JOANNA

I returned from India right before Christmas 2006. I treaded softly upon my Native New Mexican tierra. In the crisp, cedar smoky winter air I drove up to the University area to greet my old stomping grounds. I was three months behind—had unplugged from the creative culture I regularly was tuned in to.

I felt very soft, like a baby with a skull still un-hardened. It was like being born again, when you remove yourself for three months from the norm and then re-enter. There is great merit in purifying and cleansing your expectations and habits. Suddenly everything was in contrast to the great country I had just been a guest in.

Before I left I’d seen Joanna Newsom would release her second album while I was traveling. That second day back in America that was my first intrigue, to go listen to the cd. I was so patient, so relaxed, so drained of all aggression, after being trapped in the ashrams and the starkness of who we are in every moment, felt beat into submission by the challenging logistics of traveling and the ups and downs. I was so grateful just to have taken a warm shower and be able to drink water from the tap. To be back at Natural Sound, with all the possibilities of all the great albums there, was Heaven. And Joanna Newsom’s “Ys” was my monumental Angelic Soundtrack.

I asked for a listening copy of the cd and sat on a wood stool in the corner of the store and gazed out like a Buddha statue at the asphalt tinted day while Joanna plucked and swirled her warm golden harp and chanted her spirit songs.

I was open, receptive, prepared to take in and I absorbed that whole album. It was like watching an opera, something you just experience once and it changes you. I had heard about Terry Riley the classical musician arranging the strings for the album. It was exquisite. I was a sailor back on land after months at sea, taking in the pleasures well worth waiting for.

I watched families pass with shopping bags of Christmas gifts. Hands walked dogs on leashes and held paper coffee cups. I was comforted by the familiarity like the warm smell of pine fireplaces in the air. It’s amazing what a retreat from the normal will do to heighten your senses to life’s exquisiteness.

Reading Yoga Sutra 2.18

Prakasha Kriya Stithi Silam Bhutndriyatmakam Bhogapavargarhtam Drysam

Prakasha -- illumination

Kriya-- action

Stithi-- inertia

Silam-- nature

Bhuta-- elements

Indriya-- sense organs

Atmakam-- consists of

Bhoga-- experience

Apavarga-- liberation

Arhtam – it's purpose

Drisyam-- the seen

“The seen is of the nature of the gunas: illumination, action and inertia; and consists of elements and sense organs, whose purpose is to provide both experiences and liberation”

Drisya is the reality of the world we see. The Yoga Sutras investigate into aspects of our experience and are always asking Why and What? What is the seen that gives us the experience of being a Seer? We are going to understand ourselves by our relationship to what is outside of us-- like a sounding board. The Yoga Sutras are inquiring into existence in that trippy way of wondering if there is a plastic reality or if we all have our own experience based on our own perceptions... What is the purpose of life?! Nature, the earth elements and organs (sense organs, mind, intellect) are here to provide: Experience and Liberation. Great, there we go-- life is Experience and life is Liberation.

In his commentary Swami Satchidananda, “Nature is here to give you experience and ultimately to oiberate you from bondage. Even if people do not want to be liberated, it educates them gradually so that one day they will come to feel, 'I'm tired of the whole thing. I don't want it anymore. I've had enough.” (p.104)

“Nothing in nature can bring the mind continuous, unchanging happiness, because the mind itself changes constantly”, therefore we have to accept changes in the mind, in the outside world, and not cling to anything in the outside world. The Sutras present these concepts for us to try, to test and see if they are true for us, if they resonate. What is nature and what is our relationship to Nature? The Sutras are saying that we are nature and nature is Us-- we are all made up of the same cells and energy and it is always changing, changing intelligently to teach us to live in harmony, to live FREE.

When we make the decision to seek Truth, our own Truth nature will guide us. We begin to find Freedom and Feeling healthy and complete are not apart from Nature-- that is unveiling Nature's harmony in us, to find our organic vibe, to return to union-- Yoga.

