Chapter Eight

     Friday afternoon, March twenty-fourth. Walking the streets of central Pondicherry, central to me, in the square kilometer around my hotel room, after this morning’s class, begin with the post office where I am first up to the letter registration window, an unimaginable miracle at a place where the line is often fifteen deep. From here, walk a couple of blocks to the Vodaphone center, where Vignesh recharges my minutes, and tells me to return on Monday to confirm my three-month renewal contract for a tourist phone. Find the nearest micro shop for Xeroxing and lamination; stop into a busy family style ice-cream shop with a list  of sweet dishes and drinks longer by far than a Baskin-Robbins menu. Chocolate ripple ice cream chocolate sundae and a cup of hot milky tea. Once into the shopping district, I scan my short term memory bank in search of little things I need to do or stock up on. Nothing! Walk on over to the quiet side street to visit Sandrine of the Opus 8 coffee shop, restaurant where a few special dishes are prepared in house each day, art gallery, library, and haven for quiet conversation. I order one of her salads for my private balcony table for two, followed by a double espresso with frothy cream.  Mr. Crow sits for a moment on the metal railing, twists his head around a couple of times, opens his beak and speaks, and takes wing. I’m still not exactly sure what he said, but I’m sure something inside of me knows. I give Sandrine a copy of the French and English versions of my pamphlet. It can be fun to surprise someone with something totally unexpected, to peruse the quizzical wonder: Why me? Why this? What is it? In silence spoken. She is out of the shop by the time I get up from my balcony reverie; behind the counter is a middle aged man I’ve not seen here before. I pay the bill and ask him if I can leave some books on the small table in the foyer where friendly businesses leave their fliers, all very neatly arranged. He says Ok, and see you later, which of course will happen.

     The course is winding down and coming to a climax. Four students went through their final exam this morning. Kimi, Simon, Amodine, Axel. There will be four others next week. Neither older Marie nor I are being called upon to perform. In truth, can I really remember what it was like to have a thirty- or forty-something year old body? I watch very closely the massage in progress going by in silence, follow the drawings in the handbook, and scribble in notes where I need to fill in the blanks. When the exam session is complete, our master explains his observations about each giver’s process, and is overall very pleased. He then turns to me and comments about how pleased he was to see me following the givers’ movements in detail, and not just sitting listlessly on the side in a state of nothing-to-do-ness. You don’t waste time, he says, and I like that thought. If there is something to be learned, and the means is here, I am up for it. Neither is sitting on the Opus 8 balcony engaged in conversation with a visiting crow a waste of time. Always alert to whatever can be learned in any situation, there is no such thing as the wasting of time.

     Sunday, March twenty-seventh, at quarter to eleven in the morning. Just to sketch in a few words about the last couple of days. Met my shape-shifting personality to cap off this morning’s dream. After visiting my amalgamated Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and Madison, Wisconsin university campuses, walking around the quad and along several of the major pathways that lead from building to building, enjoying the walk for its own sake, as a reminiscent overview, especially welcome for its outdoors perspective, as I feel like I’ve been hanging out in the classrooms and libraries on overtime mode, and need to feel the campus and university aura from its under-the-blue-sky perspective. I will meet someone whom I once knew in those places, on those campuses, and we will sit in the grass or on a shady bench and talk about whatever. Until I get to a place where I need to pick up, bid adieu, and walk off to a class in some building across the way. The time it takes in number of minutes to walk from one building to some other is completely familiar. For whatever goes on following this sequence, I’m sitting in the front row of a small eccentric, old-fashioned stage theatre, with the across-the-floor point-of-view one has from such a seat, and onto the stage walks a young man, perhaps in his mid- or later thirties, dressed in ordinary shirt and trousers. He lies on his back in the center of the empty wooden floor, and both his facial features and body structure morph like a piece of clay going through a transformation into some other character in the play I have just seen. The entire performance had ended with a lingering uncertainty. There was a mystery that needed to be tied together, and there were some loose threads. When the young man, a character in the play, morphed into the other character, an older, middle-aged man with some villainous tendencies, the loose ends were tied together. The movements through the plot and where it all led to made sense. The villainous one is more like a Kokopelli, the trickster who throws obstacles in your pathway to see how you overcome them, the trickster who defies your expectations with meetings and conversations and encounters you would never have imagined, the trickster who throws together a tossed salad of events that makes a mockery of decipherment. The shape-shifter sits up on the stage, one knee folded down, one knee folded up, his forearm across his folded knee like a Bacchus in his cups, and locks my eye, black to black, until my eyes flutter open into morning’s first light.

     Visiting the world of Amita these last two evenings, Friday and Saturday. Walking south along Rue Labourdonnais around five-thirty, a street I have not often walked, and especially in not a long time, I pass by the entry of L’Espace, an upstairs open air informal restaurant and café. Wooden chairs and tables with simple tablecloths, lots of space to find a place to sit for a while, and I’m passing a table where two women and one man with a fancy camera hanging from his neck are sitting. One of the women beckons me to join her table. Amita is conducting an inaugural event. She has decided to become a counselor and this is her first outreach, up here on the rooftop café of L’Espace. She wants to get small groups of people together to sit around a table and talk about how to deal with and solve all of the problems that life sends to our path. There is a somewhat emphatic dose of the Christian God, who sometimes goes by the name of Jesus, and who in fact is consummately a triumvirate. Amita is energetically enthusiastic about her newly inspired career direction. The population around the table grows to around eight, including the owner and his grown son, and we all freely carry on a conversation about life’s problems and solutions. Amita is more the instigator than the director of our free-for-all conversation, and she is simply happy to have brought us all together for this event. When I introduce myself to Amita as I first join her group, her thought goes to John the Baptist, and she wishes for my blessings for both herself and her new mission. My blessings are with her. Photography guy takes pictures of the group. I’ve got a copy of my book for anyone who wants one, most everyone except one woman who says she will never read it, for the only book she reads is the Bible. What a concept! Out of all the books out there in the world – take thirty seconds and think on how many there are – a person chooses to read one book only! What to Say? The owner and his son get back to the work of the restaurant as evening diners climb the stairs and take tables along the railing overlooking the quiet street. I take a dinner table with Amita. She is rather fun to talk with. Born and raised in a Sikh family in New Delhi, she became involved with a Muslim man when she was about thirty, and lived the Muslim religion for thirteen years, and just six years ago found the Christian God. She’s lived in Pondicherry four years, and is simply enchanted with the culture of the French district especially, and with the ancient roots and connections that Pondy has with the India of the Rishis. She has most recently been the principal of some school in Cuddalore, fifteen miles south of here, and she resigned that role to take up this new calling from God, to serve as a counselor and help others understand and deal with life’s challenges. She is and always has been unmarried, and her heart longs for a deep and meaningful relationship with a man she can spend her life with.

I encourage her with my sincere blessing. Her car is parked in the street below and she gives me a ride to my hotel. We agree to meet tomorrow afternoon out in Kottakuppam where I will be after the morning and early afternoon Healing Hands session, and from there we will drive on out to somewhere near Auroville where she has another counseling session lined up at some roadside restaurant. It’s all part of the adventure!

     Amita is an adorable magnet drawing people together in little circles to talk about ideas and issues important to their personal sense of self and expression. I’m here to meet the others that Amita brings together and there is a true sense that Amita and I are on parallel paths of outreach with a sense of connection reaching back into some primeval past, some prehistoric memory, some primordial root. Saturday evening was a story, and pretty soon, Sunday’s story with Amita will unfold.

     Monday evening, March twenty-eighth. Chronology is becoming dense. More things are happening than can be kept track of. The essence needs to be distilled from the froth. Saturday was Amita’s day from four when she picked me up on the ECR highway roadside, heading north out of town to the Auroville road turnoff. Through the streets of shops and past the Auroville entrance on the strip of asphalt turning through groves of trees and fields to the last hippie-style coffee house – restaurant on the road, way on past the roadside strip malls of trendy shoppes and restaurants. Out here at the end of the road which continues on into empty fields, is Coffee Break Café, according to the overhead painted sign with Rastafarian overtones. Kitchen and open air tables on the ground floor, and climb the narrow concrete stairs to the sprawling rooftop under woven bamboo and thatch work cover. What was once a clearly vibrant structure and space with an overview of nature’s horizon for the setting sun is now rather abandoned. A low-lying distant treeline extends into peripheral vision, and one can easily imagine cushions and mattresses with low tables arranged all around this inviting space.  Now dormant, or perhaps, from what I can tell, operating at about a three percent efficiency level. Adi-Siva, a Tamil who looks the Rastafarian part, has recently acquired this house of memories. He has plans to make this bird fly again, but so far, the program waits on the runway. Adi-Siva and Sophie, of European heritage, occupy a smaller, similar structure a stone’s throw from the main structure. The Coffee Break Café is Amita’s chosen venue for her second inaugural Peace Counseling session. Friday night was her first inaugural, Saturday night is her second, and Sunday afternoon will be a session for her foster family, the Tamil family in this southern part of the continent who have adopted Amita in heart and spirit.

