Chapter Five

     Wednesday, December thirtieth, evening. Morning star Venus shines bright, while Luna approaches Jupiter overhead. Clouds are low over the ocean’s horizon, while incoming waves are gentle, and fishermen in their catamarans are coming in for their final ride with today’s catch as the pink pearl emerges through the gray faraway mist. Pack my bags for the mid-morning ride to Thiruvanamalli. Panoramic view riding shotgun to the busdriver, a younger fellow perhaps in his thirties who likes to take some initiative when it comes to looking for opportunities to pass whomever might be on the road ahead, on one occasion skirting around two busses ahead of us in one decisive bound. Three and a half hours on the road, stopping at every village and crossing and town along the way for pickups and drop-offs. Not to be wasting time, our longest rest stop is for two minutes. Cows and goats and pedestrians along the side of the mostly two lane asphalt all seem rather unfazed and quite used to living on the edge of the knife. From the final drop in mid-town Thiruvanamalli, arrive at an understanding with an auto-rik driver for a ride to the out-of-town road to the country lane that leads to the Anantha Niketan Ashram. Walk the entryway lane to meet Annette, who sees to my mid-day meal of rice, sambar, rasam and curd, and shows me the bungalow I will be sharing with someone who has yet to arrive. We each get a cot and some shelves built into the wall. Louise comes walking by, she shows me around a bit, and we sit for awhile in conversation in some shade facing the mountain this place is known for, the fire mountain of Shiva, one of his most revered locations. Meet with Asfa from Israel and Rod from Canada and the talk turns to megalithic alignments, beginning with the notion that Aranachula is anti-podal to Machu Pichu. Asfa is especially interested in sacred geometry, and I’m sure he’ll like my book when I show it to him. For now it’s settling into the quiet retreat mode of being. There is a chanting session in Shiva’s hall at six for the fourteen of us who are so far here. After which is the evening meal, where we sit around on four old fashioned park benches arranged in a square surrounding a chalk dust mandala drawn into the dirt. All those streets in Pondy I’ve been walking through for the last nine days are disappeared, and now the silence surrounds. 

     Friday evening, January eighth. Having checked in at six at the Ayodha Bhavan guest house in the fishing village on the North end of Pondy, having showered down, and noticing that morning star Venus is spot on in line with Saturn in Scorpio, here comes the ink after nine days in shut down. How does a meditation retreat work? No reading, no writing, no photography, no drawing, none of those things that we entertain ourselves with from day to day to fill up those empty spaces in our lives. Say hello to yourself and take another look at who’s in there! Twenty-eight participants, eight men and twenty women, all ages, two women as facilitator-teachers, and the guiding light of Annette who managed getting us all together to this place for this time, eight days from the afternoon of the first day of this New Year till noon today, Friday to Friday. No talking.  If you need to communicate something to someone, write a note and put it on the bulletin board, and check back later for an answer. No eye contact. Keep your little searchlights averted. Mind your own business while engaging in a set of coordinated activities with others from six in the morning till nine at night. For all of whatever meaning you think there is in the eye contact process, shut it off for eight days with a set group of thirty other meditators within the defined space of the few acres this ashram is built upon within the view of the ancient sacred mountain home of Aranachula Shiva. Morning meditation all together in the meditation hall as dawn turns night into light. A round of morning yoga before breakfast. Mid-morning meditation in the hall. Walking meditation. Late morning teaching and meditation before lunch is served. Early afternoon break time until rounds of meditation and teaching begin again and go on until six before our six-thirty dinner. A final round of meditation and chanting from seven forty-five till nine. Six full days in between the two half days. Plenty of time for listening to the voices inside of your head and following your dreams to their logical or illogical conclusions. Without writing any of all of that down. Without trying to capture any of it. Without trying to make a story out of any of it. Without trying to carry any of it forward to wherever you think you might be carrying it forward to. Searching for the Light! The Light you know is in there behind the shadows and the veils of illusion and karma that saturate our waking lives, and that color our dreams with stories we can only wonder about. Is it understanding that you wish to find? Or peace of mind between all of those chattering voices that issue from the deepest corners of those countless rooms you wander through? All of your answers are in there, waiting to simply be found. Twenty-eight personalities from around the world gather in this simple space to engage together and each alone in the most important quest of our lives. The bright and shining light of each of our personal truths.

     It was especially nice to arrive about forty-eight hours before the retreat began. The several of us who arrived early had the chance to talk and get to know each other through normal get-acquainted conversation. Four of us, Natalie from Israel, Pere from Norway, Victoria from Philadelphia, and I had a brilliant day on Thursday the thirty-first going into town for meditation mat shopping, and to visit the Ramana ashram and climb partway up the famous mountain to find a spectacular view of the city and its famous temple, and to have a tali meal at a fine little upstairs open air restaurant. Also spoke with Asfa from Israel, and Rod who returned from the dead after a stroke at age thirty. With these people and the others whom I got to speak with and know, our seven days in silence without eye contact was especially meaningful. All communication becomes body language, as each of us walks the grounds during all of those in-between times from one meditation session to another. And with those with whom I had no words, that was our only language. And people manage to find each other, and respond to what we see in one another. For having no eye contact doesn’t mean not paying attention to each other. In fact, the seeing of one another becomes an even more intricate process than the more customary verbal and visual exchanges of our contemporary cultures. So that while in many ways, a meditation retreat is a personal journey, it is also infused with a deep sense of sharing, and when it was all over, we sat in one circle, and felt a sense of togetherness that I can say for sure I will carry forward in cherished memory. A meditation retreat of this nature is a time of deep personal discovery, and a time as well of meaningful sharing, for we all know that we are all engaged in the deepest journey of discovery that we will ever pursue. My sense of ‘Goodbye, I love you’, that I felt with someone whom I have never spoken with is the kind of Light that Enlightenment is made of.

     Saturday, January ninth. Early morning dreaming. Exiting the doorway of my new room at Ayodya Bhavan into the fresh outdoors, I begin climbing a stairway on the side of the building that appears to go to the rooftop of this four story building, but halfway up, am blocked by the complex web of branches of a tree growing from the side of the building. I go back down with the intention of going around the building to another external stairway that leads to the top of the building, but on my way, go on a path that leads to a pile of large rocks on the side of a very large pond. I climb and stand on the rock pile a few feet above the water’s surface, and simply stare into the shimmering reflections of the gentle waves until a kind of dizziness which is not dizziness overcomes me and I climb down the pile of rocks to stand and recover from this dizziness which is not dizziness, kind of a controlled mental euphoria. A friend comes by to ask if I am ok, and I assure him that all is indeed ok. I am experiencing the aftermath of my last eight days of ashram meditation – really. I go back to my room, and one-by-one, four individuals, men and women, enter and start lounging around with the intention of hanging out, and I see them as intruder, nuisance, predators whom I have no reason to trust or want to associate with and I insist that they all leave, which they do, and I turn off the electronic stereo CD player they had been playing. I want no more intrusions. And truly, this entire morning since around five-thirty has been an inescapable recursion into the meditative states of my last seven mornings. Nine o’clock has arrived, and Pondy is out there, and I will venture forth into that world of things to do, and I shall carry in my heart the wish for another meeting with Victoria before she leaves India.

     Meet Wilena on my way out of the guest house front doorway. We are both going out for a walk into town. We are of similar age, of the same generation. She is from Toronto, and has kept an apartment in Pokhara, Nepal for the last several years. She is an accomplished piano player and music therapist. She leads us through the winding streets of this fishing village neighborhood to the main road where we walk a couple of more blocks to a pleasant outdoor table at the Café Chez Nous, an Ashram affiliated restaurant. She will be staying at the guest house here for another month before heading home to her house in Pokhara. She tells the terrible story of current living conditions in Nepal, caused by the Indian blockade of all shipments of everything to that country, devastated enough as it is by last year’s April earthquake, and now the people are being punished by political quarrels between the governments of these two nations. And this is where I have plans for visiting! We converse at length through our late morning breakfast, and connect our electronic communication devices to the WiFi system. She sends me a set of articles she has written about sound therapies and I show her my websites, and it looks like I’ve made another true friend. Surely, we shall be sharing more time in company. We part ways around two, and since the Chez Nous WiFi signal was of wavering and unreliable intensity, and my connections were unfavorably disrupted, I walked over to the internet connection hole-in-the-wall shop I found on Nehru street two weeks ago that I find to be reliable, and I like the fellow who runs it. Clearly, this little shop will become my ‘go to’ place for both WiFi and non-WiFi connections, and I shall abandon those coffee house connections that in my experience have been of secondary quality. Go to the Pros, and dump the amateurs!

     Head over to Café des Artes on Suffren street around four-thirty for a pot of masala chai, and who should I meet there but Louise. She and I meeting in spontaneously unexpected places seems to be occurring almost as a matter of course. So we sit and share a table for a couple of hours before walking over to La Terrasse for dinner around six-thirty. This is our last meeting for awhile since she is heading for Chennai tomorrow and the airport where she will wait for her flight back to her home in England. Walk back along the seafront and through the village back to the guest house from one end of French Pondy to the other and down Maravadi street takes about forty-five minutes, a good number to know since the guest house gateway is locked at ten. Ismo is out on the front porch talking with an old Tamil fellow about some stories of the various Hindu gods and goddesses, while I sit and listen and the constellations rise from the ocean’s eastern horizon.