Walking from Wythe to Greenpoint

The sun will be out, revealing
Flat infinite blue sky
Clouds scattered, Whispering
Caught you looking up at them

Instead of the damp concrete
You've bowed your head to
Guard your eyes from the rain

The grey streets are turning silver in the sun
You turn right onto Kent Avenue and sneeze
Two fellows passing you in Beatles jackets
Bless You

Walkway along the water
Gentle wind lifts refreshing swamp smell
Green algae microorganism vitality to your nose

Across the River
Gilded steeple shines in Manhattan
And architecture rises into the sky

From a rusted water tower
An American Flag taut in the air
Sending out songs of Freedom
Like Tibetan Prayers
Playful like a kite
And as long as a Chevy windowshield
Stripes made wider by the sun light
Stars made brighter against the borderless sky

@ Home Radio

It's important to spend time at home.
I am enjoying reacquainting myself with some old favorite websites.
Are you familiar with Internet Radio and the pletura of free music online? There are songs of the day via podcasts on iTunes and I am reconnecting with Viva Radio. com
When I am home I often listen to the FM radio. I love listening to what others are programming, it's exciting to be at the receiving end; to have your antennae up and be plugged in.
Here's to staying at home, to doing simple, enjoyable things

Gurmukh's Kundalini Proverbs/ Yogi Tea, the Book

I love Yogi Tea bag quotes. Now whenever I make tea without a cosmic fortune I feel slighted! If you too are more excited about the Satsang at the end of the string then the chai itself, you will love Gurmukh's book "The 8 Human Talents". I have been savoring it all month as we explore the Chakra system at Laughing Lotus. Here are a few highlights:

"I once heard someone say that the greatest prayer isn't in any scripture or ceremoney; the greatest prayer is simply to call out, "Help!".

"Fake it until you make it" ...
"With dinner, as with everything, it's a matter of understanding that if you just show up, everything will fall into place.
It's that way with money, too. I have known multimillionaires who are the poorest people I have ever met. They worry constantly about money. I have been privileged to be the guests of people who live so humbly it is impossible for us in the West to imagine, and their homes are filled with an abundance of food, laughter, and love. These people embody the human talent of boundlessness. It is about perception."

Sat Nam & Amen

"Birdwings" --Rumi

Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror
up to where you're bravely working.

Expecting to see the worst, you look, and instead,
here's the joyful face you've been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in ever small contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.




These contrasting phases of the mind, like the phases of the moon, happen in our lives. The mind itself is a natural phenomenon. Like Nina, sometimes we think "We Got" sometimes we whine about everything we Ain't Got-- Rumi sees the pairs of opposites-- the glass half empty and the glass half full as part of the same whole, there is no shame in the flickering between the opposites because once you really look at the truth beneath the thought form there is always a unity-- "I GOT LIFE" is Ms. Simone's final exaltation! We all have the flapping of the birdwings of our thinking minds, be them open or closed with what we see as positive or negative thoughts, but at the base of it, when we look into the mirror of ourselves and give the whole game a little space, we FEEL the unity of our bird body, that there is wholeness beyond the fluctuation of the changing, flickering, kaleidoscopic day to day experience. Here's to that LIFE that is always with us and our commitment to FEEL it directly

McSweeney's Yoga Proverbs

Angele sent me these weird and hilarious contemporary proverbs. I hope to pen some myself someday. Though mine won't be quite as cynical as:

"It's the squeaky wheel pose that gets all the attention from the instructor while the rest of the class suffers in silence."

haha check it out here: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2009/5/14schachter.html

"The Bloom"

That which God said to the rose,
and caused it to laugh in full-blown beauty,
He said to my heart,
and made it a hundred times more beautiful.
-- Rumi



Om Amme

Glorious Chores

Yesterday I noticed a trend in my approach to manual labor—I spend more energy bemoaning it then I actually would spend if I just DID it.
My beloved room-mate, friend and teacher Lisa asked me, “are you tired from worrying over the housework or are you tired from doing it?” Bingo—she blew up my spot—I hadn’t lifted a finger, I'd just been procrastinating...

It was hilarious to see that only an hour later I was happily absorbed in the task of dusting and reorganizing the shelves. It is that first bit of momentum that's hard; getting past that resistance at the point of entry. The obstacle is mental but it feels like a fixed-gear bike going straight up a San Francisco Hill... But once you get pedaling through it you start to flow, right? My writing teacher Rachel Cohen said at some point you just get so familiar with this voice, with the resistance that you just don’t care about it anymore!! And you begin:

I passed down the tall vases and purple glass tea set from the highest shelves onto the counter top and then jumped back to the sink and cleaned and polished everything dry with a dish towel. How it all Sparkled!!