     I really don’t know how many people have been invited to this Saturday evening event. Amita hands out her business cards personally and continuously to strangers and friends. Out here at the Coffee Break Café on Saturday night, besides Adi-Siva and Sophie,  neither of whom participate in Amita’s session, is Karan, a quite intelligent thirty-something year old man who is carrying a book titled, Transcendence, authored by A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, a prominent scientist and politician, now deceased, subtitled My Spiritual Experiences with Pramukh Swamiji. Karan is from Delhi and now in the Pondy area three days, staying in an Auroville guesthouse and somehow connected through friendship networks to be here tonight. Also here is Sentil, a thirty or forty something year old Tamil man in strong health with vibrant eyes. He has been in the Pondy area for three months after ten years in a remote area of the Himalayas in Nepal. Says he had hair growing down to his waist, but it is now all cut back to the neckline. Bala is here, a middle-aged Tamil man, engineer working with hydraulics and water purification and delivery systems in Auroville. This is the crew, and again, Amita initiates the discussion but does not try to control it. The conversation flows through one related topic to another, from Amita’s emphasis on forgiveness and allowing God to guide your decisions, through various points of wisdom from the chapters in the book Karan carries, and I bring out and share copies of my book, and that initiates more conversational material. Amita is an enthusiastic God-following Christian, but is not trying to convert anyone. She is just following the word given to her to quit her Cuddalore school principalship, and begin a counseling service which so far does not look like a business. Not to worry! I have a particularly strong intellectual connection with Karan, and a particularly strong energeisic connection with Sentil. We move from the table and chairs on the ground floor to the mattresses and low table on the upstairs floor. Watching the sunset, entering night’s darkness. Driving back towards town on the Auroville road, Amita and I stop at a roadside outdoor pizzeria for an hour across the table.

      Wednesday, the thirtieth at five-thirty. Having met with Harsaran Singh this afternoon between one and three-thirty, travel agent extraordinaire and true friend on the conversational path through life. Met Harsaran last night via Amita at the rooftop corner table of the coffeehouse on the Promenade overlooking the ocean, listening to the gentle breakers crash against the rocks. Walk with Amita to the Beach Café in the evening as the sun goes down behind the buildings of the city to the west. Two days earlier, as I was talking with Amita about my travel plans, she said she would refer me to her travel agent on Canteen street if I wished. After my foray through the ineffectual Blue Yonder agent, I asked to meet her agent, and Harsaran came to meet us on the café rooftop as the final dusk disappeared into darkness. It was easy to tell early on that this would be a good connection, a most fortuitous connection, and as it turned out, indeed auspicious in more ways than I could have imagined. As for sorting through airlines and schedules, he has found the perfect flight to Bagdoga via Calcutta, on one plane with a thirty minute stopover between ten-twenty and two-fifteen. We talk about my overall travel plans. Harsaran is from Srinigar and a fountain of information about Ladakh and Leh and surrounding territory: villages, monasteries, landscapes. He lived in Leh for three entire years, including the isolated and bitterly cold snowbound winters. Besides helping me imagine that leg of my journey, down the road in later summer, he helps me think about my journey to Bagdogra, and the overland journey to Gangtok, in terms of all of those details that are a part of such a journey through unexplored, to me, territory. Forging a new path, etching a new landscape into memory. Not so far in numbers of miles, but such incredible miles they shall be. It’s up to me to find my lodging and exact landing points.  Harsaran just gets me there, which is exactly what I’m looking for. He helps me think about my plans for an overland journey through Nepal towards Kathmandu, again with a sense for all of the details to be remembered. This man is golden to me as a travel agent, and it doesn’t stop here. He has strong ties to Bali and Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia. I had hinted at my book on the Café rooftop last night, and now bring out a copy for Harsaran. He completely gets it, and we carry on at length about what I’m talking about within those pages. Harsaran has a fabulous capacity for listening and carrying on a conversation. His normal business has to do with organizing meeting venues for traveling conventions at resorts, but his personal heart is in the interior of Bali where the literati of the Western and Eastern world find seclusion and companionship amongst like minds during four days of the last week of October. Harsaran recommends that I send a digital copy of my book along with a request to participate to the woman who organizes this event. It’s a literature festival for we lesser known writers who tirelessly share our messages with the rest of the world, and with each other in our world. Sounds like a multi-coffeehouse smorgasbord of writers and readings and offerings, and Harsaran suggests that my little book would easily fit in, and he forwards the email announcement to my inbox. Mushroom Cloud! What was I going to do after September in Leh and Ladakh? I had no idea. How about a writers’ sharing conference in Bali in October? Do I need to elaborate on this idea? Meanwhile, the date for departure from Chennai has been fixed, and the last day of class is tomorrow. Now all I need to do is fill in the blanks in between April first and eleventh. Divest and consolidate and wad it all up into a manageable package. It all comes down to the number of pounds in your bag, no matter what it is. And deciding where to place what is left behind. And wondering how my final few days in Pondicherry are going to resolve into what kinds of conclusions.

     Friday morning, April first. Yesterday, nine of us are here, and eight of us have been doing this together for the last eight weeks. Farewells are spoken, each to every other one, and something said about the possible when’s, and where’s and how’s of our meeting again. A summary statement of who we are to each other. One by one, each of my friends goes down the stairs towards the gate, and I have the hammock and the pads on the floor to myself, soaking in the afterglow before planning the rest of my day outside.

     Amita calls and suggests that I meet her at the coffee house on the beach downtown around two for a cold glass of lemonade with mint, her favorite herb.

For two hours we sit at our table facing the rolling waves and gently crashing breakers. The service she wants to give to others through her counseling service is foremost in her heart, but the ground floor fact is that she’s been living off of her savings, and is now applying for school principal positions here in the Pondy area. There is one possibility that seems promising but is still uncertain, while underneath all of the upbeat conversation and faith in God to provide and guide, there is perhaps some little tinge of anxiety about how all of her wishes are going to pan out. We each have a slice of pizza and some French fries and some of her homemade yellow dahl that she bootlegged into this restaurant by the sea to share. By four o’clock, Amita is getting a bit head-achy, and, amongst other things the Pondy air is hot today, even at this table by the sea, and my tailbone is wanting to get up and move around, so we each head home to bedrest, and agree to meet again at six-thirty for a visit at L’Espace restaurant, where we can drink more lemon with mint tea and have a light pasta dinner. Harsaran, my travel agent, comes to L’Espace to sit at our table after Amita gives him a ring. Here also for company is Pieretta, a cheerful and smiling middle-aged French woman who helps with the preparation and serving at this restaurant, and since there are no other customers in this spacious and informal atmosphere, we entertain each other in conversation, and there is a round of photo and selfie taking as the young Tamil waiter joins our party. Through over two hours, from seven to after nine, only one pair of customers visits the restaurant and sits in their private corner, so the floor is ours for laughter and good humor. Time to go home finally comes around, and Amita’s mental exhaustion and headache return. I do what I can to help her get into the proper frame of mind for driving home, and she assures everyone that the next day is her stay-at-home day. Kind of very much like that for me too. End of one major chapter is near, and a new one on the threshold, and all I have to look forward to are things that need to be done. Interestingly enough, Amita’s birthday is September 5, 1966, while mine is September 6, 1944. I wonder what kind of fun a numerologist – astrologer could have with that!

     Saturday, April second, around five-thirty afternoon-evening. Here and now, here and now, it is always here and now. For whatever is going on, it is always here and now. Nothing like a twenty-four hour bout with diarrhea, fever, belly ache, and a bit of vomiting to make normal feel great! Thursday was that healing trick that Rahul played on me. Mon Ami! Something is bad going on with my digestive system, even if I don’t exactly consciously know it yet. I am the receiver through a demonstration of the healing process administered through the back. From the soles of my feet, through all of my chakras to the crown, and I feel inside that something has happened, something has been transformed, something has been realized, that I can carry into all of my Beautiful Tomorrows. The final day of class closes around noon, and I sit on the rooftop classroom and wait. Amita calls to ask me to meet her at the seaside café where we have pizza and fries. Then again with Amita at L’Espace for a plate of Provencal pasta. All very tasty. Then Friday morning dawn, it all turns around on me. And I don’t doubt that morning after morning of Suguru dosa, as tasty as it is, is part of the equation. Keeping a balanced tummy, deciding where and what to eat every night, which restaurant and what’s on the menu to choose from, in which outdoor or indoor ambiance, which waiters I will encounter, and how many and who are the people sitting around me, all of that will have its impact on whatever dish I wish to bon appetite! The Provencal pasta was the cherry on the top and the straw that cracked the camel’s back, and sent my system into red alert. First day entering the unscheduled world, and I am scheduled indoors, sunrise to sundown. Fevers and headaches come and go every couple of hours as the waves of realignment flow. I’ve got mango juice, water and club soda for company. Keep the overhead fans turning and turn them off from time to time to still the warm air and coax a little moisture from my skin. It’s just roll with the punches and sit up in bed and stare at the wall time. Been a while since I’ve done one of these. Something always has to bring it out of me, I guess you could say, literally and figuratively.   

     During the last few  minutes at L’Espace as the table was getting up to disperse Thursday evening, with Amita still in her chair and I standing next to her, she sat there with her eyes closed, internalizing her hidden anxiety, due largely now I’m sure to her lack of income. There is a slumbering volcano under that crown, not the kind of volcano that explodes, but the kind where fissures appear across fault lines, and the lava flows forth in rivers. I don’t say anything. She doesn’t say anything.  I simply cup the palm of my hand on her crown, resting gently on her thick black hair, and keep it there for as long as it takes for her to open her eyes, after which she looks up and asks if that is what I’ve been learning at my classes. The intention in my gesture was as innocent as the soothing touch of a mother to her ailing child, and I became aware as I was doing this that it was more than an innocent gesture. I was sucking stuff out of the top of her head and there was no pulling out until she felt relieved. By the time I got home that night around ten, I simply jumped onto my bed and smashed the crown of my head into my pillow. The cleansing began in the morning. Amita called at seven in the evening to ask if I wanted to walk the beach, and I told her I’m sick and no can do tonight. At eight-thirty I stepped out to walk the block and a half to the row of shops where I stock up on juice, water, and club soda. The course through the night brings forth a measure of equilibrium, and I’m ready for three idlees with chutney and a cup of curd at Surguru this morning.