     Sunday morning, January tenth. Sunrise over the ocean from the fourth story rooftop of Ayodhya Bhavan Over the lower rooftops that stretch along the other side of the Mariamman Koil lane and Maravadi street that parallel the coastline. Generally not the most affluent part of Pondicherry, and neither impoverished, a smorgasbord of one and two and three story buildings with occasional thatched roofed cottages in between. Two cars could pass by one another on Maravadi street, but cars and auto-riks are rare around here, and traffic is mostly pedestrians, bicycles, and occasional motorcycles. Quiet morning along this seafront lane with scattered palm trees reaching towards the sky with their long leaves wavering in the ocean’s breeze. Time enough to settle into lingering recollections of my weeklong meditation retreat. At eight-seventeen, we would have now had our early morning meditation and yoga sessions, and would be preparing for our eight-thirty breakfast, served and eaten outdoors under shade trees in view of Shiva’s mountain on the horizon across the paddy fields. Time enough now to forget that I have plans for shopping and inter-netting and coffee house visiting for today, and that once I step out from the gates of the guest house into Mariamman Koil street, my day will be consumed with its itinerary.

I will likely go out and return only once for the day, and once I step beyond this long quiet lane, the streets will become inevitably, increasingly busy. There will be only two meditation periods each day, morning first, and evening last, and the ashram schedule will fade as I discover new ways to spend time in this City by the Sea. I’ve got a whole new neighborhood of winding narrow lanes to discover and thirty days to weave a tapestry of exploration into the memory of where I have been and whom I have met and spoken with and known.

     Late morning exit for the walk towards town and the Café Chez Nous, and I order an eleven o’clock breakfast of scrambled eggs and brown bread and masala chai. Wilena comes by not long thereafter and we share a table and soon strike up a conversation with Julie, an older British woman at a neighboring table busy with her WiFi. How do you do and what do you do, brings out that I am a writer, and Julie tells us that she is going to the Jaipur Literature Festival going on from January 21 through 25. She’s got a blog called “Meet me in Jaipur” and I’m pleased to show her my book which I had the idea to carry with me in my light carry-around backpack for today’s excursions. She’s delighted to have a look and takes a picture of me sitting and holding my book. Julie has a house on a lonely little island off the coast of Tunisia and will be returning there after she visits Jaipur. She’d love to get a copy of my book, as would Wilena, and it will be up to me to get my shipping and delivery systems up-and-running  through CreateSpace. I’m now down to my last two copies on the road, having already given one to Kiran and one to Louise, and my roles as author and publisher are now evolving into promoter and distributor. It’s a one-man, on-the-road show conducted over breakfast tables and coffee shop tea pots, and wherever else I happen to find my wandering conversation. How do you do and what do you do has now acquired a definition: poet and artist and book-seller. Here is the article, and would you like to place an order?

     Wilena is busy on her I-pad organizing her flights and itineraries for her February seventh departure for Delhi and Kathmandu. She has also just found out about a Carnatic singing performance to be held at the Ashram Theatre on Monday the seventeenth. Wilena is very enthusiastic about this particular performer, saying that this woman is the best of the best, and will surely carry her listeners away in a wave of acoustic ecstasy. Wilena will be heading over to the theatre tomorrow to see about tickets, and will get one for me as well.

     Wilena, Julie and I head off in our separate directions from Chez Nous, and I’m off to find the Grand Bazaar to see if I can find some sort of folding table for my room. Grand Bazaar is a large square block, three-storied conglomeration of shops that includes the extensive ground floor fish and vegetable markets. How shall I find my table? Is solved when I find the four story tall Singapore Steel store, overflowing with stainless steel household items of every conceivable type, and on their fourth floor tucked away in a corner is my plastic assemble-it-yourself desk that will serve my purpose perfectly. Take it home via auto-rik, put it together, and I’m ready to go, functionally enabled with the tools of my trade, table and chair. I can write out my notes and type them out till I run out of words,

and then take a break until another round comes around. There will always be something to say.

     Mid-afternoon visit to the guest house rooftop. Perfectly cloudless blue sky above with bright and not overly hot sun illuminating the dark blue shimmering waters reaching towards horizon’s infinite line. Stone benches with backs to lean on, sea breezes wafting continuously through my hair and into my ears, the tops of long leaved palm trees almost close enough to reach out and pick off a coconut, I sit and marinade in light and color and air and sound till the sun dips close to the city’s western horizon.

     Wednesday, January thirteenth. Fifth morning sunrise over the ocean from the rooftop of Ayodhya Bhawan. Early morning meditation in the room, late morning walk into town carrying my little laptop to my internet WiFi hotspot, shopping along the way for sundry items is becoming a routine, at least for now. Meditation memories linger. Aranachula mountain on the horizon from the Ananta Nikitan Ashram remains clear in thought. Not all that very much wrapped up in writing it all down right now. Later.

     Eight weeks into the journey. Meet with twenty-something year old Laura from Germany and her middle-aged Polish woman companion at Selva’s Sea View Restaurant, my newly discovered go-to spot for a meal whenever I want. Wide variety of Indian dishes, very well prepared judging from what I’ve had so far, very reasonably priced, lovely outdoor setting, and as convenient to where I live as I’m going to find. Laura and her friend are staying out at Auroville and are in town for a day trip. Laura has applied for a spot in a Vispassana meditation session and is awaiting confirmation. Show the ladies my book and they both take thoughtful interest, especially Laura.

     I have ordered four more copies of my book from CreateSpace, which they say will be delivered to Ayodhya Bhawan by February eleven, so I will be looking for several days of extension from my current February seventh check-out date. Looks like I’m doing a book tour over here like some of my New Mexico poet friends do with their self-published books. One bookmark handout at a time, one book at a time, one table at a time, one conversation at a time. Each of us has our own way of doing things. Ever on the alert for someone who might be interested. Meanwhile, guest house rooftop at Dawn and again as Surya approaches the western horizon, my Twice-d-Day-Dawn is becoming the framework for my day. There are people here to meet, and I need to be hanging around a bit to find out who they are. Where are my poems? Where is my poetry?

     Thursday, January fourteenth, evening of the first day of Pongal, the Tamil harvest festival, four days of ritual and celebration. Starting this morning before dawn, in the darkness the fires burn. Old clothes and anything else that has outlived its usefulness goes to the flames, and by the time dawn’s light shines forth, all of those things are ashes. And the colored chalk dust mandala drawings begin to appear on the ground in front of the doorways of every household with a woman who has the artistic intention to compose her vision for the day, for the festival, and for the year ahead. Along the narrow streets and lanes of the neighborhood, for homes humble and homes grand, each has a vision for the days to come, uniquely inspired by the woman of the household, drawn as a mandala. All that is old is ashes left behind, and before the day is over, all of these colored chalk dust mandalas will be weathered into memory and oblivion. Only their shadows will remain before those doorways, but for those who have seen them, they are always there. Woman as keeper of the spirit of the home is today on colorful display.

     An exploratory walk along the lane leading north from the guest house leads to the beach where fishing boats wait between one morning’s ride through the waves and the next. By late morning, the days catch is in and gone to market, and fishermen sort through their nets, arranging and repairing whatever needs to be taken care of, keeping the tools of their trade in readiness. Small children play games and laugh in the lanes between houses, and school girls in uniforms ride bikes towards their future careers. A stranger walks by with a simple good morning, for whomever has a greeting for this Pongal New Year’s day.

     Friday morning, the fifteenth, starts off as usual with sunrise over the ocean from the rooftop. Breeze is gentle, waves are lightly rolling in, and horizon clouds are low. Ismo tells me that this is the first day of the new Tamil month. Last month was for Shakti. This one is for Shiva. Also the second day of Pongal, and special honor will be given to Sun Surya. No urgent tasks are on the table, and I have again come to a place of waiting. There will be a walk into town later on, with a visit to the internet to catch up with my messaging, and perhaps a pot of tea at the Café des Artes. Have dined three days in a row at Selva’s Sea View Restaurant and can’t think of a better place than there for quality, price, and location.

     Will shop for tea bags and honey, and keep my eyes out for a print shop.     My little household is set up, and I can begin to surmise about which direction to go after this sojourn in the City by the Sea is complete in three or four weeks. Shall I hoof it to Chennai, stay there a few days, the fly straight on to Karhmandu? And stay in Nepal through the end of March? Plenty of time to think of all that. For now, I am here, at the City be the Sea, and all I have to do is Be Here Now. Perhaps some poetic thought will come along. Perhaps I’ll go shopping for postcards this afternoon. Something to do, some task for the day, can always be found. Some reason to brave the streets and the crowds that will always be there. Some reason to visit the rocks by the sea, to sit and listen to the endlessness, to watch the waves roll in to their crest, then crash and spray the air with their mist. Always, there are reasons, to answer the question of Why. Like the waves rolling in, cresting and crashing, there are reasons. As for the question, why am I here, as I told the bus conductor on my way here, to see the sea.