Then I did the thing I did this summer at the ashram when I was doing housekeeping: I would turn around and then turn back and be struck again by how great the polished glass looked on those clean white shelves. Or walk out and walk back in to the room—- bam, great job. I love the instant gratification of a job well done. And the power of our hands and our patience to do work well. I actually looked forward to the layer of sticky gray dust that awaited on the lids of the jars of grains on the middle shelf, and so I got back to work.

Karma Yoga, the yoga practice of just working without being attached to the outcome, is so effective because it brings up ego reactions. Usually ego reactions have a big “I” or “ME” as their subject, if your not already alarmingly familiar with what I'm talking about..! “I don’t wanna!”, "This is going to be hard", and "But I’d rather be..." are all ways Ego intercepts our actions and creates obstacles for us to just work and live. (It's hard to be a tool for divine energy to come into the world when you are blocking it with petty needs...) So doing Karma yoga, doing work just for the sake of working, volunteering at the ashram and yoga centers, has been a big part of my practice. It has started to make me look at the way I block myself by having expectations before I even begin. As I have recognized again, and again and AGAIN! So hopefully I am finally getting the point this time and in the future will see this type of procrastinating thinking as a useless habit. ("You DO LOVE to work! Remember the vases?!" You might have to remind me next time..) So the idea is to use the work as a means to move beyond the ME and the I. When we act outside of our ME thoughts things really get done and it adds to the sense of harmony and joy of all.

Then time started to fly by, my initial resistance weakened and floated to the past I was just in the present finishing up the counter tops and putting away the dishes that had air dried while I did the shelves. It helped that Lisa reminded me to chant my mantra to keep the mind engaged and present. The whole process was a purification, “A privilege not a punishment” she said, half jokingly.

Chogyam Trugpa talks about “Drala” the concept of bringing freshness and beauty into the physical world as a practice. My Grandma was a master of this art. In fact, my family is all sensitive to Drala and it is one of my favorite things in the world—to make things nice by caring for them. Isn’t it beautiful how something so humble can be made elegant by investing it with care and attention? Like a home in a foreign country that is swept and tended to everyday? It has that Drala sparkle! And Drala is not only visual, you can feel it—maybe more importantly is that Vibration that you FEEL. I felt like my Grandma, paying attention to the details, ironing table clothes and napkins, patiently organizing recipes, coupons and receipts, taking coffee grounds out to her rose bushes.

To have all these beautiful objects and a beautiful house to clean is a privilege and to cleaning it turned from a chore to away to worship and to enjoy it. Feeling awake and lively 2 hours after I slowly had started my tasks I felt in commune with my Grandma and that primordial MA energy within us all. It takes time and patience to care for our material lives, but can we step up and not let the I and ME hills obstruct our view of the expansive beauty we are capable of creating in our worlds? Because when we bring it in to the world, we share it with the world, and everyone is lifted up.
My room mate Brooke washes and collects her to-go cups (which she gets when she isn’t carrying an empty jar to drink her coffee from). I’ve really enjoyed using the cups for convenience sake, but also because of the palpable nectar of sweetness, the Drala, of the fact that she saved them. Let’s make the world a better place to live and begin with our own lives. Lets take time out to let the Drala flow!

Harness ur Chi

"Mencius, one of the foremost sages of ancient China, speaks of Chi as the soul, the center of our spiritual nature. It may help us better visualize this situation if we understand Chi to be the field that radiates from a human being's soul. If this field is weakened or blocked, then it can no longer keep the body in the state of liveliness. It becomes afflicted and ill, lacking in orientation and strength. The soul in this body is in the process of forgetting what it really is, where it comes from, and to where it will return. If the soul is now reminded of its true nature by the presence of the divine within itself, then it can again become oriented; its power and joy; trust in life, intuition and healing becomes strengthened."-- The Spirit of Reiki

You can't love nobody else until...