     Visit the Healing Hands healing session from ten to two on Saturday. I’m now an ex-student, one who is between sessions. I can easily return next year and fit right in with where I am at and go on from there. This is what Rahul’s students do, and I am one of them. So, kind of an ex-, but not really. Just taking what I’ve learned out into the world, and applying myself, through who I am, to those whom I encounter. A handful of Rahul’s students become adept Thai Massage masters, and there is in fact an international network of healing masters, functioning at many levels of apprenticeship and mastery. I have just become an acolyte, an altar boy. I walked in because I wanted to learn. I now know more than I knew before, and will carry it with me wherever I go.

     The outside air is clear and clean on my morning walk following Friday’s gastronomical-intestinal clearance project. After the healing session, head over to the shopping district to recharge my phone card with the Vodaphone techie, buy a new hat to keep my head covered during the afternoon, no joke around here about the heat from the sun. In fact, not having had my hat since I left it at Coffee Break last Saturday, was likely an important contributing factor to my internal turbulence. Stop in at the Focus book store to buy the first volume of a trilogy of novels that bring Shiva to life as a person living in the long ago world of 1900 B.C. India. For my five days coming up in a Chennai hotel room, and at the airport on Monday the eleventh. Top off the shopping walk-around with a hot cup of chai at Café des Artes, where it is always a quarter to two, according to the wood and brass trimmed 1930’s era clock on the wall.

     Sunday evening, April third around eleven-thirty evening. Burning three sticks of Mali’s incense. Three left for tomorrow night. I’ve been burning Mali’s incense sticks since he gave them to me when he left, one package of Nag Cmampas. Couple or so one night. Couple or so another night, not every night, until I come down to the last six, each night gets three, and the following morning I’ll be on a bus to Chennai, to my gateway guest house, the YWCA International Guest House on Poonamallee High Road, where I can review where I’ve been and prepare for where I’m going. This is going to be a real slide show, press the button and you’re looking at a whole new picture. From ocean’s horizon, at sunrise or in the middle of the dark night when there really is no horizon, just waves rolling in out of the darkness to crash with white breakers on the black rocks, to Himalayan foothills crowned with snow white gray rocky peaks. Via a four hour flight from Chennai to Bagdogra. So today is pack-it-up or throw-it-out or give-it-away day, with a goal directed objective of fifteen kgs for checked luggage, seven for the carry-on, and however I can shuffle heavy objects into my personal item bag. Paper is like a rock. My notebooks accumulate. I’ve got about thirty-five of my Gathering of the Tribes booklets left, English version, and by this evening’s end I will have divested myself of ninety-five of my French version booklets by giving the forty-something of those I have left to Harsaran’s daughter, who has just passed her tenth grade comprehensive exam and is beaming with joy. She has already taken several French courses and will be continuing with the Alliance Francaise, the nexus of French cultural life in Pondy. She can share these booklets with her instructors and fellow students, and I give her two English copies to use as translation guides. What a delightful outcome to that publishing and distribution project! I am carrying five. Never know whom I might meet along the way who might appreciate one. I meet Harsaran and his daughter in my room at five-thirty when they bring over a portable weighing device, a digital hand-held thingy that weights me in at fifteen point nine, seven point five, and three point two: checked, carry-on and personal. Harsaran assures me they will likely pass me without any overweight fee, just don’t put anything else in there in Chennai. Maybe I can even do some fine-line editing. Proper Prior Planning Prevents Post Project Problems, or something like that.

     Morning walk along the block and two other quiet avenues this morning for idlees and coffee, and of course the walk back, for most of today will be in my room, except for a one-o’clock walk for two blocks to Café des Artes for a plateful of tuna salad, with lettuce, and diced boiled eggs, and cucumbers and black olives and diced tomatoes all in a vinegar and oil herbal dressing, followed by my cup of chai, and I enjoy a long article in today’s newspaper about a bibliophile’s love for old bookstores, the kind filled from floor to ceiling with friends from long ago you’d love to visit again, and entirely new avenues of exploration to discover. Between the salad and the randomly arranged bookshelf of the Café des Artes before me, I meet someone in this article I can understand, a book nut.

     It’s been a busy lunchtime this early afternoon, and halfway through my tea, an elderly British fellow, perhaps a decade younger than I, who has so far been sitting at his own little table, gets up to stretch and stroll around, and browses through the newspaper pile near my corner, and I offer him the article I’ve read, telling him that it is certainly more interesting than anything else he will find in those pages. The conversation is started, we both relate to the literary point of view towards the world. I go to the little desk where my pile of books are, pick one up and give it to him with a brief personal introduction. Jeff then turns me around and introduces me to Peter, another fellow around sixty, who has been notebooking on his little table. Jeff introduces Peter as a writer, and when I ask about that, Peter says it’s only for his own entertainment. He is not trying to publish anything. He just enjoys . . .  writing things out . . .  whatever they are. I don’t even ask. I’ve met a kindred spirit. I am meeting a kindred spirit. Peter has risen from his chair when we are introduced, and he and I stand there for several timeless minutes exploring each other’s mind. These things happen, getting to the heart of your being with another person at the drop of a hat. Getting into a rhythm of give and take with someone whose voice is music to your ears. While knowing full well, that this might be the only conversation you have with this person in this lifetime. Whatever it is that we need to say to each other, we need to find out what it is here and now. I’m out of this city day after tomorrow, though as it turns out, Peter and Jeff and I are in territory we know well and return to, just as I’ve already done, just as they’re doing for their reasons, and there is a crossroads here that can be found again. Such a thrilling encounter for my lunch break. Hand a copy of my booklet to Peter as we part, something more of a secondary gesture. Not the most important thing between us, just another string around the package.

     So as darkness settles in, it’s already been an exciting day. Call Amita at six-thirty and we agree to meet at the café on the beach at eight after she finishes with her evening church service. Simply her and I on the rooftop overlooking the ocean, at our table in the corner. One of the men from her counseling session up here three days ago has come back to her beaming with happiness because he followed her advice and did some serious forgiving. Amita’s calling is reinforced, and somebody else who knows what she’s been doing has advised her to visit the Pondy tourism office on the promenade where she is told they have heard about her and want to employ her in some capacity, I’m not exactly sure in what way related to her counseling, but her job search is now over, or so it might seem. She does not have to return to being principal of a school, and will be getting paid for doing what she loves to do! Her faith in God and belief in her mission are now forged in precious metals. She is absolutely being who she wants to be, and she has always made up her own mind and stood by her decisions, and so very  much of this is through the influence of her father and one of her grandmothers. She is a powerfully self-assured personality, already proven in her achievements as a teacher and as a principal, and where she will go from here . . . will be through following God’s will, and she declares this in such a delightful, exuberant manner! Her enthusiasm is captivating, her sincerity absolute, and she is certain that her faith in God will bring her the man who will be her true partner. There is no need to be looking too far into too many tomorrows. Do your best in the here and now, and the best is yet to come. The Sunday night crowds on the promenade are beginning to disperse, as I walk her back to her car.

     Monday, April fourth at one o’clock. Last day in Pondy is rather low key so far.

Meet Stefan on the balcony at seven-thirty. We walk to our favorite chai shop on the corner where the master of chai brewing pours his magic into our glasses. Mid-morning rik-ride to my internet shop near Nehru and Mission streets for a small Xeroxing job and bid farewell to the owner who has been my Xeroxing and printing go-to guy all this time. Stop into Richy-Rich,i.e. Baskin Robbins, for a chocolate chip sundae and stroll the few blocks under the sun to back home. The ongoing narrative has a life of its own, as I pick and choose between this person and another, this event and another, this place and another, and weave some kind of coherent tale out of it all, choosing threads to focus on, making up designs along the way. Kind of an adventure in its own right, seeing where this unplanned unraveling will go. If and when something poetic comes through, it will be accidental and spontaneous, just like the lotus blossom rising from its roots in the mud.

     In my boy scout troop, I was the logbook keeper, the designated Scribe, and had a shoulder patch with a woven white quill feather pen, and it was I who decided, through my pen, what had happened, what was logbook worthy, on our weekend overnight camping trips, our week long summer camps, as well as our meetings and other events. I was the natural for this position. No one else wanted it, and I did. And I don’t remember anyone ever objecting when I read my words aloud for all to hear. I was thorough and observant. Even while participating whole-heartedly in camping trip antics and meeting time activities, there was a shadow self in the back of my mind, the designated scribe, who was hearing it all go by in words and phrases and paragraphs. I’m doing now what I’ve always been doing, and looking at the world as I’ve always been looking at it. The body withers and the mind blossoms. The shell falls away, while the Light within goes where it must, I know not where, but it is rather clear to me that there is something going on that is more than just a randomly configured assortment of chromosomes and genes dodging each other through traffic till we meet in our inevitable recognitions. We find each other because we already know each other, and the simple passage of time makes it feel like a story, when it may not really even be a story at all. Stories are all make believe. Kindred spirits have no stories, simply recognitions and experiences to swim together through, playful dolphins at home both under and over that paper thin surface between water and air.

     Thursday morning at one. This is April seven. A waterfall of silence after thirty-seven nights at the Hotel Qualithe’. Here in Chennai, in this YWCA Guest House cubicle where I began this journey on November nineteenth. A geometric octagon of a room with sides of unequal length. Upper floor window looks head-on into a treetop lush with greenery and laced profusely with small yellow blossoms. Second night. Jupiter above, with Venus and the last crescent due to rise shortly before Sun-Surya at Dawn.

     My regular and dependable auto-rik driver in Pondy for almost all of my time in the downtown sector picks me and my gear up at nine Tuesday morning, and drives me over to Healing Hands like he did for all of those mornings, where I dropped off some donation books and my pillow from Aranachula. Veera then drives me way across town to the bus stand. Veera’s about fifty, a sufficient array of flecks of white hair in his not recently trimmed but neat black hair, much like the yellow blossoms in the sea of green fluttering leaves now outside my window. I picture him as a family man with teenagers and who knows how many other children, driving this auto-rik day-after-day putting together enough rupees to keep sambar on the banana leaf. So a morning regular with a good fare has been a good way to start each day. Six mornings a week for four or five weeks. A gentle voice with the composure of a thoughtful father. He understands everything I say and replies in short phrases of confirmation. He’s also a careful driver, not a reckless speed and pass nut. He’ll give right-of-way, and take it when an opening is clear, but he is not jumpy and aggressive, and waits for the big guys to go by before crossing the highway. So goodbye at the bus stand is a little special between him and me, especially since I won’t be back till next year, and who even really knows about that?    