     Step out the front gate to cross the street to the house where Indra will make me two cups of tea for twenty rupees. I’ve got my camera to take a picture of her Pongal mandala drawing in front of her doorway, and a twelve year old girl in a green dress asks me to come down a few doorways to take a picture of her mother’s Pongal drawing. Then this cheerful young lady becomes my tour guide and leads me down a narrow lane leading off from the street on an ever winding path between rows of small houses and cottages and huts where nearly every home has its colorful Pongal drawing. The prevailing theme is two or more sugar cane stalks to represent the harvest, and a pot overflowing with cooked milky rice, the Pongal dish that names this festival. Picture after picture I snap along the way as my guide leads me along the labyrinth of lanes. Of course, this could go on forever until I’ve walked the length and breadth of Tamil Nadu, but I stop after around fifty pictures and tell my young friend to show me the way back to the street of this village surrounding my house. Thank you Pongal for bringing this village a little closer to my sense of where I’m at.

     A late start around noon for my daily walk into town. Meet Wilena at Chez Nous for my first cup of tea. She’s on her WiFi, and we confirm Monday evening’s musical performance. I’m then off into town towards the mega-bookstore on busy Mission street where I might find some postcards, ever on the alert for a printer for my fresh batch of bookmarks. Until I find an innocuous, almost invisible doorway with a modest but promising sign that leads me up a narrow stairwell to the spacious, well-kept office of a man who acts and sounds like he knows what he’s doing and he makes me a reasonable estimate, but I’ll have to come back on Monday or Tuesday to get this ball rolling because Pongal is somehow interfering with normal operations. Certainly a most pleasing development for me to have found this printer.

     Next, on to the giant bookstore where their postcard selection is not to my taste. I’m looking for images from the Hindu pantheon of gods and goddesses. All that is here are touristy scenes, but I do find a nice pocket English-Tamil dictionary. Now in an unfamiliar neighborhood at a loss for which way to go, turn down Rue St. Terese, and find the Vanna Aravi Art gallery, where the owner and his helpers are busy hanging a wonderful collection of exquisitely done watercolors, delicately controlled and composed washes of small figures walking along countryside or village pathways.

     Continuing along another block of short and quiet Rue St. Terese, around a corner I find the sign for Opus 8 Café and Art gallery. Up the narrow stairwell into an oasis of Parisian elegance. A lovely middle-aged woman and her twenty or so year old daughter show me an empty table on an intimate balcony where I can sit amongst ferns and aloe plants drinking lemon ginger tea from a bone china cup. There is not one vehicle goes by on the street below while I sit in this enclave of quiet just two short blocks from the noisiest and busiest district of the city. After I’m paid and think I’m ready to leave, this lovely lady and I fall into casual conversation. She shows me the floor above where Opus 8 has a spacious, serene and bright cocktail lounge, and between the two floors of café below and lounge above, fine art is indeed a prevailing motif. Sandrine came to India six years ago with her husband, a specialist in wild animals who works with wildlife reserves in Assam and other parts of India. Sandrine and I talk for quite a little while about the places we’ve been and our general background, and I’m sure I’ll be back to try some of the coffees on her menu.

     From the oasis, back into the street, along another block, return to the bustling city, walk to the Oceanside promenade to see what all the festival fuss is about. Late afternoon crowds are building up. Duck into an internet hotspot and read a long article about ancient South American civilizations and their megalithic astronomical alignments. When I was a little kid, I had a set of little wooden bricks that were the precursors to modern day Legos. After I had built all the houses and buildings in the instruction booklet, I began my own experimental buildings, and remember clearly my obsession with building pyramids with those little red wooden bricks. My interest and attachment to these kinds of structures comes from some deep memory, I know not exactly where. So I like to keep abreast of all the latest discoveries and speculations written by those engaged in detailed research and analyses.

     After about an hour immersed in that mind set, again I step out into the world of pedestrian, motorcycle, motorcar, and auto-rikshaw traffic that fills the streets as daylight fades into evening. I wind my way over to Selva’s where business is busy, and get a table for my spicy rice and mushrooms. Walking back through the village street in darkness, the two Mariamman temples along the way are open and the sound of rhythmic drumming pours into the street. I can look inside but not go in with my boots on, and feel in my bones the sense for a ritual that reaches back into how many thousands of years ago, who knows?
          Monday morning, January eighteenth, Went over to Café des Artes on my  afternoon walk yesterday for my pot of masala chai. From the very nice assortment of art history and travel and spirituality books on their bookshelves,

I draw The Personal Feng Shui Manual, by Master Lam Kam Cheun, and find the following quotes. “Here are several different views of your identity, each varies, each is valid, all of them are you.” And, “This is a book of mirrors. . . What is seen in the mirrors is constant: you and your immediate surroundings. But, each mirror offers you a slightly different view of who you are and where you are. . . .at each turn you see yourself at a different angle.” So it is I like to view what I am doing in this log. This is all kind of an autobiography that emerges from the present tense. From where I’m at and what I do on any given day, reminders come forth, memories emerge, and through the darkness of night, dreams reassemble the present with images drawn from the past. In the middle of last night’s dreaming,

I come across a bookshelf on which three small, very old volumes stand out, pocket sized and fragile in nineteenth century binding, personal journals from one of my old favorites, Charles Baudelaire. Outlandish and provocative in his time, a literary rebel, he challenged the mores of his society. My favorite of his poems is Correspondences, a description of synesthesia, the mingling of sensual impressions, and while I knew enough French to be able to follow his meaning on my own account, I was nevertheless fascinated by how various English translators came up with such different renditions. So it is, I feel, with what I say in this log. Sensual impressions from sources past and present, from both waking and dreaming life, woven together into a tapestry of images that even I find mysterious and open to interpretation.

     Which brings me to the role of bookshelves in my life. Going all the way back, of course, in the first instance, to my childhood fascination with the neighborhood branch of the St. Louis public library just two blocks from my home, and brought to symphonic proportions with those years I spent in the University of Wisconsin – Madison library, roughly between the ages of thirty and forty-six, between 1975 and 1990. The whole story of my getting an education from UW – Madison had less to do with my being an officially registered student than it did with my being a stacks rat for so many years. The UW library was my entertainment center and go-to hotspot where I could browse to my heart’s and mind’s content down any avenue of human learning I might choose to follow. Clearly I remember, for example, those four years as a city bus driver. During those months when I had a morning and afternoon route, after my shift I would go home to shower and change clothes and then walk however many several blocks I had to walk to the library for a stroll through the stacks to find some piece of literature or anthropology or art history or Indian and Tibetan religion, or whatever else I might find by intention or chance, locate a spot on one of those large wooden reading tables, or in a private cubicle, and not only just read but take notes on my reading as if I were working on some indefinable degree. Independent study, it might be called, only my pursuit was quite unofficial, and rather broadly inclusive. I would take a break every couple of hours and head over to the nearby student union building for a coffee or something, and return to my library desk and frequently stay till closing when the “last call” for checkouts echoed through the hallways. Only during my final five years in that environment did I enroll in a degree program – first in Linguistics and Teaching English as a Second Language, which I abandoned, and then in Art, which I completed – and always, the library stacks was my labyrinth of inquiry. Libraries and bookshelves draw me like a magnet, always have and always will, so finding  Charles Baudelaire’s journal on a bookshelf in my dream is not all that strange or unusual.

     Tuesday morning, January nineteenth. Sun has risen through the mist over the water’s far horizon. Another day is here to walk through. As I was heading through the front gate yesterday around noon, I met Jayish, who asked me where I was going. Jayish is a soft-spoken, middle-aged Indian fellow who is designated by Ismo as the unofficial meditation master of this ashram guest house. Jayish has already told me that the week long session I attended in Aranachula was “for beginners.” I like to be told I’m a beginner. This means I have a lot yet to learn. So yesterday morning, when I tell Jayish I’m going out for my daily walk and will stop in some place for a cup of chai and something to eat, he tells me to visit Gratitude, the restaurant, which on the map is very near to where I’m going.  

     Gratitude has two tables with four chairs each. The middle aged Indian proprietor courteously asks, Parlez vous francais?” to which I must reply, “Non. Only English.” I tell him I have been told to come here, and take a chair at a table. I am the only patron so far. Monsieur sets a plate before me, along with spoon, knife and fork, and a glass of water. No menu is offered. He has something in mind, perhaps the special of the day. His wife is on the other side of a counter preparing something, and I wait. Three other patrons enter, an elderly couple and a younger man, perhaps their son, and sit at the other table, which is close to mine so that we become acquainted. They are from Toronto, have been to Santa Fe, and we surmise about the current American election scenario. We all agree that Bernie Sanders is our man. Monsieur our host sets plates and utensils before these three guests, then brings out for each of us two fine fish cutlets, delicately prepared, and a dish of prawn curry and a helping of white rice. The taste is exquisite, from culinary heaven. As I am savoring through these rare flavors, the three at the neighboring table converse in French. The elderly man asks how I like these dishes and I say they are wonderful. He says I can thank the younger man for this, for he called in this order ahead. When I entered and told the proprietor that I was told to come here, he thought I was a part of this party, which is why he simply set a plate before me. Serendipitous magic! Jayish told me to come here, and when I do I am served as an expected guest with the finest meal I’ve had in India these two months, right out of a French kitchen. Everyone finishes, my three dining companions leave and I give the elderly fellow my bookmark. Monsieur the proprietor and his wife, the maestro of the kitchen, show me what the menu really looks like, mostly simple and reasonably priced dishes with the added note that special meals can be called in for advance preparation. A few extra rupees for this special experience is to be expected.