Is it just me or is the term “Self Love” taboo?
First off there’s the connotation of masturbation. As Woody Allen says in Annie Hall: "Hey, don't knock masturbation! It's sex with someone I love.” **Blush**!
Both the physical act of ‘self-love’ and the psychological version are surrounded by uncertainty—is it ok? If so how much!? It’s embarrassing to ask your parents growing up and our culture doesn’t speak openly about it-- so it becomes this indefinite question mark. Just as one’s relationship to auto-eroticism must be explored and defined privately so too we must uncover/ recover a healthy bed of self-love to lay our worries down in to when the going gets tough. Can we please stop being so hard on ourselves and love the one we’re with? We’re gonna be here for a while longer, so we’ve got to figure out how to make this livable and hopefully lovely.

In “The Art of Happiness” the Dalai Lama has a chapter on Self Love and he reacts with disbelief that someone could actually not love themselves!!

The ego takes many forms, in Hindu Mythology Ego is symbolized by the great transforming Demon Mahesvara that the Goddess Kali epically slays. In our modern Western psyche I feel we have this super critical, perfectionist mutation of Ego that when not sharply judging others, judges ourselves. We can be our worst enemies sometimes, right? In the Yoga practices we begin to see our life situation for what it is and see where we are being to harsh or too lazy—we discover our Sat- our Truth and soften to flow with OM the ever changing current of existence.

In his memoir Bhagavan Das writes that he chants kirtan because he loves to hear his own voice.
Isn’t that great?! Not because of anything esoteric but this simple, organic action of hearing and loving one’s own voice! Can we follow Baba D’s example and just love what we do and the simple pleasure of our lives? One of my beloved teachers Ali Cramer has said: “Let’s fall in love with our lives, and if your not in love with your life what are you doing to change that?” Amen.

So rather than see ourselves as good or bad we have to find a harmonious ground to move through life with. Sure, there is the risk of narcissism and vanity, but for a long time I avoided any sense of self love out of self-consciousness that I was not supposed to just enjoy myself.

We have to remember OM and the inherent ONENESS our Yoga practice is reminding us of! If we feel miserable all the time we should be working to make it better. Sometimes it is just a matter of thinking, we have to remember our problems are not the end of the world, and not WORRY ourselves so much. First we have to see the habits of our mind for what they are—we have to identify what shape the Demon Mahesvara has taken in our own psyche and begin to appease his roaring with the salve of Amrita—the eternal nectar of Love that resides in our own hearts.

I esteem and honor the yoga teachings because they lead me back to that Amrita—maybe not every single time, but I would say every week I receive some understanding that sincerely makes me feel lighter and happier in life. That’s why I keep practicing. Not because my life is becoming perfect because I practice yoga, but because it keeps me warmed up and close to my own Love nectar. Maybe someday I will be so familiar with the source of this feel good stuff I won’t need the practices, but until then I love asana, meditation and especially kirtan.

In my experience kirtan is a way to let the voice and life force flow and be really free and flowing. This has reconnected me more and more with my original feeling of freedom in loving the moment and just letting it flow.

I once asked my friend and teacher Prem Prakash how Bhakti yoga worked. It seems fake to try to make yourself cheer up by smiling but IT ACTUALLY WORKS!?! (Try it sometime). So in the same way, Bhakti practices, and any practice done with Love and Devotion draw us back into familiarity of that origin of action that is prior to the rational mind.

Now instead of getting mad about my faults and mistakes and challenges I see it as an opportunity to start a dialogue with the universe, and to trust that the Universe is at its base LOVING and to let my thoughts be an expression of that. In this way we add love to the world, instead of contributing to conflict and troubles. We have to fight the war within for the positive benefit of all. “Begin Within”. “A House divided among itself cannot stand”. As I get more into yoga I see how my thinking was weakening me, and as I get more into living life with Bhakti, devotion, and surrendering whatever is happening up in life to a cosmic energy, OM, the more I feel Love for myself and others, and things don’t seem so heavy after all....