     Walk across the busy lot to the Chennai bus stand where a bus is leaving in five minutes, and I get the right window seat behind the driver. I like to keep my eyes on the road with the driver, see what he sees, and how he handles a little calf standing confused in the middle of the highway asphalt. Couple of hours of open roads with stopping at villages for hop-off or hop-on riders. At least a full hour jostling through the city traffic. Get over to the Guest House around two-thirty for a welcome greeting of recognition from smiling Aruna behind the lobby desk. A couple of other familiar staff are here, so there’s a bit of a coming home feeling just walking through the door. Fill out the registration book and go upstairs to take my rest. It doesn’t take long to get hot and sweaty outside these days, and the bus ride wasn’t really bad, but I need some cooling down and laying out time. It’s been a special day, and it’s been a special three and a half months in Pondy. Sure, I’ve got it all recorded in log notes, well, not really all, but a reasonable clear picture of overall themes, the unfolding of events, and special people along the way. All of that is now collapsed into this nugget of time, five days in the guest house between Pondy and the road to Gangtok. Perhaps there are some words to put a thought together about Pondy. First off, I printed and distributed books, a most fortuitous development that has added a whole new sense of purpose and mission to these travels. I left ninety-three copies of my French translated version in Pondy, some to individuals and others through reliable outlets. I left seventy of the English versions in Pondy, to individuals and through outlets. The book tour is On! The people I met, the voices I heard, the things they said to me, are all of jaw-dropping significance to my heart, mind and soul. Like a voyage in itself was my journey through Pondicherry, from leaving the shoreline at the guest house cubicle on December twenty-first, and returning April fifth to virtually the same cubicle, where daytime traffic noise is filtered through surrounding treetops, where the night air is as silent as a New Mexico forest retreat. I feel like I’ve just remembered what silence sounds like.

     First morning’s breakfast at the guest house, meet Martin and Alin from Germany, who have been traveling the South for the past month through Kerala and Tamil Nadu, and who will fly to the Andaman Islands tomorrow. Martin is an anthropologist who has worked with a small town community in the Kathmandu valley. Alin is a physio-therapist, and we easily converse about Thai massage and energy healing. When we get to the question of my identity and whatever my career has been, towards the end of our breakfast table, I tell them about my art and poetry and go upstairs to retrieve a booklet for them, and my book of drawings from 1980. We sit at a small table in the lobby and I explain the series in detail, and we three have a most engaging conversation. The book tour continues and how so very sweet it is to talk to interested strangers from out of the blue about what my life has been about, and continues being about. Seeing to it that this symbol through its vehicle enters the linguistic-symbolic dialogue and conversation of our world.

     Thursday, April seven, around eleven in the evening. Second full day at the transit station, transfer point, in-between state, Bardo between Pondy and Gangtok. Wished bon voyage to Martin and Alin in the lobby after breakfast this morning. They decided to visit the Vivikananda museum yesterday and somewhere along the way, Alin bought a large print booklet with colorful pictures and text describing and telling the stories of twelve incarnations of Shiva. A lightweight book for these efficient backpackers, each carrying what looks like about half of what I carry. I’ve finished the first volume of the Shiva trilogy by Amish, Shiva as a young contemporary dude crisscrossing northern India in nineteen hundred B.C. wondering why his throat has turned Blue and why everyone is looking to him for advice, all along with meeting, falling in love with and marrying beautiful, athletic Sati, a real warrior princess. To be continued. Pass this volume on to Alin. Fits right in with her interest that sparked her to buy the picture book.

     Take an auto-rik to the Buhari restaurant in Chetpet  around eleven-thirty for a lunch with Kiran, a.k.a. Thunder Moon, and the Ray of the Sun’s Light. The General Manager of the YWCA Guest House who befriended me in December is now the Operations Manager of this posh and upscale restaurant, with a seating capacity of one hundred sixty on two levels. Kiran was not appreciated by the YWCA Board and he is now very appreciated at Buhari. White long sleeve shirts with black bowtie or necktie for the staff on the floor, and an extensive team of chefs and cooks’ helpers in the busy kitchen. Kiran is making decisions for eighty-four people here, with encouragement from the general manager and owner to make even more of his own decisions while deferring to them less often, suggesting that Kiran is being groomed for a promotion in this city-wide chain of six restaurants with an eye towards expansion in Malaysia. With a team of highly conscientious and competent performers, Kiran is in his element. He recommends a sliced grilled chicken dish with salad, and a house specialty of a cool drink, a bright blue slushy in a tall curving soda glass. The chicken is excellently spiced with some selection of herbs concocted by the master chef, and the slushy is not just another slushy. It is a melting iceberg of delicately intermingling flavors. It is so good to see Kiran across the table. Such a fortuitous step he has taken. Afternoon and evening in the cubicle at the window next to the treetop full of yellow flowers, searching through the internet for hotels in Siliguri and Gangtok. Even try to book a rez. But the program went glitch, so where I’ll wind up staying in both places is still up in the air. Even if I didn’t catch anything, at least I’m out on the Lake fishing, getting my head into pictures of places with snow capped mountains.

     Friday, April eighth around nine evening. A most extraordinary day in its most un-extraordinariness. The auto-rickshaw driver I picked up at the guest house gate turned on his meter as we began the ride. One does not even ask an auto rickshaw driver anywhere in Tamil Nadu, or anywhere in India, to turn on his meter. They are ornamental appendages, inherently dysfunctional. I did not ask, he turned it on, and I watched in awe the numbers click by as we went down the road, and when we arrived, the registered fare was half of what I would have given him. I have the man wait for ten minutes while I browse the bookstore for new pens and fresh paper. He drives me back and I get two rides for the price of one today! With an affable elder driver who hangs around the guest house gate with the guest house gatemen at their cubicle shelter and waits for the next likely customer to walk towards the gate. A sweet little piece of turf he’s cut out for himself in a city, in a country, where the yellow hornets buzz along thoroughfares and byways in disorganized swarms. I’d say this auro-rik driver has a businessman’s brain, identifying a market, and engaging in appropriate PR to establish working relationships with officials of the institution, while providing a valued and appreciated service. He plays by the rules and goes by the books, and doesn’t get all pushy and greedy with his customers like some drivers. Those are all individuals, those drivers of the yellow hornets, and they all got family and other responsibilities. They are not here for the fun of it, and on the ends of the spectrum on one side are those who are grasping, and on the other, those who are mellow and patient. And every time I wave one down, I never know who I’m going to come up with. When I asked the driver at the bus stand on Tuesday how much, he quoted an outrageously high price, which made the ensuing conversation adversarial, which eventually led to a price that was still extravagant, and the affability of our discourse was compromised. It was all about the number, and whatever else could have passed between us is shadowed by that number. I inherently liked the guy for I sensed a strength of character and intelligence underneath it all, and noticed that his grudging acceptance of my final offer, as generous as it was, as he carried my bag to his vehicle, was mellowed at the final drop off point with a brief look of gratitude. He even needed to stop along the way to get some petrol in his tank to make it all the way to where I was going. There are a lot of these guys, all kinds, waiting out there for a pick-up or a call-down. They are a vital factor in the transportation system for this city, filling the space between city bus riders and motorcycle drivers. One does not imagine the city without them. They are a vital thread in the fabric of the city.

     Saturday, April ninth around ten-twenty in the evening. Didn’t leave the grounds today, but finally made it over to the pond in the back, surrounded by the hanging foliage of old and young trees alike, with an occasional palm spiraling towards the clear, blue sky. The markings on the gray stone retaining wall on the opposite side shows clearly that the water level is over two feet lower than it was during the monsoon in December. Those trees with those little yellow flowers are shedding those blossoms onto the calm reflective waters, and little pink blossoms from some other trees sparkle in the horizontal rays of the setting sun. Return the mind to still waters. Wherever I go, this is where I’m going to wind up, searching for still waters, although a gently flowing mountain stream will do just fine.

     Harsaran is in town today from Pondy to attend a wedding. He’s come by taxi, attended the function, and stops over at the guest house lobby for a chat from two to three. When I’ve seen him at a restaurant or in his office, he wears a tan baseball style visor cap. Today he wears his Indigo-Blue turban, dressed up for the party. He helps me think about my travel plans to where I see him more like a travel partner than as a travel agent. Harsaran is also clear about his friendship going back ten years with the woman who runs the Authors Festival in Bali in October. Looks like it’s mostly about stories, and I’m not sure how my brand of poetry might fit in, and Harsaran encourages me to think in terms of presentation. I have something special to offer, and I need to elaborate on how this applies to this woman’s festival. So I’ve got a little composition task to take care of within a couple of weeks while I’m gazing at the third highest Himalayan peak in my spare time. Autobiography of a Process. Harsaran has heard my story in enough detail to have a sound opinion of the possibilities. He already sees me there, so now I will have to engage the machinery that will actually get me there carrying a reasonable definition of what I’m doing. Book Tour! How the book came into being, and what it says, or more appropriately, what I say through it as I explain the images in the words and pictures.

     The short stories of Rabindranath Tagore are keeping me good company through those morning and afternoon and evening hours between visits to the lobby and the open window of my room. First crescent Luna is clear in the dusk of the evening sky. 