     After a walk to visit the Higgenbothoms book store in search of maps for future travels, I go to Café des Artes for a pot of masala chai, and pick a heavy and weathered art history book from their shelf. The Barbizon School, and Nineteenth Century French Landscape Painting by Jean Bouret (1972), from which I extract the following quotes as I turn the pages, admire the drawings and paintings, and pour my cups of tea. “The man who cannot paint for a lifetime within an area of ten miles is just a clumsy fool who is searching for mandragora and will find nothing but emptiness.” George Michel ( 1763 – 1843 ), “indisputably the forerunner of modern landscape painting,” whose “works bear no signatures. . . the picture should speak for itself . . . the signature is in the talent.” Also, from Theodore Rosseau, “The man who lives in silence becomes the center of the world. . . Silence enables me to penetrate to the heart of discoveries.” Slowly I turn the pages of this old book, while around me in their lounging chairs, other patrons are scrolling through their i-tablets or their i-phones or typing away on their portable keyboards. Here my mind wanders through the forest of Fontainebleau southeast of Paris in the 1840’s, and I wonder who amongst us is living in which alternative reality.

     After four o’clock, I walk over to visit the man who will print two hundred new bookmarks for my handout gesturing as I make new acquaintances through my future travels. Auto-rik back to the guest house to wash and rest and get ready to go to this evening’s musical event with Wilena. The musicians are virtuoso performers, and their show is totally ruined by the shrill intensity of the electronic mic and amplifier system. Nothing to do but leave early, it is so acoustically painful.

     Back in my room, turn through some pages of a collection of short stories by Guy du Maupassant, a bit of nineteenth century literary France found in a corner of the guest house bookshelf. The day has been very French: artistic, literary, gastronomique, as well as acoustic thanks to my friends at their table of Gratitude.

     Thursday morning, January twenty-first. Just when you get to a place where you think nothing is happening, something happens. Sit with Wilena in brief conversation on my way out from the guest house yesterday around noon. Ask her about Sikkim, which I’ve got my sights on. She says it’s beautiful. She spent two weeks there at a monastery in retreat a few years ago. My current plan is to stay here at Ayodhya Bhawan till February fifteenth, go to Chennai for a few days, fly to Kolcatta, then bus to Sulgiri in the hills of West Bengal, where I can make my way to Gangtok and surroundings in Sikkim.

     Walk into town for an early afternoon omelet at Gratitude, and meet with my French-speaking Toronto friends from two days ago. They are in company with another middle-aged French speaking couple, and our stories come around to reflections on how India has changed in the last thirty to forty-five years. Commercialization and bureaucracy have taken over the ancient sites that used to be so easily and quietly accessible to tourists like ourselves. Sabine with her French-accented English was here in 1982 and enthusiastically expresses her wish to keep her memories intact rather that have them crushed by what she feels she would find if she visited those sites today.  My Toronto friend recommends the Vedantangal Bird Sanctuary northwest of Pondicherry on the way to Mahabaipuram, somewhat off the beaten track but perhaps doable as a day trip, or through an overnight visit. Might be nice to wake up to the music of as many as thirty thousand migrating waterbirds ”nesting in the mangroves.” (Lonely Planet)

     No shopping requirements on today’s agenda, so wind through quiet streets to the beachfront promenade. Comparatively few visitors this afternoon, and quiet waves break gently against the rocks. Find new streets to explore and a new place to sit with a cold drink near the French Consulate, and wonder how long some of these old buildings have been here and how many stories have passed by in these streets during the last century or two or three.

     Walk over to Gratitude by ten to six to order vegetable curry with rice. Midway through this dinner, a young couple walks in, and since it is so easy to get to know strangers at these neighboring tables, I’m soon talking with Gilad from Israel (G as in glad, Gilad is Hebrew for Happy Forever) and Claudie, from Chile. They are ten days into a two month long massage course at a place on the road to Auroville, and are very enthusiastic about developing their path, to not only become healers but to help others develop the knowledge and wish to heal themselves. My lower back could itself use a little massage therapy, and Saturday morning is a good time for me to go out to the school and meet the master and perhaps get a bit of the laying on of hands and some good advice.

I give Gilad and Claudie one of my new bookmarks, they pull up the site on their i-phone, and they become very enthusiastic as I show them a bit of what is in there. Poetry is not a familiar medium to Gilad, and I explain my intention for using words to inspire new ways of looking at the world around us through metaphorical association.

     As I’m saying a few words about my art as a medium, Claudie pulls a nine by twelve inch drawing tablet from her day pack, and tears out a page with an exquisitely beautiful, brightly colorful, swirling spontaneously conceived composition in colored pencil, colored markers, and fine line pen and ink, and she gives it to me, after writing in one corner, “Nice to meet you. Claudie, 2016.” And this treasure comes into my hands.

     Night has fallen into the streets as we exit Gratitude. They go their way, and I go mine through the narrow pathways of the village to my guest house where I sit on the porch for awhile and talk with the night watchman Pandarynat who tells me something of the story of his life. An elderly fellow who speaks good Tamil-accented English, the eighth of ten children of a Kancheepuram silk weaver, he is a knowledgeable and spiritual man, but spiritual knowledge is not a well-paid profession. His well-to-do elder brothers have not been of much help and they got him into a marriage with a woman who is also the eighth child in her family. The moon is growing towards fullness in the overcast sky above.

     Friday morning, January twenty-two. Dream of flying through the old neighborhood over the street that angled off from my home corner of Riverview and West Florissant. On down to the railroad tracks, then over to Riverview where I fly along the boulevard just above the trees, rather casually, surveying the old neighborhood, invisible to anyone below. Slowing down and descending as I approach the major intersection. Eventually descending into some dark and dingy underground neighborhoods where I see college students and young homeless people living in deplorable conditions. I continue through the morass of industrial filth and old railroad yards, hovering like a ghost, observing these poor souls in their miserable circumstances. I arrive at an impasse and must move old furniture around to make a path for myself and discover the paint-by-number painting of a three-masted galleon in full sail on the high seas that I painted when I was about eight years old. My first painting and the only painting from that time in my life. I dust it off and set it up on a shelf, leaning it against the wall for display. Flying and observing above the boulevard, above recognition, except by one fellow poet from Albuquerque whom, in my experience, I regard as one of the foundation and signature poets of that city, and discovering my first painting of, for me, that very symbolic image, that old 17^th or 18^th century sailing ship. Why am I dreaming these things?

     Sunday morning, January twenty-fourth. Lower back pain on Friday is mean.

I’ve been pushing myself hard with my walking about. . . . through Vaithikuppam to town, through town to the shopping district, from the shopping district to the French quarter, through the French quarter to Vaithikuppam, and on through the village to home every day for one set of reasons or another . . . my internet WiFi shop, picking up my new bookmarks on Mission street, visiting the Focus book store and buying Folktales of Pondicherry, checking in with the Vodaphone store to catch up on how my device is supposed to function, visiting Chez Nous for Masala chai and a dose of the day’s English language newspaper, deciding where to go for a late lunch - early dinner, or where else to stop and sit with a cool drink, or visiting the waves lapping against the rocks at the Promenade . . . all of these little walks add up to a daily very long walk and by Friday it’s time to give myself a break, and give a few rupees to an auto-rik driver to motor me from one spot to another, for the sacrum has declared in no uncertain terms, “cool it” and “chill.” Thursday night is a pizza at Chex Nous, and Friday is Masala Dosai at Surguru on Mission street.

     Lower back is sufficiently relieved by Saturday morning when I head out early and discover the Executive Inn underground restaurant for Indian style breakfast of idlees, sambar and good, hot coffee. Catch an auto-rik out to the massage therapy healing center where Gilad and Claudie are taking their course. Breezy, open-air rooftop under a thatch roof where the master, Rahul Bharti, about thirty-eight, is conducting his Saturday morning free healing session for the twelve or fifteen students and visitors. We sit around on mats and pillows on the floor.

The generosity and compassion of Rahul’s heart are matched with a diagnostic acumen that reaches into the physical and emotional heart of every person’s ailment. Just tell him where the pain is . . . whatever pain . . . and he will listen and look you over and help you understand where it’s coming from and why, and how to treat it, how to alleviate it. He has the true healer’s hands, the true healing touch. He began learning at age seven, and has studied with indigenous healers in Thailand, Sri Lanka and other places. His certification is in his hands, his credentials in the lives of those whom he has helped.

