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.