Osho

I am currently in love with this book “Wings of Love & Random Thoughts” by Acharya Rajnesh. I found it at the ashram and was blown away by the quiet sharpness of his words: “A point is reached when the entire universe ceases to appear as a gross object of perception, and the pure unclouded vision of the Supreme Soul alone remains. In order to achieve this we shall have to prepare ourselves. The farmer prepares the soil before sowing seeds. Persons seeking the realisation of the supreme must keep the ground in readiness and tune themselves within in order to hear the all-pervasive divine music without... Our vital breaths are all His, every limit is His; but we do not realise it, because our own hands keep the passage of entrance closed to Him.”

I was gushing to a friend about this amazing mystic author I had just discovered in the free shelf at the Ananda Ashram when she informed me Acharya Rajnessh is none other than Osho! (He changed his name at some point!) So, these words of Osho are so inspiring, but they came through as being really special because I didn’t frame them as being already familiar since I have read some of Osho’s books! (Funny how little things can keep you on your toes and show you where you hold your preconceptions and how to let go of judging a book by it’s cover..!)

"The Warrior"

The warriors tame
The beasts in their past
So that the night's hoofs
Can no longer break the jeweled vision
In the heart.

The intelligent and the brave
Open every closet in the future and evict
All the mind's ghosts who have the bad habit
Of barfing everywhere.

For a long time the Universe
Has been germinating in your spine.

But only a saint has the talent,
The courage to slay
The past-giant, the future anxieties.

The warrior sits in a circle
With other men
Gathering the strength to unmask
Himself.

Then sits,
Giving,
Like a great illumined planet on
The Earth.

--Hafiz

Thanks Elaine for reading this in class last night and all your beautiful comments on it!
Indeed, the universe is germinating in our spine! And we sit in the circle, gathering together as we practice together and get ready to lift off veils of misunderstanding and become like our own great illumined planets! I am going to do my asanas now, orbit around like an illumined planet.. Om Shanti

Shiva & Shakti

"There is no power-holder without power. No power without power-holder. The power-holder is Shiva. Power is Shakti, the Great Mother of the universe. There is no Shiva without Shakti, or Shakti without Shiva." -- Avalon, Serpent Power
painting by Ghulam Rasul Santosh
via http://www.koausa.org/painters/grsantosh.html

Bhagavad Gita, Chapter XIII commentary by S. Radhakrishnan

"Ksetrajña is the light of awareness, the knower of all objects. The witness is not the individual embodied mind but the cosmic consciousness for which the whole cosmos is the object. It is calm and eternal and does not need the use of the senses and the mind for its witnessing.

Ksetrajña is the supreme lord, not an object in the world. He is in all fields, differentiated by the limiting conditions, from Brahma, the creator, to a tuft of grass though he himself is devoid of all limitations and incapable of definition by categories.

When we try to know the nature of the human soul, we may get to know it from above or from below, from the divine principle or the elemental nature. Man is a twofold, contradictory being; free and enslaved. He is godlike, and has the signs of his fall, that is, descent into nature. As a fallen being man is determined by the forces of nature (prakrti). He appears to be actuated solely by elemental forces, sensual impulses, fear and anxiety. But man desires to get better of his fallen nature.

The man studied by objective sciences as biology, psychology, and sociology is a natural being, is the product of the processes which take place in the world. But man, as a subject, has another origin. He is not a child of the world. He is not nature. He does not belong to the objective hierarchy of nature, as a subordinate part of it. Purusa or Ksetrajna cannot be recognized as an object among other objects or as a substance. He can only be recognized as subject, in which is hidden the secret of existence; a complete universe in an individual form. He is not therefore a part of the world or of any other whole. As an empirical being he may be like a Leibnitzian monad: closed, shut up without doors and windows. As a subject he enters infinity and infinity enters into him.

Ksetrajña is the universal in an individually unrepeatable form. The human being is a union of the universal-infinite and the universal-particular. In his subjective aspects, he is not a part of a whole but is the potential whole. To actualize it, to accomplish the universality is the ideal of man. The subjects fills itself with universal content-- achieves unity in wholeness at the end of its journey.

Man's peculiarity is not the possesion of the common pattern of two eyes and two hands, but the possesion of the inward principle which impels the creative acquisition of a qualitative content of life. He has a unique quality which is non-common. The ideal personality is unique and un-repeatable. Each person at the end of the road becomes a distinct, unrepeatable, unreplaceable being with a unique form." --S. Radhakrishnan

Please Comment!!!