     I take a turn and tell him of the scoliosis and lower back pain that I’ve carried for thirty years. He has me lay on my stomach on the mat, lifts my T-shirt and begins using his hands on my back, speaking of what he sees as he proceeds, for all present to listen to, since this morning is a learning session, as well as healing session, for all of us. He tells me how to do a bending exercise that will help, an exercise such as I’ve never been told from all of the chiropractors and doctors I’ve seen about this issue. I can feel immediately that this is the exercise I need. Simple, direct, and effective, and my eyes glisten with gratitude for this man and his gift. One after another, each visitor here sits before him and tells him of a pain. He finds the cause and shows the way to balance and wholeness. Awesome is such an overused word these days, to the point of banality in modern discourse. One can only speak of what Rahul has and what he does with Reverence. And he comes across with such an absolutely congenial personality!

By the time the session is over, he has worked his magic in the lives of all who sat before him, the magic of healing ailments we visitors thought were intractable, giving his gift of knowledge and understanding as casually and sincerely as a parent heals a child’s bruise.

     After the session, Gilad and Claudie, and Nancy, another student, and I agree to meet at the Gratitude restaurant in town where we share fish and prawn curries with rice, so very well prepared by the delightful woman from Kerala who works her culinary genius in the kitchen. Rahul’s classes are Monday through Friday mornings, the classes these students are paying good money for, and I am assured that I am a welcome visitor to these classes during the coming week.

Nancy and I will meet here in town early Monday morning in front of Gratitude and take an auto-rik to The Healing Arts Center in Kottakuppam.

     May the days ahead unfold with learning, understanding and wisdom. Not only am I here in India to meet myself once again, to rediscover a long lost spirit in my heart and soul, I am here to undergo a healing, not only of my back and the rest of my body, but of the darkness in spirit that has clouded and veiled my sense of true Joy. I am flying high above the trees, and digging deep through the industrial coal yards, and there is a ship at sea I yearn to sail. 

Chapter Four

     Just as it is said that a picture can show the meaning of a thousand words, so it is that a word can voice the sound of a thousand meanings. When I was in my later twenties, beginning to give a hand to putting words together on paper to image some meaning, and beginning to dip my brush into pools of color in search of other ways to speak meaning, I coined a phrase to guide me on this new path I was following: Run After Beauty.

     Born in part I think from my Love of running as exercise, along long empty pathways through forests and fields, in search of the pace where my heart and lungs became one with the air I was swimming through, where my legs and my arms were not trying to get anywhere except in tune with each other, and the only sound in my brain was the balance between inhale and exhale. There was the place I as looking for as I set my pen to paper and brush to canvas. Such a simple thing to run for, the word with a thousand meanings.

    Run After Beauty.

     Thursday the seventeenth evening. Time for boots on the ground. Time for dodging traffic and looking out of both sides of my head while crossing intersections and filtering out the honks and beeps that are imminent from the more general background of unceasing cacophony, keeping ever especially mindful of lumbering buses turning through intersections.  There are stoplights and traffic cops, and a measurement of management and order, and I take my cues and stay close by other street crossers who are native to this system. Tuesday after breakfast, it’s west on P. High Road in search of a post office branch I’ve been told is down the street opposite the Blue Diamond hotel. The branch is more of a twig, and a small twig at that, nestled inconspicuously and unmarked amidst a nest of other little shops. Three women sit at their desks marking notes in their ledgers in this quiet little room, do not bother even looking up when I enter, and a helpful woman nearby confirms that this is indeed a post office. Mission accomplished for today. I’ve only wanted to find this place, and I stop at a nearby stationary shop to buy an envelope. Walk half a mile down the road, go across a couple of large intersections, sit at a bus stop to watch the comings and goings, detour through some other streets of shops, keeping ever alert and mindful of every step along the way.

     Wednesday morning head south across the overpass above the railroad tracks, catching an overview towards the East, following busy streets and negotiating intersections, getting the feel for how it all works, towards the huge, several acre complex of government museums of archaeology, anthropology, art, with library and what not, all in huge old nineteenth century red stone buildings, all requiring a fee. Not much into museum browsing now, just walking the grounds and snapping a few pictures of statues of gods and goddesses dancing or giving blessings. This walk is about a mile each way and I’m getting a bit limbered up.

     Thursday morning first east and then south, across another overpass above the railroad tracks to a narrow street following the curve of the Coovum river. This kilometer long stretch towards the arterial Anna Salai road is clearly the nest and central hive for the hordes of three-wheeled yellow auto-riks that endlessly ply the streets of the city. Shop after shop after shop of yellow auto-riks in all stages of disassembly and ongoing repair, even as the street itself is endlessly busy with a continuous flow of these denizens of the city’s traffic spectrum.

     Finally make it to Anna Salai where not far down the way is my old favorite, Higginbotham’s book store, landmark and refuge, air-conditioned and quiet. Looking for something to read since all I’ve had these last couple of weeks have been daily newspapers and the Lonely Planet guide book. And here is the Gem. Tales of the Sun, or Folklore of Southern India, compiled and told by Georgiana Kingscote and Natesa Sastri, first published in 1890, in a fresh hardcover edition. Thirty–three stories in three hundred ten pages, collected by the authors from their native servants and the old women of the bazaars. From what I’ve read so far, masterful tales in the spirit of what moderns would call magical realism. A treasure trove for the imagination.

     Then a little hitch up Anna Salai in the other direction for a visit to a major post office, the trunk of the tree that little twig from Tuesday is somehow attached to, where I can buy some stamps and  drop a letter to a friend across the ocean. Overall, a longer walk, perhaps a mile and a half each way, and back to the guest house for a shower and one o’clock lunch. Getting the feel for being out there, mixing it up with the crowd.

     Sunday evening, December twentieth. My final day in Chennai draws to a close as I prepare to depart for Pondicherry tomorrow morning. Thirty-two days since arrival, thirteen days at the school, nineteen at the YWCA Guest House. Meeting with Kiran Amarnath – Ray of the Sun’s Light – has been by far the most noteworthy occurrence of this entire period.  Many were the afternoon we found time to sit together at neighboring chairs in the lobby, or at a table in the dining room, or across one another in his office, for an hour or two or sometimes even three, and simply let the conversation evolve, sharing stories, making observations, and recognizing the common themes of understanding that inform our lives.

     This seventeen day stretch since I came here on Friday the fourth after the monsoon deluge that struck the city and likely had something to do with my sickness, has been my real initiation period, my coming to terms with this new world I have entered. Familiar enough in some ways from having been here before, but still a bit of a jolt from the life I had lived in America. From a household of too many things keeping me in a state of perpetual busy-ness and confusion, and social connections keeping me running from one end of town to another in circles of conversational amusement, I’m all the way back down to what I carry on my back to the bus station while keeping mindfully alert for that rare person who will cross my path with whom the heart can make a conversation. While memories, dreams and meditations from daybreak to nightfall to daybreak and then nightfall again continue, as the non-stop, twenty-four-seven entertainment center keeps the cameras rolling.

     I guess I can call these thirty-two days Act One of this play I am watching unfold. And tomorrow after breakfast, I’ll be wishing some sort of greeting in departure to the staff I have become familiar with here in the dining room, in the lobby, and in the hallways of my Chennai hacienda.

     Woke up this morning with the image of sitting with my two brothers and two sisters in the upstairs front bedroom of our childhood home, engaged in pleasant, sharing conversation, when a blue jay flies in through the open front window and finds a spot amongst us in which to perch and begin to preen. Interspersed amongst his bright, blue feathers are some bright red feathers, suggesting the influence of a cardinal into who this bird is. A reminder I think of the St. Louis Cardinals mythos that informed our home town aesthetic. I notice then that the bird is carrying some string-like thing in its beak, and I am unsure about whether the bird wants this thing or not, so I reach gently down to take it from him. The bird simply lets go and drops it without a second thought, then spreads its wings and lifts off and flies out through the window towards its freedom under the wide blue sky.

     Winter Solstice, December twenty-second, nine o’clock after the darkness has settled over the City by the Sea. A miracle walked into my life yesterday afternoon in Bharathi Park in Pondicherry. Her name is Louise Rose. She is tall like myself with red hair pinned up at the back of the top of her head, a fair and lovely woman from U.K., now forty-seven years old with ready smile and easy laughter through our conversation on the bench I have called her over to. She’s been in India a month living in Auroville, and will soon be going to an ashram in Thiruvanamalli for a retreat to be held from January first through eighth. I passed her by on the street earlier in the afternoon, in silence we walked by, and I wondered if we would meet again, and we did. Yesterday was my first day in Pondy and I was out for my first stroll after finding a rather dumpy guest house to set down my baggage. I was on my way to see the ocean’s horizon three blocks down the street, and here she comes in orangey Kalwar Chemise with green leggings, and here I am in my jungle pants and safari hat with sky blue shirt, and we had to find each other that second time to make the perfection complete. She needs to catch her bus back to Auroville by six and I promise to take the noon bus the next day, today, to meet her and continue our conversation, for there are mysteries that need to be explored.