Chapter Seven

      Saturday, February twenty-seventh at five-thirty at Café des Artes for my pot of Masala Chai. Moving day. Final transfer of accumulated belongings from Vaitikuppam to my new digs overlooking Bharati Park. Had to skip this morning at Healing Hands. Finished moving by eleven-thirty and now have twice as much space and three times as much ventilation as where I’ve come from, and feel an exciting month shall from here unfold. Talli meal at Surguru on Nehru street. Coffee shops, restaurants and the shopping district will be so much more accessible. Ocean is not immediately visible. Two blocks now to walk to the sea. Shop for a light blanket and a suitable chair, and now put in a teatime hour at my favorite tea house. It has such a lovely bookshelf filled with artsy and literary books, I want to write something for the people who come here to eat their salads, and their crepes, and their baguette sandwiches, and sip their espressos,

their lassis, their milkshakes, and their chais. From around the world they come here to sit, immerse themselves in coffee house chit chat, listen to the ceiling fans hum, and catch a passing glance of the objets d’art hanging on the walls and displayed on the scattered shelves built into the walls. Sometimes the waiters are run-around busy when most of the chairs are filled, and it is all so very casual and informal. Blue jeans and T-shirts and come and go as you are. What once were kerosene table lamps are now wired with soft yellow light bulbs and sit atop small glass-enclosed display cases with collections of old ceramic tea pots and cups, while some of the terracotta artifacts on display look like they are fresh from an archaeological dig. A handmade birdcage fashioned from twigs and sticks rests atop the bookshelf. A ceramic elephant reaches for the ceiling with his extended trunk. Simple elegance, tying together the centuries: 1800’s, 1900’s, into the present day, where modern day travelers check their emails on their iPhones and plan their evenings ahead, or the rest of their lifelong journeys.

     February twenty-nine. Graduation Party!   Dancing on the rooftop.      

 Gilad  –  Claudia  –  Catherine  -  younger Marie  –  Jetsun  – Simon  –  Lies  –

 Amodine - Helene – et Moi.

     Special Sunday afternoon session on Singing Bowls, including a sequence set for couples. Gilad has arranged for some special food preparations for those who wish to stay for a course ending celebration. He provides a wonderful assortment of delectables from the Tamil Nadu cuisine repertoire. After which,as dusk settles into darkness, there will be music, and there will be dancing. Such an amazing, lovely happy group of people we are!

     Monday is the test, which is more of an evaluation than a test, for the four who are departing. Gilad, Claudia, Mira, and Catherine. One hour thirty minutes for the full massage. Forth-five minutes for the legs. Fifteen minutes for the belly and arms and hands. Fifteen minutes for the back, and fifteen for the sitting position, including face and head. Giving a Thai massage is a real workout for the masseuse, requiring stamina and flexibility, and some of the required sequences are quite difficult for me to perform and/or sustain. Nevertheless, I will be continuing into March, starting tomorrow. Every month, the lessons start from the beginning, starting with the legs, and continuing through the sequences from day to day and week to week. New students, as I have been this past month, are introduced to the sequences and patterns and principles of application, and all that needs to be understood for the process to work well. Continuing students are engaged in never-ending review and practice towards mastery. The learning process is forever, and perfection unthinkably far down the road. Once you get the idea, it’s just all about getting better and better. Some classes draw in an assortment of students who work with a special chemistry together, and this has been such a class, Rahul confirms. Last night’s party, in fact, pretty much emphatically clarified that idea. Rahul suggests that if we, or at least most of us, can keep our heads together through space and time as we go our respective ways, and can find a month to get together again, he will be delighted to arrange a special venue in Nepal for our reunion. Such has been the alignment in spirit during the February course!  However it happened, It Happened.

     And then there is this dream I had this post-party Monday morning. Driving on a country road, something like a flat Texas panhandle sea of grass, and then sometimes like the curving roads through the Ozarks. Turn off the main road, which is just an unmarked two lane strip of asphalt, onto a side road leading to I’m not exactly sure where, but I think there is a residential destination in mind. The Ozark forests deepen, and at one point I must cut through some stranger’s yard. They let me know they do not appreciate this trespass, and I tell them I have no choice, for the road itself enters their property through one gate and exits through another. The road becomes more treacherous, coming to an end at a sheer drop-off into an abyss. I retrace my way back along the road, and the other end drops off into an abyss, and I begin to tumble over the edge but manage to grab ahold of some rocky outcrop and climb back up to this now, apparently, double dead-ended road. I’ve no choice now but to strike off afoot into the forest, walking through rugged terrain, and there soon comes a point where I discover that I have lost my hiking boots, my most favorite and excellent pair. Retracing my steps to search for them is impossible since I can barely recall the terrain I’ve crossed, so I continue, and find along the way an occasional pair that someone else has lost, but none of them are as good as mine were, and none of them are, in fact, mine! I also occasionally encounter other campers in this forest, and none of them are of any help in telling me how to proceed to anywhere. Finally arrive at a convention center for an organization of campers and backpackers, and by this time I’ve lost all of my clothes, and am walking around naked with only my shoulder bag with money, passport, paper and pencils, and camera. I’m looking for someone to ask directions from, finally find a young woman behind a desk who asks if she can help in any way. Where do I come from? How did I get here? she asks, and I tell her I came down a long, empty Texas panhandle road, I cannot remember the highway number, and made a turnoff at an intersection with no identifying characteristics, so I really don’t know where I’ve come from, and have no clear image of where I’m trying to go, and certainly can’t recall that meandering, treacherous, rocky and thickly forested terrain I passed through to get where I’m at. It’s not exactly clear how this woman behind the desk can help. I awaken with the sense of feeling as lost and as absent from any and all points of reference as I’ve ever felt, conscious primarily of only my shoulder bag and its contents.

     I guess I can say this dream is telling me whatever I decide it is telling me. One thing I know I need to think about is how I’m going to travel during the first week of April after this March round of classes is over. How I’m going to lighten up with what I’m carrying, and how I’m going to divest myself of all that I’ve been accumulating these last two months. Time to get down to my shoulder bag with money, passport, paper and pencils and camera, and to find my hiking boots. Heading off to Sikkim, Nepal and Ladakh will not exactly be a hop, skip and jump. Meanwhile, consolidating my presence at the Healing Hands Thai Massage Center is a welcome priority. Pondy will be a place I can come back to and feel at home. The open-ended plan is to discover some other places where my heart feels at home in the North.

     One of Rahul’s statements for the closing of the class today, the closing for this month’s session as some of us are preparing to depart, is to be sure to keep yourself moving forward, to make sure that you are saving your own life first. There will always be people who will need your help, but you must not allow their needfulness to drag you beneath the waves. Help them help themselves if you can, but remember that you have a long way to swim yourself. Keep your eye and your heart on the path you are called to travel.

     Tuesday, March first is first day for the March session. Of the twelve students and visitors this morning, only two new faces. Axel from Germany and Jake from Denmark. Both speak fluent English. Claudia will be spending another week with us before going to Thailand. Erika is joining us for her first round of classes. Then we have the two Maries, Helene, Jetsun, Simon and Lies and Amodine and moi. Amodine says her friend, Nimi, will be joining us tomorrow. After the introductory lecture, it’s all the way back to square one with the feet and the toes. The newbies are the focus of attention for the overall learning process, and their learning and everyone else’s improvement move in tandem. The talented younger Marie now guides the class through our afternoon practice sessions as Gilad did during February. Jake and Axel easily fit right in with this ongoing class, and there is an overall enthusiastic spirit of looking forward to all of our developments during this month’s course.

     Saturday evening, March fifth. Seven nights now gone by at Hotel Qualithe. Room number six at the end of the common balcony above the ground floor overlooking Rue Mahe de Labourdonnais and the flourishing trees of Bharati Park  across the busy street. Motorcycles, auto-riks, and pedestrians share the wide two lanes of asphalt from morning through night. Through late night darkness into early morning, only the occasional howling dog will disturb the silence of the sleeping city. Now comes another most remarkable encounter. A robust and elderly Mexican has settled into room number four and he spends a fair amount of his time seated in his wicker chair on the balcony or standing at the railing watching the city go by. He’s been here a couple of weeks already, and when he asks my age and I tell him seventy-one, he jokingly scoffs at my youth. The clear idea is that he is older than I by at least several years. His powerful and courteous voice comes from deep within and we meet for a brief conversation at least once every day as I walk from my door at the end of the balcony to the stairwell at the other end. Mali has been connected with Pondicherry for forty-eight years, and it is entirely possible that his path and mine crossed on the seaside promenade in ’69 and ’70 when I first got to know this city. He was a part of the founding settlement and beginnings of Auroville, and personally knew The Mother. His card, in fact, carries his name in script written by her hand. Every day he tells me that if he can be of any assistance, he will most graciously, generously and sincerely offer what he can. Of Mexican heritage, now residing most of the year in Granada, Spain, he tells me that he is Toltec, of the legendary tribe of Mexico who predated and were the teachers of the Aztecs, and one can easily sense a power in his voice that reaches back into ancient sources. I gave him a copy of my book two nights ago, and when I turned to the page with the Aztec calendar stone, the quality and depth of our connection was confirmed. As I was going out this morning at seven on my way to the Healing Hands class, I sat with Mali on the balcony for a few moments as he showed me a set of his photos from Mexico, and he gave me a picture of the great pyramid of the ancient city of Teotihuacán, “where men become Gods.” I feel like I am there, with Mali, at that place.

     This evening at five as I am stepping out for a walk to Cafe des Artes for tea, again we meet on the balcony, and he has for me the gift of a new red bandana, with Aztec like geometric design. He shows me how to tie it properly on my head, says that it suits me perfectly, that I have the bearing of a warrior. So it is that I wear this bandana through the streets of Pondy on my walk to Café des Artes, where I have a tuna salad and pot of Masala Chai, and present my booklets to the madam for her consideration to be offered for free to the patrons of her restaurant. She says with smiling eyes that she will consult with her daughter, a thirty-something year old woman who is continually busy helping customers.

