We decided to head back to the guesthouse for a few hours before the sound circle... So bundled in our multicolor yaks wool blankets we left 'The Office' - which quite literally has become our tribe's office- one of us could always be found sitting on the balcony with an instrument, a steel mug of the best chai in Rhishikesh and an apple samosa (or the fly covered crumbs of one that was too good and tantalizing to even let it cool down before it was devoured)...
We walked down the semi covered Bazar walkway towards the bridge, passing the street vendors we have come to recognize, declining popcorn and prayer beads and pressing our palms together to wish "hari OM" to the crooked eyed Babas.
The night was brisk and the wind snapped and howled. The Ganges was violent and hostile looking- furious white caps and snakelike ripples charged down the sacred river to our left.
The sunset Aarti ceremony would soon be coming to a close as night fell... The bells and gongs and chanting would cease as the desperate to stay lit in this wind candle flames would be released into the river.
Soon the road we walked down would flood for a moment with sari wearing worshipers.
The peanut vendor prepared for the arrival of the mass.
An eerie street light hung over his stand and poured yellowish light down upon him and his steaming tray of peanuts and burning incense lifting smoke swirling up towards the light.
His dark brown hands patted the peanut shells from behind the curtain of smoke and light.
"Visual snapshot" I said to myself.
I do this sometimes. Drink in a moment. Taste it, roll it over my tongue and commit the image to my memory. Of all the magical images of that night, I'm not sure why I chose to enter the peanut vendor's hands to my sacred memory bank of snapshots but I did, and I'm fairly certain it's locked in for life.
We hung a quick right up past Joey's barber, waving hello and tiptoed down the perpetually urine smelling shortcut footpath we affectionately call "pee alley"... Emerging onto the dirt field that is always lovingly littered with young children playing cricket in the dirt - they somehow avoid the piles of cow dung with their light-footedness.
We ascended the narrow hill where silver monkeys with black faces sat and watched us curiously reconnecting with the main street at the magic tree - a gnarled, twisted huge mangrove-like tree at the top of Baba mountain that acts as a landmark for our friends.
Aaron, Joey & I were leading Danny (who finally re-entered the scene after nearly 3 weeks in Dharamshala taking the same Buddhist Meditation Course as I did the previous month)... He arrived the night before with a gaggle of goddesses but most notably a Canadian sunbeam of a woman named Melissa who is pure positive energy and a huge smile that seems to stretch into eternity.
Danny left Aaron & I in Rhihikesh before I even got sick. It feels like I died and was reborn since then... It feels like I've lived ten lifetimes and at the same time it stuns me to realize that it's ONLy been 3 weeks since Aaron & I started really exploring and understanding Rhishikesh- building our tribe- holding hands with everyone.
Together we maneuvered Ram Julle, pointing out important landmarks to Danny & Melissa and found our way home to Sudesh Guesthouse.
Aaron went to teach a guitar lesson to Sequoia, our sound healing sister while I taught a yoga lesson to Joey, Danny & Melissa in the upstairs yoga hall we just discovered in my last 24 hours here. (typical)...
This trip just has not been about yoga for me. Crazy, I know... Im in India... But the last year has not been about "yoga"- I put that in quotes because of course I believe I walk my yoga, eat my yoga, breathe my yoga, love my yoga. Asana just isn't that important to me anymore for some reason.
I find a headstand and a meditation draws me deeper into myself then arm balancing and performing sun salutations (although it's still fun to fly and to teach asana too)...
I met an American guy at The Office the other day who was on his first day. I drew him a map and shared with him some wisdom about traveling...
"don't even bother thinking about what you want from India" I said to him as we sat sipping chai out of the famous steel mugs, "just be open to and receive whatever she wants of you."
Palms open to the sky. Ready to let go... Ready to receive.
Danny & Melissa's course at Tushita was a few days shorter then mine so they didn't get to do the "envisioning your own death" mediation.
I did my best to re-do what I remembered of it during savasana in the newly discovered yoga hall.
Ready to let go.
Ready to receive.
We all went to sound healing/jam-sesh and sang... Held hands and made an OM circle placing our left palms flat on our neighbor's thigh to signify that they should start their OM in the round.
We are always in contact, our tribe.
Everyone seems to always be draped over one another.. Holding, stroking, patting one another from within the eternal cuddle puddle.
Healing hands.
We danced to be free, this body and me... Across the room by the candles on the centerpiece alter splattering my shadow on the wall before me. I watched my hands dance across the ceiling and then looked around, drinking in these people.