     And there on the upstairs open-air patio for lunch, the miracle is magnified into a meeting of minds my words on paper will never be able to describe, as I tell her the story of my book, how it evolved from its inception, and I show her my most recent version. She follows my story with an attention, an interest, and an understanding that transcends any experience I’ve ever had in sharing my book with someone. We meet with tears of joy rolling down our cheeks over what is going on. She knows she has a role in bringing this book out into the world, as do I, while neither of are guessing about what her role will be.

     This journey of mine to India has just taken a quantum leap into new levels of understanding for what I am doing here. I thought I would be on the alert for people to show this book to, yes, but never did I imagine such a meeting as I have had with Louise Rose. And now I am planning for the when and the how to travel the three hour bus ride to Thiruvanamalli to participate in the eight day retreat at the ashram Louise is going to. Which will be conducted by a woman named Jaya whom Ray at the YWCA Guest House told me about.

     Louise also has an extensive experience in India from seventeen years ago, and had a direct visual meeting with the Dalai Lama that went to the center of her heart. So that all of these little occurrences I am encountering along the way are adding up to something quite beyond anything I can say is due to my sense for planning. Not only did I abandon my idea for teaching at Ambi and Shantha’s school, so I could go to the YWCA Guest House for two weeks so I could meet Ray, I had to spontaneously and unexpectedly decide to head for Pondicherry on Monday the twenty-first, so I could meet Louise and visit with her on the eve of her departure from Pondy.

     For my first night in Pondy last night, I had a most remarkable and lovely dream with Kristin my friend the anthropologist, and Diane my poet friend from Santa Fe. Those two don’t know each other, but there they were, and there we were together in the wishing well, and it was all magical. All in one of the dumpier little hotel rooms I’ve ever stayed in in India. Now I’ve got three nights in a wonderful little room at the New Guest House, one of the Aurobindo Ashram guest houses. Dinner last night and tonight at La Terrasse restaurant where my traveling partner of four years ago and I visited a couple of times.  A rather open air, thatched roof affair for those of us who favor simplicity and elegance in one sitting.

     Louise and I visited the art gallery at Auroville this afternoon during our five hour visit where we saw the lovely drawings of Aparajita Barai. Her visions are through ink on paper, re-visionings and interpretations of some of the gods and goddesses of the Hindu pantheon. We meet Aparajita and I’ve signed up for a presentation and workshop she will conduct at this gallery tomorrow from three to six.

     This morning began with the ocean’s waves rolling in and rolling in, and breaking against black rocks, while a young fisherman steps into the waters just beyond the rocks to cast his net into those waves and then haul it back in as he searches for this day’s possibilities.

     Wednesday the twenty-third around noon. Poetry in Motion. Notes on the road. Pondicherry sunrise over the ocean’s misty horizon. Waves roll in, swell, fall all over themselves, and crash against the black boulders at land’s edge. Two and three man fishing boats dip and bob through the waves as the pale pink pearl of Surya emerges through the mist. Masala Dosa and a hot Latte for breakfast and a five day extension for the room that will take me to the thirtieth. Peace of Mind for my place to stay till I depart for the ashram retreat at Thiruvanamalli. Walk the Rue Romain Rolland through mid-morning pedestrian and scooter traffic to the Aurobindo Ashram where I pay my respects to the Source of this spiritual complex, Aurobindo and the woman known as The Mother.

     Find a travel agency shop where I can change some dollars into rupees. Find where I think I should be waiting for a bus and skip it for an auto-rik to the Auroville visitor’s center. Exit the rik, give the driver a tip, and on my path walking towards the visitor’s center, there is Louise on a stroll to visit her friend Annette for lunch. Call out to Louise and we chat for one minute as I confirm my intention to go to Thiruvanamalli for the retreat for the first week of January. Give Louise a rupees three thousand advance to pass on to Annette as down payment for the retreat. How did this happen? How is this happening?

     Café Latte and a slice of coffee cake at the visitor’s center, where I now sit writing these sentences. And of course the auto-rik driver idle at the corner where I stood waiting for the bus that was not due for an hour had to want a fare so badly that he offered me a ride to Auroville for the bargain price of rupees two hundred. Methinks there are in this equation more variables then I can put me finger on.

     Wednesday the twenty-third evening, at the New Guest House where my stay has thankfully been extended by five days till next Wednesday. I can see where the nature and focus of this logbook might begin to gradually deconstruct and reconstruct itself as information overload begins to settle in. All part of the fun. Just one side of my brain talking to the other side, as they debate with one another about what to think and talk about and how.

     After my Latte and coffee cake at the Auroville visitor’s center, walk the path to the Tibetan pavilion where I am the only visitor. Climb the inner stairwell to the large hardwood floored meditation rooms, with large open windows, some Thangkas hanging on the walls, and an altar area at one end of one of the two rooms. The sense of quiet serenity infusing these rooms annialates distracting thoughts. It would be so easy to sit up there for a very long time, but I am only a visitor this afternoon, so I bathe my mind in the emptiness for a while before rising, returning downstairs and passing through the gate to the rest of the world out there.

     Which in this instance is the presentation and workshop given by Aparajita Barai, who has authored the current exhibition of her drawings, India Beloved. About twenty of us are there, some on mats on the floor, myself included, and others on chairs against the wall. Aparajita engages each of us to first find an image of ourselves in pencil, then to color it with sharp-tipped colored markers, asking us to ask ourselves why we represent ourselves as we do. My self portrait emphasizes my blue eyes. I look at people a lot, and every once in a while, someone will comment on the blueness of my eyes. We are asked to create an environment for ourselves with objects that symbolize the things and traits that are important to us, and again, to ask ourselves why. I draw my river, my tree and my mountains, and come to an understanding that one thing I like about trees is that no matter how old they get, every year they put out new buds, as their sense for growth and reaching for the sky is with them until their final dissolution. My path up the river towards its source has always been with me, as are the mysteries I look towards in faraway mountains. Finally, a metaphorical personification we carry, and mine is the flying turtle, slow and determined on the ground, hard shelled for protection against the hungry world it walks through towards its single minded objective. And then, from time to time, out from under the sides of that shell emerge and unfold the wings of a great bird, wings that catch the wind and carry him high into the sky where he can soar and see the world he’s been walking through with his nose to the ground. Until he finds another patch of ground that he wishes to explore close up, where he lands, folds his wings beneath his shell, and begins another walk. I’ve met this feathered turtle before and this workshop has revived my awareness for who he is.

     Aparajita runs through a series of slides of well-known Hindu goddesses, explaining their attributes as symbolized through their arms, the objects they hold, and their attendant animals. Finally, she gives us about ten minutes to meditate on some important problem that we harbor, and to consider how we might approach that problem through some insight we might have developed during our exploration into our metaphorical inner worlds. For myself, I consider that I am precisely on the road to solving a wide range of problems I’ve been carrying around, simply by having deconstructed and disengaged from the life I had been living in my American world. This life I’ve been living here in India is barely more than one month gone, and the lights have been multiplying and leading one to another in truly inspirational alignments.

     Arriving at the art gallery forty-five minutes before the workshop was to begin, I sat on an entranceway step. A tall, slim young woman comes along, our inquiring eyes meet and I greet her. Very soft spoken and quite young she is and I tell her the Tibetan Pavilion is nearby where she can visit and she walks down that path. After the workshop, there is complimentary tea and cookies. Her rich, liquid eyes find mine and she begins a simple inquiry about how I liked the workshop, where I’m from and what are my plans. She is from Luxembourg, just a few months out of high school, has been in India for one week and is staying at one of the Auroville Guest Houses. She has plans to visit Nepal in March, and from there to Dharamshala, an itinerary similar to mine. Her voice is soft, her words are precise, her eyes pools of selective, receptive inquiry. Our conversation of mutual inquiry continues quietly along the path from the gallery until her direction and mine separate. We exchange email addresses and I give her the website address for my book, and I wonder if we might meet again in Nepal, which she says would be nice. I feel rather grandfatherly towards her, and feel like I’ve had a privilege in meeting this woman as she takes her first steps into the great mysteries of India, a girl who as she grows into her maturity, will surely become a woman of wisdom. Delphine.

          Thursday, December 24, 2015 at five in the afternoon with a lemon soda at

La Terrasse. So the big deal is about writing it all down. If I didn’t write it down, would it still count? As for what? Being real? The book has been about writing it all down. The book, writing it all down, is what brought tears of joy to Louise’s eyes, and to mine. If there was no book, there would be no tears, and if there were no tears, there would be no rainbows. And there would be no thoughts to share in writing with people whom I have never met, and will never meet. I am sending thoughts through words in writing that can truly only be sent through the voice and the eyes. And calling that my Life’s work!

     Words on paper saturate the reading mind, and the mind was not designed to spend its time in reading. Yet so I have become, and so I will continue, just as a musician, once he has found his instrument, will not easily set it down. And in fact carries it with him everywhere he goes. Shall I set my pen and paper aside, and walk through the world with only raw experience for company? Writing is the sieve through which I filter the fine from the coarse, and the reader is the source of Light for the words that flow from this pen.