     Mali will be returning to Spain in a few days. For the past several years, Mali has been spending most of his time at his home in Grenada, and returns to Pondy for one month every year, his room on the balcony of Hotel Qualithe being his residence of choice in this city. Mali has forty-eight years worth of memories wrapped up in Pondy, and remembers the owner of La Terrasse, where I have enjoyed many meals, since she was seven. Mali says he would like to share my book with some of his friends in Spain. Clearly, another pathway is found. From Gilad and Claudia at the Gratitude restaurant to the Healing Hands center, where I conceived and brought forth my French and new English versions, to developing friendship with Stefan, who brought me to residency at Hotel Qualithe, to encounter with Mali, however it is happening, it is happening.

     Sunday, March sixth at six p.m. All day in the room and on the balcony. I give five more copies of my book to Mali for him to share with his friends whom he assures me are interested, and he has a small plastic bagful of Acapulco sand for me, as well as a white rock the size of my thumb knuckle, also from the Acapulco beach, that  he designates “Our Beach.” The rock is dense and rugged, packed with bits of opaque crystal, and theoretically, according to Mali, microscopic flecks of gold and silver which can glitter in the sunlight. From the hands of a Toltec artisan, this crystalline nugget from Mexico has come to my hand to keep me company on my continuing journey through India. For the handful of Acapulco sand, I may find and choose a place to scatter and mix with the soil and water wherever the moment so moves me. Mali and I can’t seem to stop appreciating each other.

     Here at the Café des Artes, madam’s daughter and I place a few more copies of my book, both English and French versions, on the designated table. After my salad, as I’m sipping my tea, from my chair in a corner I watch one tall young woman stop and glance and read the flyer and pick up a booklet and thumb through a few pages and carry it with her on her way. A few minutes later, a middle-aged man walks by, picks up a book to look through it, and sets it back down, not interested. Thus it is, some are interested, and some are not. Share a few words with a passing Café customer, Ramon from somewhere in Europe, and ask him if he likes to read poetry, which he confirms, and I pass an English copy to him. Explain in a few sentences the nature of astro-theology, and he is appreciative, observing that this is something we’ve lost in the West. Perhaps he and I will meet again here at the Café des Artes. Some who pass by don’t even glance at the table with the booklets.

     March seventh, Monday evening. Last day for Claudia at Healing Hands, the woman from Chile who brought me here. Her cheerful, enthusiastic face and voice have been a constant light. Today’s class begins where Saturday left off, as my immersion in the program continues. Slowly my memory takes root within, and the feeling of placing trust in the process to take each of us to our respective destinations binds the class together, beginners and adepts alike. We all have something to learn.

     Stop in at Chez Nous for a pizza around six. At the hotel on the balcony around seven, Mila introduces me to Kiwi, who lives at Serenity Beach and is working on an eco-friendly desalinization project in Auroville. He likes the copy of my pamphlet that Mali gave him, and I am invited to visit with him on Sunday. There are others who are interested I am told, and it looks like I will be meeting them, whoever they are, as one person leads to another, and every turn in the road leads to a new discovery.

     Tuesday, March eighth, up on the Healing Hands rooftop. Moving day is three weeks from today. Two more days of class after that. How many things are going to happen and how many more people will I meet these next three weeks and two days? Twenty days of class after today. As for traveling plans, I know where I’m going, but not exactly when or how. First leg will be from Pondy to Chennai. Visit Kiran at YWCA Guest House if he is still there, or visit him wherever he’s at. Fly Chennai to Calcutta. Then however through West Bengal to Sikkim. No telling where I will wind up there or for how long. Need to leave India and enter Nepal by May 18. Then it is overland to Kathmandu, where I now presume to stay for about one month. It’s going to be a long haul after that across Nepal to Rishikesh and Dharamsala and then Kashmir, unless I opt to just fly over all of that from Kathmandu to Srinigar on my way to my summertime visit to Ladakh.

     So it is that I have traveled from New Mexico to Pondicherry, India to meet my Toltec brother on the balcony of the Hotel Qualithe. The look we share sees back through generations and centuries and I feel the Toltec artisan speaking through his voice, and the look in his eye reaches into the depth of what we call my soul. The look that says it all. Here we are at the time of the solar eclipse, as sun rises over ocean’s horizon this morning, and I dream of the path through the cave towards the underground shoreline of the river Styx. Not yet time for the crossing, for there is yet something on this side to take care of. This is simply a visit to see where when the time comes I shall go. Eclipse is a time for a view through the portal into an understanding more clear of what is going on and what I must do. Meeting my Toltec brother, from today and from centuries long gone by, is part of it all. He says without speaking in so many words that I am on my right path.

     Wednesday, March ninth, six-twenty evening. After sitting with Jetsun in my room for a couple of hours, trading a French-style, neatly rolled and thoughtfully shared cigarette, a little loose ganja mixed with some equally loose tobacco. Never really know exactly what prompts these little sit-down get-togethers: people who have them know they are coming, but are usually not exactly sure when, but the moment is recognized once it comes along. We get very well into describing how our parents were when we were children, and how they influenced and impacted our development. We look at the cultural roots that influenced both them and us. We talked of motivation and how to create an image of our long term goals for life in this world. Looking towards the next world is already there. The world of here and now is where the decisions must be made. Jetsun is fifty-one and I am seventy-one. We are each beginning a new decade and can think in terms of imagining ourselves ten years from now. We can also think in terms of the Tibetan Wish Fulfilling Jewel. However many depths of meaning Tibetans have for that term, I can’t imagine any issue with applying that image to a person’s wish for how they would like to imagine themselves becoming. What is your greatest wish for yourself in this world? Selflessness is for a different chapter. Now you can work your time with what you wish to make of yourself for this world between sun’s rising above one horizon and descending below the other.

     Another round of brotherhood, one night following my visit with my Toltec artisan-warrior neighbor, an elder brother, who brought the heart of ancient Mexico to our conversation in passing. It doesn’t take very many words to say some amazing things.

     These last three evenings, I’ve been reading different chapters of Spider Woman’s Daughter, an Anne Hillerman novel. I’ve read the entire story through once already, and keep it on my narrow bookshelf. I take it down sometimes to enjoy the culture and landscapes of parts of New Mexico I got to know well and are close to my heart. Anne walks me through places I remember well, and her Navajo way of looking at the world comes through clearly. India and New Mexico touch closely in my heart.

     Thursday, March tenth. Going away party for Mali on the rooftop last night. Deeply resonating German operatic orchestral music fills the air and pours over the balcony into the street. The voices from Mali’s stereo inspire him to follow along with his own powerful voice. The night before it was Keith Jarrett’s jazz piano. Mali has frequently filled the balcony with beautiful western classical or mellow jazz music, as he sips his wine alongside the burning candlelight he maintains in the evening. Deeply cultured in the western tradition, and deeply spiritual in his Quest for the higher consciousness that is so much a part of the Aurobindo vision and the writings of The Mother. He recites a poem of Aurobindo’s about the descent of the Golden Light, with a voice as strong and deep as the operatic singer in the background.

     His admiration and love for The Mother, whom he knew and spoke with during her final years in the early seventies, is deeply felt. He helped lay the foundations of Auroville, and his Mexican roots in Toltec artisan-warrior culture run deep. He and I will not miss one another, for we have met – here - forever. There is no farewell. There is no see-you-later. Our meeting here on the balcony these last several days and evenings has been complete.

     During my first weeks in India, as I was unpacking my bags in November,

I said that I had come here to meet someone, myself included. Mali the Toltec artisan-warrior, and Rahul the Thai massage master have been two. Seven weeks now of attending Rahul’s classes, and three more to go. There is more going on here than I can really speak of, more than I am even fully conscious of, and I know that when I step away from here to wherever I go next, my view of the world that I walk through and of my role with those whom I encounter will be somehow enlightened. Perhaps enlightenment for some is a sudden experience. For me it has been incremental. And every step I take is one more step along that path. “And what shall I say to the others?” the disciple asked his master, and the master replied, “There are no others.”

     Friday, March eleventh, in the evening after my tuna salad and cup of chai at Café des Artes. Page through today’s issue of The Hindu, one of India’s English language newspapers. This issue accents Pondicherry and surrounding Tamil Nadu news and culture. From national politics to a street rage incident involving two men on motorcycles in Chennai. One guy simply picked up a log and smashed the other guy in the head and the argument is over. The murderer jumped on his motorcycle and his girl friend or wife jumped on the back and they took off and city police are now on a manhunt. There is south Indian temple news for special events, and besides three pages from the cricket circuits, and a couple of pages of economics and exploitation in the modern world, there is a page of international news, and the American presidential candidates and debates and primaries have merited an article every day.

     So I eat my salad and sip my chai and begin one of the Waverly novels of Sir Walter Scott, in a hardcover edition from 1901 . . .  the book itself is a work of art . . . titled The Antiquary. Sir Walter really enjoys his vocabulary and his penchant for minute detail in describing persons, places, situations and in choosing the words he wishes his characters to reveal themselves through. The booklets on the table have apparently not been getting very much attention. But I really do like the tuna salad here at Café des Artes.

     Thai massage class continues to absorb my everyday attention, from morning when I exit my room to walk around the park and down another block to the Surguru Spot for a breakfast dosa and cup of milk coffee. I’ve now got a regular auto-rik driver, Vera, who meets me at the restaurant at eight for the fifteen minute dodge-em session through the streets of Kottakuppam. New information, discussions, and demos keep the class focused from eight-thirty till twelve. For the two hour lunch break, while everyone else has gone somewhere or other, I’ll sway in the strong rope hammock of the rooftop classroom, and spend some time lying out on the pads as breezes rustle through nearby coconut tree palm leaves. At some point, I’ll get up for a walk down the unpaved lane to a roadside shop where I buy a bottle of mango juice drink. Students gather again at two and we practice together in team-like fashion, pairing up for a give and take session following the guiding voice of younger Marie. After our practicing time, the class disintegrates into molecular conversations between subgroups of natural affinity, younger ones and older ones, but the boundaries in truth are quite fluid and almost invisible.

