the green sunglasses off."

**it's far too great a philosophy for me to try to drum up here...

The things I underlined and put stars next to and made bold by writing over and over on top of the words with my pen are

Attachment is a belief in permanence... (a fight against reality which we invariably lose and thus... Suffer)

Our habits are not us!!!

Bardo! The stage of rebirth when the very subtle mind (the part that transcends to the next body) exits the current body and waits to decide where to be reborn... That stage is called Bardo.

Made me laugh thinking about the after-hours club above Avalan in Hollywood called Bardo - where you go when the clubs closes and you aren't ready to go home. Very clever naming!
They must be Buddhist or understand the pun!

Sleep yoga--- lucid SLEEPING is more difficult then lucid dreaming... Trains us to stay mindful during the death process.

I wrote a death song. It's beautiful eventhough it has no tune yet... I couldn't sing or use a guitar so it's only in my head.

Mindfulness is space - holding still and being present... Holding space for the NOW by calming the thoughts jumping around past to future.

The mind is the sky-- to say "look at the sky"... Well... It's everywhere... It's in front and behind and up and down.... It's formless and shapeless. Thoughts pass through like clouds. Sometimes a huge storm.
You just watch what comes up and watch it roll away.

---

We finished the day with a very heavy intense and amazing meditation on imagining your own death.
Who do I need to forgive?
Who needs to forgive me?

I felt blessed beyond words to have such an incredible support system of family and friends I could imagine would be by my side. My beacons.

Before bed we chanted to Shakyamuni Buddha "tayata OM muni muni. Maha muni-ye soha"

We chanted - all 63 students in one voice. We sang and sang and sang looking at a picture of the Buddha. The father. The OG.

Where is he now?
I think we'll cover that tomorrow!


Day #5:
.   .   .
TONG-LEN. LOVE WITH WISDOM. (monkeys too)

Sunrise from the steps of the Gompa.
I think I have finally slid into this silence.
Not waking up with the immediate urge to talk.
There is space.
Space is so good.

I've been thinking alot about my aunts. My mother's sisters Lauren and Devon. Devon is no longer with us and I keep feeling this desire for her to be alive!
I keep wondering if that's a non-virtuous, selfish thought. I mean, essentially wishing she wasnt further evolved down the continuum of the mind.
That's not right.
I need to rejoice that her mind and soul (I know buddhists don't say "soul" but dammit, I do)
Has found another body to be in because she spent this last life helping so many monks... And me.

Ha. There's a good title for a book. "monks and me."

I dreamt I watched myself give birth last night. Very strange.
He was born at 10:02 and I was supposed to remember that and the number 1184

Who knows?

After morning meditating i did a grounding yoga class on the roof. 
As I drank my tea afterwards I found myself watching the smallest bugs on the earth rather then staring at the sunlight coming through the pine trees and the sky as I usually do.

Learning about the 3rd and 4th Nobel truths.

Knowing how to give, when to give, when not to give, how much to give... This is BIG for me- and from what I understand both my sisters too.

My parents just did too good teaching us to be giving I guess! Ha.

----

Vajrayana.

----

I can't write here about that section... But it was the most powerful part of the entire course.

I meditated on a lot of things from the past and got some clarity and it was insane


Cultivating compassion

We must be in a mental and physical state that we can help others!

Equanimity is important!
We are all equal in wanting to be happy and free from suffering. We can develop a closeness to everyone - giving up attachment to friends, apathy to strangers and aversion to enemies.

Immeasurable equanimity = the wish for all living beings to be free of attachment and aversion.

Boddhicitta- taking on the personal goal to help every sentient being overcome suffering.

(at the risk of sounding too crazy or holy-then-thou -- I believe we did this in Venice. We really truly had this intention in creating the Om hOMe. We just got distracted by shiny stuff)

Mother tereasa "only a life lived for others is a life worth living."

Tong-Len meditation-- pulling in the suffering of another which in turn explodes your self-cherishing heart and shoots light beams of healing and the cure back out to the sufferer.