     Meaning is an impossible pursuit, except when it flows through the eyes of two minds who have found each other, as Louise and I found one another two days ago. There is the meaning that cannot be described to anyone else. Do I even really know what was going on in Louise’s mind when her lips quivered and she could no longer hold back those crystal drops of joy that overflowed from her eyes? Could she even tell me, in so many spoken words, where those pearls streaming down her cheeks came from? Would I understand, in so many spoken words, even if she did?

     We met through our stories, we met through my book, and the tears were rolling down her face even as she only first held this book, as she looked at the cover, before she even read the first page. She knew the story of my drawings.

I had shown and explained to her the complete set of black and white drawings.

She held in her hands the culmination of the story of my thirty-eight year odyssey, the last chapter, the final version, and her sense for my sense of completion touched her heart in its depth, and her tears welled forth. And all I could do was cry with her, as we shared the essence of meaning.

     Friday, December twenty-fifth. Full moon time. Morning. “Why are you going to Pondicherry?” the bus conductor asks on Monday, at the rest stop along the way from Chennai. “Cod-L  Parkalam” To see the Sea, I tell him. At Dawn, before the sun disc emerges from the watery horizon, I have two short blocks to walk to the shoreline of black boulders where waves roll in, crest, then crash and spray a thousand tiny droplets into the cool salt air. Here there is no counting, only motion unrelenting, endlessly repetitive, endlessly singular. The horizon is mist with pale gray clouds, and veils the disc from view as She crosses the horizon. For the disc can be as feminine as well as she is masculine. Usha is her name and Surya is his, and they are both part of the new day becoming. Above the horizon between water and mist, here her soft red glow shines forth. Here is what I came to see. Sunrise over the ocean, and to listen to the heartbeat of the ocean’s timeless Rhythm. She rises from her softness and becomes his glaring light, casting bright reflections across the endless motion of the waters. The world awakens, the day is here, there are choices to be made, and streets and avenues to walk, and questions to ask, and answers to find. And places to discover, and memories to recover.

     Poetry in motion.  Friday morning walk to Mission street and the Aurobindo info center, where I capture an image of The Mother as a young woman, perhaps around as old as Delphine now is. A couple more blocks along the way is a Hiiggenbotham’s bookstore branch, where I am directed towards an internet connection location where I can respond to family and certain friends, and get the basic info from Annette on the Anantta Niketaan Ashram retreat coming up in one week. Then, along this street is a Tibetan gift shop and tea house where I have a plate of ten momos and a glass of cool Lemon Ginger tea. Note the brass Ganesha riding on his swing on the window sill. Then, connect with a money changer around the corner for sixty-six rupees to the dollar, the best price I’ve gotten so far. Then, pass by a major Vodaphone store which is now closed, but at least I now know where it is. Then walk to the beach where I connect with the Oceanside twenty-four hour coffee shop. Great find! Then sit on the rocks and watch the waves and pose for some photo requests, first with four teenagers, then with a man from Assam and his small son. A smallish white dog, clearly past middle age, picks up my trail and keeps me company till I find my way to the tourist office where I pick up info on a full scale Braratanatyam dance performance to be held Sunday evening. Sit on a park bench with an unknown friend, not long before an auto-rik and turning motorcycle slam it at an intersection, spraying ten thousand pieces of glittering headlight glass onto the pavement. Amazing that apparently there are no injuries, and my friend and I sit on our bench together for the time it takes for all parties involved to resolve their issues and drive off.

     Return to the black rocks where the waves continue their crashing and spraying until I step back into the city and find this WiFi coffee shop, the Boutique St. Laurent. Such is the day in exploration thus far at four in the afternoon.

     Next, find and try the Artika Café Gallery on Labourdonnais at Rue de Bussy, for a Ginger Lemon Honey tea, and at which place there is also WiFi, in an open air setting. Today is for sampling, this place and that, with my only objective to browse and discover in leisurely fashion the hidden gems behind mysterious doorways. On to the Café des Artes on Rue Suffren for a cup of Masala Chai, another WiFi spot in a garden setting under some large leaved coconut palm trees, along with a noisy crow until he decides to leave. From one cup of tea or coffee to the next I wander through the afternoon. Got to wonder who is out here who would recognize me as someone whom she is interested in meeting, as Louise was on Monday. European faces appear from around corners, and at nearby tables along the way. Recognitions that matter are usually mutual from very early on. Soul Mates are out here, partners in Spirit, and there is nothing for me to Do except Be Here Now, moving in tune with the planets and stars until we align.

     Louise is not my traveling partner on the ground. She has her relationship, grounded in Sweetness as she says, back in the U.K. She and I have something else, as Real as anything I’ve ever experienced. Soul Mates is a plural, and perhaps, just perhaps, I will meet my traveling partner along the way. As long as my mind is in its clear receptive place, the path is as the crystal of the Wish Fulfilling Gem. I’ve been on this path a very long time. What happens, will happen, and I cannot help but wonder what will happen next.

     Golden Glow sunset from Bharati park, then to the black rocks at the shoreline where the orangey full moon has risen over the ocean’s horizon. Winds are strong and waves are rolling high and crashing hard against the rocks, sending high arcs of spray into the air, and misty droplets reach my face. As Luna rises higher, her reflection in the waters widens and brightens until an avenue of Light reaches towards the horizon, rippling with the waves.

     Saturday, the twenty-sixth. Morning, out to the shoreline rocks early enough to catch Jupiter shining straight overhead and bright morning star Venus high in the East, with faint Mars between those two, while full moon sets to the west over the city as Usha heralds the Dawn over the Eastern horizon and Sun-Surya glimmers through the far away low-lying clouds. Time now to plan another day and the days remaining before departure on Wednesday. There will be four more morning sunrises over the ocean. Then the bus ride to Thiruvanamali for the retreat which closes on Friday the eighth, after which I may return to Pondicherry, or shall I move in another direction? And what direction would that be? What kind of extended stay possibilities are there here in Pondy? Questions, questions, Questions!

     Sunday morning, December twenty-seventh. Clouds are deep across the horizon, rising high into the blue that almost isn’t there. Waves are rolling strong and heavy, cresting and falling relentlessly. Venus and Jupiter above are hidden behind gray mist, and the soft glowing pink pearl of Sun-Surya will not shine through this morning.

     Answers to yesterday’s questions. Walk to the Vodaphone store on Nehru street by slightly before eleven to meet with Iyyappan and decide to buy a basic Indian phone. Two thousand rupees, about thirty dollars, and another five hundred rupees for 286 minutes to be used within three months. Will stop by tonight at eight to pick it up. Walk back to the Oceanside beach twenty-four hour coffee shop to sit with a large latte and soak up some ocean breeze in a palm tree’s shade. Now begins the search for where will I stay when I return from the Thiruvanamali retreat. The Aurobindo Seaside Guest House is clearly for the more affluent Ashramites. Then walk the several blocks to the North Boulevard turnoff where the Paradise hotel is booked solid till March. The Executive Hotel’s basic room is twenty dollars per night, too much for me unless I really have to. Then to the Aurobindo Garden House and other such places that are all unavailable, and I’m directed to the long walk to the Maravadi street locale for other possibilities. Stop at Chez Nous – La Maison Auroville for a latte and chocolate cake and a shady rest at one-forty. House of many pizzas, and Hey Jude filters through from another patron’s speaker phone. Mahavadi street is a decidedly quiet, native street along the northern shoreline. Small huts and houses along the seaside, larger homes along the other. The French lady at Mother’s House says she is all booked up. Around the corner I walk to Ayodya Bhavan, and I feel like I’m running out of options and possibilities are evaporating. Push the gate open and there is a European fellow, lean and fair, about my own age, and he says come in and let’s see. I request a month starting January eighth and he’s got something for me at the astronomically low price of two hundred rupees per day. The second floor room with balcony is a gem.

I walked all the way to the very end of my rope, and here is Lakshmi’s blessing!

Nowhere else in India will you find any such room for two hundred rupees per day, and my heart takes a quantum leap of relief for this room in this building where I can feel at home.

     Ismo is from Finland, and assures that my inquiry is timely, for all rooms will surely be fully booked within a couple of days. I leave my five hundred rupee deposit, and look forward to not only the room, but to the company of Ismo and other most likely like-minded residents. Exit for the return walk along Mahavadi street, and after a couple of hundred yards find that I am catching up to a more leisurely walking older European fellow. He stops at a seaside viewpoint and I walk over to greet and see if he speaks English, which he does, and he is receptive to our meeting. Shall we have a coffee or tea, he asks, which I surely welcome, and he leads me through some turns through some narrow side streets to a nice three story building where we climb a narrow stairwell to a full-sized multi-roomed apartment, well furnished, with a full kitchen, and a room with a complex computer setup on a large desk.