     In the courtyard is a garden patio structure, with strong wooden poles and circular bench tied together with rough brown rope, conically covered in brown thatch, that serves as the final farewell station for the day before everyone heads out on their separate ways. Most days these days since Stefan left, I ride with Jetsun on his motor scooter into town. I’m dropped at my hotel around five or five-thirty, shower down and walk over to Café des Artes for the tuna salad which I’ve recently discovered, and my silent dialogue with the facing bookshelf, seated unobtrusively in the central passageway-dining room in what once would have been a multi-roomed residence. The bookshelf reaches back through time into the years of 19^th century book-binding, and runs the gamut of literary and art book binding styles, and into the world of modern paperback novels of some literary merit. The collection is in various states of order and disorder on the shelves, from the floor to the arm’s reach above, perhaps six feet across, some of the shelves for smaller books packed two deep . . . what mysteries lie within and behind the facing row, I must surmise . . . and intriguing piles of old art magazines lie stacked on the bottom shelf, and likely haven’t been disturbed in a very long time. The whole shelf and its entire collection is an artifact in itself, a feature of the Café décor, and I really wonder how many, if any, patrons pay attention to this bookshelf and its collection as a living, breathing, immeasurably deep and boundless repository of images and ideas that awaits only for a passer-by to stop, scan the titles, and choose to turn some pages in search for a glimpse of beauty.

     Saturday, March twelfth. Two hours with the singing bowls this morning. Then two and a half hours with the healing session. Pamphlets to the Japanese girl and the German girl and the French lady whose back problem is like mine, who requires the same exercise. Ride back into town with Jetsun to the Nilgiris market where I stock up on Snickers bars and invest in a bag of shelled walnuts. Walk through the vegetable market to pick up a bottle of Amla squash juice, and then go on over to Surguru for an early afternoon Talli meal. First table inside the door. Through the doorway walks Anne-Lisa, slim and lovely kindergarden teacher from Germany, here in India for a sixteen day vacation. Anne-Lisa feels most at home in Thiruvanamalli, and pursues a Devi temple circuit in her travels.

     Breathtaking, she is, Anne-Lisa-Lalita-Devi, here from Germany for sixteen days only, on her way in a few days to visit a Devi temple in Andhra Pradesh. She just so happens to walk through the door when the restaurant tables are full and I offer her a chair at my table. We sit face-to-face and begin unraveling our stories. From hers, I’m guessing Anne-Lisa is in her early fifties, although her smiling, enthusiastic demeanor easily suggests her early forties. I’ve just ordered my Talli meal, and as it arrives, she orders hers, so I wait till hers arrives so we can eat and talk together. The culture of Hindu Sanskrit chanting has captured both of our hearts and Anne-Lisa is especially drawn to the Lalita Sahasranam Stotram which I assure her I will listen to on my computer YouTube tonight, which of course I do, a half hour version and a one hour version, both through women’s voices. Sanskrit chanting captured my heart forever a long time ago, and Anne-Lisa is to me Lalita incarnate, here across the table at the Surguru Spot restaurant.

     She will be leaving Pondy on Thursday, and we agree to meet again before that as we walk our separate ways from the doorway of our meeting place.  An extra hour’s rest this Saturday afternoon before a five-thirty visit to Café des Artes for my evening pot of chai, the daily newspaper, and some browsing through some pages from the bookshelf, reading through the story of medieval woodcuts, complete with numerous illustrations, of which I especially like those of Albrecht Durer. Late evening fades into darkness through Stotrum chanting, as I catch up on my reading about Tripura Lalita.

     Sunday morning at nine, March thirteenth, having returned to my desk after my walk around the park to the Surguru Spot for Masala Dosa and milk coffee, served by the same young Tamil man who serves me every morning and who served the table by the doorway of Anne-Lisa and I, after I had just returned from my singing bowl morning.

     The Enchantment continues, the New Mexico kind, as I continue to page every evening through some pages of Spider Woman’s Daughter. I can jump into the story anywhere along its three-hundred-fifty-two pages, and follow a piece of the story I already know, reading like a detective now, picking up on little details in the narrative that I may have glossed over on a previous reading, or simply revisiting a scene to savor the network of connections and clues that Anne Hillerman wove together in her storytelling. My Lands of Enchantment are twins reaching around the globe towards each other: Albuquerque and Pondicherry: New Mexico and Tamil Nadu. There is still an imaginary plan for a trip to Sikkim and Nepal in April, though I currently have not investigated much of what that journey will entail, except that the budget guest houses pretty much bottom out at around rupees one thousand per night. That journey surely will happen in its own good time, but for now, I am so completely immersed in my daily schedule and current way of life that there seems to be enough adventure and discovery within this square mile of the earth’s surface on the ocean’s shore to keep me abundantly entertained.

     March thirty-first will be final day at Healing Hands, and the next day I will be back, in one sense, to the days between January eighth and twenty-third when I lived at Ayodhya Bhavan in Vaitikuppam. Those were the two weeks prior to visiting the Healing Hands center, before I had even thought of reprinting my new copies of my story in both French and English versions. I’d have been taking some very long walks through the streets of the village to the French Quarter and the shopping district, when my internet still depended on that far away WiFi shop.

      Life in Pondy has acquired and developed some definition, largely as a result of whom I find my conversations with. Last week, Mali, this week, Anne-Lisa, and of course Healing Hands has been a jeweled box of precious gems. Ayodhya Bhavan and Vaitikuppam provided their share, and jewels have been falling out of the sky since my first day in Pondy, December twenty-first when I met Louise Rose. Please note, this is not a hallucination. Hanging around Pondy to see what will happen next seems like an attractive possibility, but I really do have to visit the North, so that will happen, but Pondy has been most assuredly engraved as one of my go-to places whenever I visit India.

     One somewhat disturbing but informative dream from last night. I’m driving my white Ford Escort LX through the city with my friend Frank at my side. We come to a wide intersection where we are stopped by a red light. There is no car in sight from any other direction and I am frustrated to the level of anger at the thought that I must stop and wait and obey the red light when there is no apparent real reason for me not to proceed. In one swift frame, Frank and I are out of the car, and I have pushed it with a Herculean thrust from my arm through the red light, through the empty intersection, and the car glides far along a descending street until its right front tire slams into a curb and the car comes to rest. It was a good solid hit, and when Frank and I walk down the hill to the car, we find that the right front axel has been severely bent and the right front tire is totally blown out. Frank is my voice of reason and equanimity, and emphasizes quite clearly that the damage and cost caused by my explosive anger is far greater than the simple inconvenience of waiting for a red light to change. As inane as that situation appeared to be, it served a purpose and I would be wise to think well before ignoring the signs of prudence. Keep it cool, Johnny, and your car will serve you well.

     Monday, March fourteenth. Around six evening, after an exciting day at the massage class. Happy Birthday – Bon Anniversaire – to Simon, turning forty-one today. Nimi has created a chocolate and caramel masterpiece of a cake. Poured into, baked into, however it got in there, a unique combination of textures and tastes brought forth in a silver salad bowl about a foot across, to be eaten by all in a circle with spoons. Deliciousness amplified through a musical scale of melt-in-your-mouth syrupy chocolate icing sprinkled with thin banana slices, covering the caramel thick syrupy goo covering the dark baked chocolaty cake baked into the bottom. Scoop a spoonful up and tarry not in getting it into your mouth before the viscosity drips from the spoon. Today’s practice session is on hold. Lise is inspired after most of the silver bowl has been excavated to go downstairs to the kitchen and prepare a pot of tea for everyone here. The two Maries, Amodine, Catherine and Helen, Lies and Simon, and Axel and Jake and Nimi the baker, and moi. This morning Rahul laid out a curriculum plan for the next two and a half weeks. We are going into advanced training. Most of us are from last month’s class and the three new guys . . . Axel, Jake and Nimi . . . are fast and enthusiastic learners, so Rahul is going to take us on a journey through all of the components of more complex levels of the total Thai Massage repertoire. We have now gone through the foundation level for a one and a half hour massage. There are seven levels of Thai massage, and Rahul’s plan is to give us the first three. He is enthusiastic for he rarely has the opportunity to present advanced levels, and he sees this class as right for this in-depth training. As I practice with my classmates, I have to wonder to where and to whom I will be taking this. Most of the students here are yoga teachers or therapists who have professional objectives. This is interactive yoga between a giver and a receiver, and this practice is not easy to learn, at any level, and one does not become adept overnight. Into this world, one day at a time, I take another step. Get around to giving Axel, and Jake and Nimi a copy of my Gathering book. My distribution program continues, one book at a time. The young Japanese girl showed up on the rooftop during Rahul’s morning class. Lovely to see, and the young German girl from yesterday appeared in the afternoon. If you are interested, you are welcome. Those who want to learn what goes on here have a special frame of mind, and we find our recognitions of each other, as the wish to learn a little more continues from day to day. There is more to this than technique. The River flows across the page and I dream of mountains far away.