Shayne did this with me when I was sick with my kidney problems a few months ago.
I will never forget his intuitive healing he did on me.
Then he touched my third eye an said "it starts here."

We. Tong-Len'd all evening.

Delighting in my loved ones' joy and taking away pain from those I know were suffering.

I am so grateful for my tribe.

I hadn't showered since day 2 and was loving it. Feeling blessed- coated in the wisdom I was attaining each day.

Writing by candlelight as I fell asleep- my sweet roommates all deep in their books and journals too.

-

I woke up in the middle of the night terrified by the vividness of my dream. I watched my dead friends come back to life.
So much symbolism throughout the dream.

The monkeys were trying to get into the garbage- banging outside the window.
I breathed in their desire and fixation- their attachment to eating the trash and breathed out patience to them.

Day #6:
Mind-blowing!
- the nature of reality according to Tibetan Buddhism. (and I mean wowie wowie stuff and also the Prana wind energy associated with the very subtle mind - the tiny white light that gets blown from one body to the next... One realm to the next... Or for high level practitioners who are like wind-surfers- their minds get BLOWN!!!!)
Everything is so unreal and so re and just M.I.N.D.B.L.O.W.I.N.G!!

Wisdom.

Who is the me?

This eternal mind living inside this body right now.

Right now I see the sea of oneness - the mass of sensations and vibrations - which is a flow of transformation- with billions of minds- long continuum strands of experience running through the mass.

Things are empty of inherent existence because they are dependent arisings.

Emptiness = dependence

The movie "waking life" is so amazing.

I wrote this poem:

------
Let's dispense the senses.
Yes, let's find a middle way.

Draw lines around the emptiness
From dawn to dusk each day.

Lets shaken and awaken from this walking waking world.
Come lucid in this game we play, wake up before we're old.

Our mind is renting space here in the bodies where we reside.
Though a body's just a flow of transformation where we hide.

We'll sit in meditation.
Ponder this here permutation
It's all just imputation
Not a lot of variation
But a constant combination all the same.

We're giving names.
Though who exactly are "we" anyway?
Some subtle minds?
Or the collective light of where we stay?

It seems for now, we're locked in this continuum of nothing
So... I guess I'll have another cup of tea.
-----

Enlightenment is the understanding of emptiness.

Enlightenment means there is no duality.

ME can only exist if there is a NOT ME or a YOU or a UNIVERSE.

Believing in an independent ME means there is no NOT ME to compare it against.

You can only have a subject with an object.

Soooo... What part of ME contracts around the ME?

There is not one single boundary in the entire universe.

Boundless love and compassion can be born.

... Investigating reality is f-ing AMAZING!!!!!


Day #7:
Divine Gratitude & a stroll to Stupa Land... 
(buddhists... Koo-koo!)

Things just got more and more incredible in the lessons.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche arrived, as he is recovering from a stroke and decided to hole up right next to the Gompa.

Seriously amazing man. High level practitioner and the founder of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition.

We left on a walk to see the Stupas dedicated to two other amazing Lama's...

Back at the ranch - my group of rebel soldier upper path dwellers met in the dark to cheat and whisper a little to one another- cloaked in our multiple-colored yaks fleece blankets.

A group of men walked by with flashlights obviously just cutting through Tushita on their way from Dharamkot to McLeod Ganj below.

As one walked by he said "Buddhists.... koo-koo" sounding like a Swiss clock. 

We all erupted into laughter.

Yup. We sure are.


Day #8:
Be. Here. Now.  (well don't mind if I do)

All meditation all day.

Powerful.

For me.


Day #9:
using the mind to investigate the mind.
AWARENESS OF AWARENESS!

The second day of our "retreat within a retreat"- silence and mediation.

Just be.
Just be aware.
Just be aware of being aware.



Day #10:
Hello. Goodbye.
(I love you)

We broke silence after breakfast and it was like a party just started and couldn't stop.

We all revealed out identities to  eachother and marvelled in one another.

We had a picnic lunch and then checked out reluctantly leaving this amazing place.

Truly- I will hold this experience in my heart forever- into the next lifetime and everything!