     Here is Jean-Pierre from Paris, who knows Santa Fe, whose business has much to do with web site development. He is a philosopher and psychiatrist by training, who follows the Freudian school. Here again is a man of around my own age, with full mustache and hair on his chin, who likes to smoke cigarettes and has recently returned from Paris where he’s had some medical procedures performed near his heart. He is really quite fascinated with modern medical technology, and is quite a liberal minded thinker. He brews a full pot of coffee which he and I drink trough our conversation at his dining room table. He’ll be going back to Paris for about six weeks on January eleventh, so it’s not likely that I will get to know him much more unless I wind up staying in the neighborhood beyond that time, but he says I am always welcome in any case. We are finished with our coffee by around four-thirty, and I’m back to the return walk along Mahavadi street, which I will be getting to know very well in the weeks to come. I’m on the complete opposite end of town from where I’m staying at the New Guest House, and will not be returning there now, as I’ve got an eight o’clock appointment with the Vodaphone man, so I sit on the black rocks on the shore and watch the waves roll in for a while with a renewed sense of some vague, undefined purpose and attachment to this City by the Sea.

     As the evening throngs take over the promenade, walk back into the inner streets in search of the Café des Artes for a quiet place to sit. Find a small cobbler’s shop along the way, and stop in to get my feet measured for a custom made pair of sandals, which fine pair will be ready Tuesday evening on the eve of my departure for the retreat.

     Then find the Café des Artes, and sit with a pot of hot Masala Chai till closing at seven, then head on over to meet Iyyappan at the Vodaphone store for my new electronic communication device. Then walk the long walk back to my room at the New Guest House by around nine for a refreshing shower to wash the sweat of the day down the drain and be thankful for all of the day’s decisions, accomplishments, and blessings.

     Monday evening, December twenty-eighth. Getting my head ready for my Wednesday trip to Thiruvanamali. Sunday afternoon walk along South Boulevard to the not very far away train station. Schedule does not fit. Then walk further to the bus station, where departures are frequent. Then to the Juice Wagon at Bussy and Mission for walkabout intermission before heading on over to the dance program that starts at six.

     Here at the Juice Wagon, pen and paper is my friend. We keep company and make observations. We like quiet tables at quiet restaurants, especially during long walkabouts, like we did back in Chicago when I was in my late twenties and early thirties, and wanted to be a writer even though I had never taken a writing course and I did not know anyone else who thought of themselves as a writer. Some kind of a Lone Ranger was I. Juice Wagon has ten tables, six tables for four and four tables for two. Wonder if the owner ever works a packed house. Two orange-pineapple smoothies hit the spot for me, on my way to the Bharata Natyam dance performance as the afternoon fades.

     The dancers are a Joy to watch. Mostly younger to older teenagers, with a few younger girls, and some that might be in their younger twenties. Have to be old enough to have studied and practiced for enough years to have gotten as good as they are. The nine emotions of Bharata Natyam, each in its own vignette, each in a story from Tamil mythology or history, or from that storytelling place that blurs between history and mythology.

     Navarasa: The Nine Fundamental Emotions of Bharata Natyam.

First, the invocation dance to Lord Vinayaga, the dancing elephant-headed Lord, he who helps us overcome our obstacles, he who is the Obstacle to Obstacles.

Then the sequence of nine stories through dance. Beginning with Singara – Love, as portrayed by Lord Rama and Sita Devi, when they see each other for the first time and lose themselves in each other’s loving gaze. 

     Then Haysa – Mirth, as Draupadi laughs at the plight of Duryodhana when he foolishly trips and falls over his own mistake. Illustrating the saying: Laughter is the best Medicine.          Third we have Compassion, as illustrated by Saint Vallalar’s compassionate empathy for all life forms, even to the sight of withering crops moving him to tears, until miraculous rains fall down to revive them. 

     Fourth we have Roudra – Anger, when righteously brought forth, as when Kannagi’s anger is directed at the Pandya king who unjustly killed her husband, her anger so powerful as to cause the fiery immolation of the beautiful ancient city of Madurai. 

     Fifth, there is Valor, and the historically recent story of Tiruppur Kumaran who laid down his life to defend the honor of the flag of the Indian freedom movement. 

     Sixth, there is Bhaya – Fear, “the unnerving experience of a trembling body afflicted with a muddled mind that causes all to be lost.” Princess Kunti pleases Maharishi Durvasa with her devotion and receives the boon “to summon and beget a child from any God at will. She fears social condemnation as an unwed mother after bearing a son from Lord Surya. The terror of the unknown for both herself and her son Karna overtakes her as she leaves him to his fate in the wild river’s waters.”

     Seventh is Beebatsa – Disgust, which “manifests when we see, hear or feel things that are gross or bitter. The bitterest of the bitter experience is manifested when we witness human beings behaving in a sub-human animalistic manner.”

Shameful behavior is illustrated when the King of Dharma, Yudhisthira, violates Dharma by wagering and losing his kingdom. “Disgusting behaviors are there like a temple priest selling the idol, and the watchman himself stealing from the house he is to guard.”

     Eighth is Abhuta – Awe, the ecstatic feeling that takes our breath away when experiencing any grand spectacle. “What greater astonishment can there be than seeing the young Poompavai being brought back to life from ashes by the song of Sambandhar?”

     Ninth is Shantha – Peace, as shown through Buddha’s encounter with Angulimala, “the infamous highwayman who waylaid and killed his unfortunate victims. . . .Upon meeting the Buddha, Angulimita loses all sense of violence and attains an inner quietude and peace.”

     Altogether, a troupe of about forty dancers, many of whom went through several costume changes as the series of stories progressed. I had an open view from a third row seat with no one in front of me, and could watch the facial expressions and intricate movements of the dancers in pristine detail, surely a view to be treasured for a dance that is designed and choreographed to illustrate and express emotional nuance.

     Monday morning is again thick with clouds on the horizon and the waves continue to roll in with vigor and crescendo, and again the fishermens’ catamarans are idle in the sand where, on calmer days, they would be coming in now with their netfulls of the  morning’s catch. Go out for a late morning visit to the St. Laurent coffee shop, boutique, and WiFi spot. Cannot make the connection, but find the poster for a Tuesday night Bharata Natyam performance at the Katashreya Aurodhan Garden on the North side of town. Will certainly plan to be there. Walk to the Artika Café and WiFi hotspot where I make the connection, have two cups of hot Lemon Ginger Honey tea, and read emails relevant to the forthcoming Thiruvanamali retreat.

     Thursday morning, the twenty-ninth. Horizon clouds are low, and incoming waves not so high, bright Venus is with us this morning, and the red glow of sun-Surya shines through the far away mist. At some unknown hour in the early morning darkness, I am being led by one of those large, black water buffaloes that paddy farmers follow in their fields. This animal has some characteristics of hairiness and the hump back of the American bison. I am following this animal through some misty portal until my eyes open and I am utterly convinced that I am lying down on a cot in the living room of my childhood home. I’m looking at the dark black screen of a T.V. and feel for the words coming to my throat, mildly choking words that are hard coming forth, and I must willfully force them through my voice. “My eyes are open, and all I see is darkness.” I say this sentence three or four or five times to make sure I’m saying these words right, that I’m hearing them right. I am consciously awake in this room and am convinced of this location until my mind sorts itself out and I see this guest house room I’m in. But there is no doubt that my ears have heard me speak these words, so difficult and so necessary in coming forth in vocalization.

     So what is this all about? I recall the two years between graduating high school and going off to the University in Champaign – Urbana. I worked at the AT&T building in mid-town St. Louis, a square block of a building several stories high full of communications equipment where I spent forty hours every week, performing routine and troubleshooting tasks. I made a few new friends there, but my high school world had evaporated, those friends had gone off in their various directions, and my family was going through serious financial hardship while my unemployed father was trying to redefine his life, having left the torture chamber of the Chevrolet factory behind. He had a plan, but the plan was not going well, and for a year my modest starting income at the phone company was the major support for our family. My plans to save for college were delayed and I had lots of empty time to think about where I wanted to go and what I wanted to study. Nancy, the youngest sister at seven and eight, was growing and the sleeping arrangements in our small house changed. I went to the couch in the downstairs living room, while parents and brothers and sisters slept in the two rooms upstairs. I had no homework or tests to study for, only a dream for going away to some other place to college. I turned the pages of many college bulletin books, analyzing costs and programs in Engineering, looking forward to the day when my dad got back on his bearings with a reasonable position and income, which he eventually did, and I then saved money like a miser for the chance to pack my bags and be off on my way to begin the new life of my own.

     Our family has a good spirit of togetherness, but I could not help, as I was reading and sleeping in the living room at night, like the caretaker of my family upstairs. Patiently waiting through an ocean of loneliness in my heart for the time when I could step forth into the new world of learning, a new world of visions becoming, a new world of friendships. Those were the times when sometimes when my eyes were wide open, all I could see was darkness. Why this dream is here now, I don’t exactly know, except perhaps as a reminder of how far I have come. There is some light now in my life. Perhaps there could be more. Perhaps there will be more. For now, sunrise over the ocean’s horizon, and fresh winds from across the waves, are my most excellent friends.