Visual snapshot
The room had cleared out and it was just our family left- Rainer- the German dijeridoo player who was at Tushita with me- he has a gibberish fantasy language he slips into. He cooked us lunch the other day at his ashram and presented me with a painting he did for me.
His artist hands were playing a harmonium- gently pumping the organ-come-accordian devotional music instrument...
Next to him was Silja who's eyes were closed. She wore a white Sikh turbin and white drapy clothing and scarves that are somehow miraculously always clean. A single sparkle sat in the center of her forehead leaping off her face as the candle flickered and was reflected lighting up her already illuminated face.
Her delicate hands were suspended in space in front of her chest as thought her song was melting out of her heart and dripping down her fingertips.
Behind Silja, Aaron lay on his back- vibed out as usual in patchwork rainbow longcrotch India pants, a collared white shirt and slew of awesome jewelry I have been a part of purchasing over the last few months. His dread-locked, beaded, braided Baba hair spread across the hardwood floor like a mermaid. His hands strummed the guitar as he sang an impromptu song for me "the hotsy totsy airy fairy"
Krishna's hands danced in time with Aaron's strumming as he maneuved his flute, caressing the empty space in the room with his magic. His thin Israeli build seemed weightless as he sat up straight and tall, elegantly wrapped in a pale colored pashmina. Every instrument touched by those hands is transformed into heavenly harmony. He is a genius. Aaron said one of the most talented musicians he's ever known of.
Rebecca lay beside him with her hands on his legs. Her undulating, creature-like energy swished around her pale Australian skin and strawberry hair. She too lay with closed eyes- wearing a face of pure bliss euphoria... Lost in a moment of union... Touching the all and absorbing the magic of Krishna's flute.
Joey lay on his side facing me with eyes open... A smile spread across his joyous face... Head propped up sideways in his hand, watching the shadows dance behind me as I flitted around the fire clapping my hands and laughing at Aaron's lyrics to describe me.
Suddenly Joey leaped to his feet and his hands grabbed mine, spinning me around and around the room. Everyone was soon on their feet swinging eachother, holding hands as they danced and hummed and sang our love cry... Our song of gratitude to the universe... Our howl to the fullmoon hanging above us.
We slept for two hours and then I got a royal escort across Rhishikesh to my 4am taxi that would take me to Delhi airport.
My fingertips were freezing but my palms sweaty as I passed over Ram Julle bridge. It seemed to dip and sway in the violent wind. I couldn't believe it was over but I slid my fingers between each of my friend's and made solemn promises to see each of them again.
I ducked inside my taxi car and watched my driver, Sanjib put on gloves... Funny white gloves that look like the exfoliating shower scrub gloves my ex mother-in-law always had in the bathroom.
sanjib really likes techno and his horn. That's cool.
I mean- it's India.
Of course I felt more along the lines of Leonard Cohen in this moment departing this fantasy reality dream I've been in... Driving away into the foggy, dark early morning under the big moon... I guess his techno barbie world remix totally works for me for the moment too.
I was in Sanjib's capable hands for the next 6 hours.
He was taking me on the next leg of my journey home...
First stop Delhi.
Well... First stop for chai and aloo parantha at a little stall by the side of the road to Delhi.
I've never seen so many rats in one establishment. They scurried everywhere and flung themselves across from one table to the next. Significantly bigger and fatter then the itty bitty baby mouse friends that came to visit our rooms daily at Sudesh...
I watched these fat rats and their tiny hands dexterously scuttling over wires and down uneven broken walls...
They didn't even faze me for one moment. They lived here too.
I was a visitor and only for a matter of hours left...
I dropped my hands into my lap and dozed off, waking up to 9am in Delhi... Horns and yellow & green rickshaws, the fast, lawless, lineless, weaving swerving, senseless traffic of this metropolis.
Back to the cities.
I'll be in London tonight...
Whoa.
I keep singing the Local Natives song "sun hands" to myself
Lyrics
i climbed to the top of a hill
but i had just missed the sun
and although the descending arc was gone
left behind were the traces that always follow along
the most beautiful colors chase the sun
they wrap her trail in a taunting gesture
that seems to sing out loud,
"this is what you're missing"
i'll endure the night
for the promise of light
i want to lift my hands towards the sun
show me warmth
baby, won't you show me warmth again?
and when i can feel with my sun hands
i'll promise not to lose her again
and even if the morning never comes
my hands are blessed to have touched the sun
and when i can feel with my sun hands
i promise not to lose her again
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