Let me know you're here!! xxooo

Sing to the Tune of New York State of Mind

Sing to the tune of NY State of Mind
Triumphant. Every time I see the skyline through a slot between buildings in Greenpoint it’s a jolt-- “New York”—like someone turning around and recognizing them, such a sensual synopsis in the brain. NEW YORK!!! I screamed it when I got out of a cab with my Dad and Grandma the first time I set foot in this Dreamland at 9 years old. Electricity. Dreams made real—Dreams grown so high they scrape the sky.

Or I behold the Bridges and Steeples and Edifices and stop and pinch myself to wake up because I just saw this apparition of Dreams and blew it off... “Hey, you’re in New York” I remind myself... Just to still be here is triumphant.

I’ve lived in 3 apartments this year before finally settling into this loft I love in Greenpoint. In New York you have such bright dreams, but simply getting the bear necessities is a challenge. So thankfully She has opened herself up to me, invited me in by providing this supportive, sweet, calm living space.

Once you live in New York you outgrow fantasies about escaping your challenges by moving. There is a morbid finalization to living in New York—yep, this is it. This is the heart of Western civilization. The only place you could move after New York is the Amazon; some jungle that is an immersion into the pure life-force. Here nature is the way wind piles trash around the gutters, the landscapes of the human face you pass, and your strong, tired legs.

I feel peaceful in nature, I love to hear a river trickling near my window. But I love the friction of the city; the interactions between my spirit and natural rhythms merging with the mechanical drone of subways and buses and traffic signals. Oh! the concrete jungle!
I wonder if I'll I ever move?..
For now New York is fun because it is a challenge. Subway navigation. Making enough to pay the bills. Getting the best deals. Getting there on time. Helping out friends, connecting people. It comes down to the breadth of energy we experience in a day here. For now I love it.

Ram Dass says:

“Now none of this detracts one bit from the incredible love I feel for Maharaji.  Once the awakening begins, you can’t help but feel profound love for all beings who have helped you along the way.  But my neurotic need for love has diminished, and what has replaced it is a kind of conscious, present love, in which every time I love you, I am loving Maharaji, because he is everyone and everywhere.” Ram Dass Paths to God, 171

Meher Baba said,

"To penetrate into the essence of all being and significance, and to release the fragrance of inner attainment for the guidance and benefit of others by expressing in the world forms of truth, love, purity and beauty: this is the sole game which has to any intrinsic and absolute worth. All other happenings, incidents and attainments can, in themselves, have no lasting importance."

Ashram

My boyfriend told me to pack for a weekend out of the city for a surprise getaway.
I fantasized about Aruba, even though he hadn’t specified to include a bathing suit.
Instead, we met at Penn Station to take a train to New Jersey, transfer and head to Harriman to the Ananda Ashram. This was one of the first weekends of Sophomore year, August 2006.

This is our romantic weekend? It sounded like work, not like my idea of a sexy escape!
Ashram—it sounds so holy, so restricted—like we would be subject to commandments.

And our accommodations didn’t emphasize luxuriating... We debated whether to push our two single beds together but opted to sleep close knit in one bed; we’d become accustomed to sleeping in my dorm room’s twin bed over my Freshman year of college.

Our usual weekends consisted of quiet mornings of coffee and web-surfing, watching movies and reading. As we entered the gated country estate grounds of the Ashram I felt I was going to need to do something I was not yet equipped to do... It was the beginning of my knee-jerk reaction to the work and sacrifices that are necessary for growth. The communal dining hall and group meditations did not encourage laxity, they increased my self-consciousness—I felt ‘un-spiritual’ and suspicious—what was this place and who were these people??

Along with my averse, self-protective first-impressions, however, I was also immediately enchanted by the place.

I loved the wooden decks and stair-wells leading into the aged buildings. This place was a simple establishment to contain something light and peaceful. Ananda means bliss and really you can feel it in the air. Jordan wanted us to be able to escape to nature. We lived a very romantic, story book existence at that time. A living poem. So of course we walked in the woods and imagined the films we would make on location there. There were vines with blooming flowers creeping around and long, tall Pine trees shading the walking paths around the place. I went to yoga class on Saturday and felt light and free.