     Tuesday evening, March fifteenth. Meeting with Anne-Lisa at La Terrasse at six, for a bowl of noodle soup and a chapatti. Small red flower at the top right corner of her hairline, anchors a long curing lock of brownish-yellow hair hanging in front of her ear alongside her cheek. Her long hair is piled up into a loose, large bun at the top rear of her head. In her graceful red dress, I saw Anne-Lisa in my dream last night, in her eighteenth century simple and flowing sack-back gown, such as one sees in a painting by Watteau. In a huge palace somewhere in Germanic central Europe, I have ample time to spare during the wait for my flight to board for departure, so I begin my self-guided walking tour trough the magnificent large rooms of this palace, as complicated as the Louvre. From one room to another I wander, keeping track in memory of the path I am following, until I come to a point where I feel I had best go no further for fear of losing the thread of memory that would lead me back to where I came from. In retracing my steps through these magnificent rooms linked through doorways and hallways, I am accompanied by a lovely young woman in a simple flowing floor length eighteenth century sack-back gown that ripples like a river as she walks. We come to a room where I remembered a passageway, and now see only a gray marble wall. My guide in her graceful dress reaches out to pull a lever on one side of the room, and the marble slab pulls away to reveal the passageway I remembered. Someone had evidently blocked and disguised that passageway while I had been walking through my explorations, in a trickery motivated by I know not what, and my guide has set my direction true and away from the confusion and consternation I faced at the gray marble wall. Who else? But Anne-Lisa, can she be! who has brought the Lalita Sahasranam Stotram chanting into the rooms of my listening mind. A whole new chapter of Hindu mythology and iconography opens before me and Anne-Lisa-Lalita-Devi assures me that I can practice chanting on my own without feeling that I need to take voice lessons. Here at the table at La Terrasse, the first table inside the door, just as we met three days before at the first table inside the door at Surguru. We meet again, Anne-Lisa, for whatever role I play in your life, you are a guide for me through the pathways of memory and their winding turns, and you clear away the confusion created by false memories and blind alleys. This evening’s conversation draws to a close. Anne-Lisa will return to her room overlooking the ocean, and I will continue at this table at La Terrasse with my evening cup of masala chai. This is where we could meet again. There is a German word referred to by Hermann Hesse in his writings about his journey to India. The Heartfelt feeling of returning Home, when he and persons like Anne-Lisa and I visit this home to the Mother of us all, where gods and goddesses are conceived of and born and manifest in more ways than one can imagine. All that we with our simple minds can do is listen carefully, watch closely, and be ready without being ready. No one is pulling any strings. We are simply dancing with the music, and the sound that brings us together. I can only speak of what I hear.

     Thursday, March seventeenth, evening ten-twenty. After having listened through fifty minutes of Lalita Sahasranam Strotom. “Ten-twenty” was the codeword for location and “ten-four” was the code word for confirmation between Madison city bus drivers around 1980, over the inter-bus intercom. The routes were designed to criss-cross at various intersections around the city, and we called each other, especially on the evening routes, to time our arrivals as closely as we could, to coordinate the winding figure eights of our routes in such a way as to facilitate inter-bus passenger transfers. We drivers worked together to facilitate the objectives of our passengers to get where they wanted to go, which most often at night was home, and if we had to leave someone waiting at some downtown, uptown, or midtown transfer point, we’d pick up our intercom and call the driver of the crossing line for his ten-twenty and tell him to watch for that solitary soul standing under the light at such-and-such a corner. The confirmation for message received and understood was a “ten-four.”

     So it turns out that the students are not all that excited about trying to assimilate more sequences, complicated ones at that, and we tell Rahul this morning that we would rather focus on the foundation, which from one end to the other is about two hours. Simply going through a sequence without missing a move is a challenge, much more so is assimilating the moves into physical memory. We’d love to watch demos of the next level sequences, but are sure that trying to assimilate those into a still underdeveloped foundation is an invitation to folly. Rahul, just chill it down a little, and please give it to us one more time, slowly. My leg sequence this morning was the best it’s ever been, following the pace that Rahul set us to. I’ve got a picture of the frame and its major segments all lined up in a row. Now all I have to do is get from one end to the other without missing a beat. I can learn as a receiver from the giver, what feels right and what does not, for pressures and points the giver must look for and find and get into. When I feel someone has got it right on me, I learn how and where to apply when I am giving. Every afternoon, the six, or eight, or ten of us there, all answer a question before beginning. Would you like to be a giver or a receiver? Every day, the choice. A good question to ask yourself when you get ready to open the door of your room and step out into traffic for the day.

     Totally random encounters circulate through the city every day, and most everyone has a schedule. The Suguru restaurant has a doorman, a tall Nepali in light brown uniform, complete with brimmed cap. Eight hours, I suppose, every day, standing at the frosted glass windowed doors with large stainless steel handles, he opens the door for whoever walks towards the three steps at the entrance. It’s a comparatively quiet street, with just enough pedestrian and vehicle traffic to keep one entertained.  You can bet this man is here to make money for his wife and two small children in a village in Nepal. Our economic system has taken this mountain villager, father and husband, and surely tied to an extended family, and made a doorman in a brown uniform out of him, two thousand miles away from his heart. My waiter is a young man whose wife and son and daughter are four hours away by bus. He tells me he was not here for three days because he went to see them, part of his vacation time. I don’t know who he stays with here in Pondy, perhaps some relative or family friend. He’s in Pondy for the job and his family is not here, and I’m sure there are millions upon millions of families broken by our economic system, in India, in countries around the globe. Money is a powerful tool that can be used for good things that keep families together. Managed without compassion, it is brutally vicious. Each of us has our assigned value, and may circulate at will according to the level of value we are given to manage. Walking through the shopping district, one encounters many empty hands. Here is a minimally assigned value human, hanging out on the street. Where do you think they go at night when the traffic slows down? To sleep on the pavement of the sidewalk, or whatever slab of concrete seems most convenient or comfortable, or for some reason or another, chosen by the dream-maker.

     Friday evening, around five-thirty, March eighteenth.  A day of lessons and practice. Eight weeks of Thai Massage classes now gone by, out of my three months in Pondy, save for that one week in Thiruvanamalli. Today also the four month marker for my time in India since November nineteenth, according to the western business calendar. There is another calendar going on in the Hindu world that follows the planets and the stars and the moon and tells all kinds of stories about Siva and Parvati and the entire Hindu pantheon. Pand-harynat, the night watchman at Ayodhya Bhavan, was an astrologer-mythographer who did horoscope analysis for prospective marriage matches. He scans through all kinds of tables and charts to come to his conclusions. He cast the chart of one girl against those of two prospective grooms. For this he is paid five hundred rupees, which is a worthwhile amount for a man living with his wife on his night watchman’s salary. There were seven weeks walking through the streets of the urban seaside village of Vaitikuppam, while living at Ayodhya Bhavan with Ismo, and Ramesh and Pand-harynat to keep me updated on current events in the Tamil Hindu calendar.  The four days of Pongal were certainly the most exciting and colorful, with extravagant colums dusted into the pavement at the entryway of every house, on freshly washed asphalt, the streets of the village were a walk-through gallery. And the drums and the parades came out every once in a while, I was never exactly sure why, except that celebration was in the air. Also never to forget the day and evening for bathing the temple deity, the main one from the sanctum sanctorum, to whom the priests perform their pujas every day of the year. A large wooden-wheeled cart decorated with bazillions of mostly red and yellow and orange flowers, is rolled through the streets to the sandy beach where the deity from the deepest darkness within is carried to see the horizon where boundless water meets the endless sky.

     Three weeks gone by now at Hotel Qualithe, across the street from Central Park, and even though the sea is two blocks east, I have not been walking that way very much. I’ve been swallowed by the city to the North, the South and the West of my home. There is automobile, motorcycle and auto-rik traffic outside the lobby doorway, not endlessly streaming, but intermittently consistent.

     After a full morning and afternoon at the Healing Hands center, all I have to decide is when and where to have dinner. The Healing Hands center has filled my calendar six days a week for the last eight weeks! I’m not going to come out of this program ready to go around handing out Thai Massages. That is all very much fun and extremely informative and entertaining, but I am here to witness and learn from this man’s art of healing, and from his understanding of how human energy flows, like the ebbs and tides of the sea, how energy becomes blocked and contaminated, and how it is passed on and transformed. Here again, I’m not going to go out and start laying hands on people. This is deep and serious stuff, and this man is highly trained and knowledgeable and gifted, and he really doesn’t put himself out there as a healer. People just hear about him, and come to him, and he does what he can. He’s not a miracle worker. He just knows how shit works, and how to fix it if it doesn’t, sometimes, and he tells people how to get their act together so they don’t have to come back to see him again. This is all pro-bono. The window has opened and I have looked through. All I really see is the ocean’s horizon. Light is falling into Night, Luna is halfway towards full, and Jupiter rises early in the evening sky, to keep company with bright Sirius following the hunter Orion.

     Saturday, the Nineteenth, at quarter after four. After a two hour class from eight to ten, and a four hour Healing hands clinic. After six days on the run every morning, it’s an afternoon and evening free time session, with no need to wake up at dawn, but I will anyway, and all day tomorrow to make up a day as I go along. What goes on at these classes and these clinics is not for me to write very much about. All of the students have notebooks and can write whatever they want. There are times during the class when no words are written. All of the pens go spontaneously and harmonically silent. There are never any pens moving during the healing clinic session, at which there were about twenty visitors today. Just want to say that the class today came down to twelve very ordinary, typical, down-to-earth, unassuming persons as one might meet on the street of any of the countries represented here. And they will enjoy talking as normally as you are with them. But they have a second language going on in the back of their minds. Just like bi-lingual speakers, there is an energeisic language always in the background, on the invisible screen, that can be read, and understood, which of course is crucially dependent on the quality of understanding applied to the question at hand, and can be channeled, if you know where the channels are, and how to access and read them, and ultimately change their course.

     These are all my words. I am not quoting anyone, nor trying to capture their words, simply explaining for my readers, family and friends, what comes through for me from all of this unquotable conversation and film that will never be shown again. The entry point and first avenue was through lessons in Thai Massage, which is about interactions between clothed bodies where focus is on the transformation of energy between the giver to the willing receiver.

     After the final class this month, the open-ended time before me will be seen through eyes found through what I have seen and heard during these nine weeks of classes. I’ll be bouncing out of this city by the sea and landing in the Himalayan kingdom of Sikkim. Now I get to plot and plan a program for where

I think I’m going.