Jordan and I stuck out like sore thumbs, or so I thought in hyper-self consciousness. People stared but didn’t really strike up warm conversations, just maybe, “Where are you guys from”... Are you brothers?... No, friends... It was nice that we were given space to simply enjoy the place but I was also thankful when Kamaniya, a gorgeous, large woman with long chestnut brown hair introduced herself and truly welcomed us. After that I felt at ease, that this place was open for all to visit and enjoy.

On Sunday morning we sat in our cut off shorts and rugged curls on the deck of the boat-house as we wrote in our journals and took photos of the lake. We befriended Isa, a father of a little blonde boy named Amadeo. Isa had a blonde pony tail, a hoop earring and a Moon shaped, smiling face. He asked what we were writing. “A screenplay”, replied Jordan. “Hey Ama, look, it’s not everyday that you meet a screenwriter”. We did stick out but I sensed the place truly was open to anyone. I have discovered increasingly more over time how the Ashram welcomes all kinds, the teachings attract all walks of people.

I was ready to leave after the weekend immersion into this radically different days of contemplation. My body sensed the importance of what I had experienced. I was charged and exhausted at the same time. I felt like a bull on a short leash. I wanted to know everything about yoga immediately! I wanted to be there with the ashram people but keep wearing my cut offs and writing at the same time. The seed had been planted. I began to grow into my way of living and practicing towards the divine.

Ananda resonated like a gong over the next year as I began to change everything in my life—becoming vegetarian, doing yoga and studying Sufism. I wanted to be connected to that source I had felt there. I will forever crave to repay Jordan for many things-- so many gifts that sprang from the Love we shared. He introduced me to Ananda Ashram and, in the process, to my marga, my path of yoga. I would have never seen this different way of living without Jordan choosing it for us to explore. I wouldn't have been brave enough to venture into that unknown territory without him. For all those reasons, he and the ashram are connected as places my heart has known home.

Dance, Dance, Dance

I started reading Dance, Dance, Dance while dog and house sitting for a friend in Williamsburg. It was the Holidays and I was looking for something light and engaging to while away the days with. I had no idea this book would be so captivating. Her copy was creased and dog eared, which was surprising because I feel like 400 page books like this don’t always get finished. I had written Murakami off after I put down Norwegian Wood which I had started while in India a few years ago. I remember its pace being very languid and describing a beautiful girl in summer light, it was nice but was not at the same momentum as the excitement of my trip. I ended up reading the classic sci-fi escapade DUNE which I had picked up at the same free book exchange shelf at a cafe in Goa.
Dance, Dance, Dance echoes Hesse’s Steppenwolf in the narrator’s passages into Hall of Mirrors surrealism. The plot and characters are solid but the landscape itself is fluid, it is the flickering backgrounds that punctuate the plot and make for an intricate and captivating experience. There is nothing unsure about it, you are lead right through the story, there is no uncertainty of which world we are in—Murakami allows you to be certain in the uncertain, it is beautifully executed.
Murakami’s novel is about his characters’ constellating but it is also about the space in which they revolve. There is a strong sense of place in every moment of the story, and it gets extremely subtle how both the characters and the places begin to dissolve into another super-reality. We are familiarized with a place, the old Dolphin Hotel, and then we experience it’s replacement by the Modern L’Hotel Dauphin. The mystery begins as narrator tries to unfold the story behind the deal. It is out of longing for the familiar and for the real. The old Dolphin Hotel was one of those joints run by disgruntled but real characters. The type of place you can rely on. Much of the book is a yearning for the authentic and the reliable.
When the narrator first describes the now-extinct Dolphin Hotel with it’s familiar and comforting worn-in fixtures I could relate to the nostalgia of a place loved and lost. There are places that shaped who I was, not only by the experiences that happened inside, but by the personality of the whole place. Murakami loves our ability to feel a place like that, to know it’s atmosphere, it’s smell, and he goes one step farther to prepose those places not only resonate with our inner essence, they are projected from our essence—they are the rooms of the soul, the Hotels of our hearts.

The Narrator’s dance through these locations and situations inspires us to undertake our own dance. In the end their is no answer but only the afterglow of the enchanting movement through the inexplicable play of life.