Living and Learning in Amritapuri, India: December 15-19, 2017

Sick or jet lag or both?

On my second day in Amritapuri, I developed a sore throat and the beginnings of a cold. I was concerned that I was getting sick but that wasn’t the case. I think it was due to a combination of jet lag and natural adjustment to being in a place that is 13 1/2 hours ahead of Seattle, with a different schedule, different climate, different water, different food and all the other differences. I slept a lot the next few days but am beginning to come out of it. I also had an acupuncture appointment on Monday and have felt considerably better since then.

Construction or lack thereof

On my third day, I noticed that something was missing. In all the years I have been coming to Amritapuri, the sound of construction has been constant. There were times in my early years when it lasted all night, although that hasn’t happened for decades.

When I was in Amritapuri in August, it seemed like there was more building construction going on than ever before. What was missing this time was that I hadn’t heard anything but a few minutes of hammering since I had arrived. No sound of rebar being cut. No cement mixer operating. No welding sparks. No construction sites to walk around or through.

I imagine there are probably new buildings going up not far from here but inside the main part of the ashram, the only type of construction I’ve seen so far is decorative, and that is a quiet process. Amazing!

Amma’s Birthday Tree Planting Project

This year the Pacific Northwest devotees planted trees as a birthday gift for Amma. We had planned to plant 64 trees since Amma was turning 64, but ended up planting 309! We devoted the December PNW GreenFriends newsletter to the project. Prior to my trip, I had a copy of the newsletter turned into a booklet. There are 12 devotees who participated in the project in Amritapuri right now. Some of us plan to give Amma the booklet on Thursday the 21st. If you would like to look at the stories and photos in that newsletter click here.

Play practice

Amma and the tour staff didn’t come back from the Europe tour until December 8th. The script and the music for the play had been completed prior to then but by the time everyone had returned to the ashram, there were only two weeks left to gather a cast and for the actors, musicians, dancers, and singers to learn their parts. Also the costumes, backdrops, props, power point slides that show the words in English and the Malayalam, and the sound and lighting plans had to be created. Everything has to happen so fast; it is always like watching a miracle unfold. The performance will take place on Christmas Eve.

I’ve continued going to at least one of the play practices each day. Prior to Tuesday, the cast was rehearsing individual scenes. On Tuesday, they practiced all of Act 1 for the first time.  I had seen the adult parts of that Act before but I’d never seen the children’s scenes. I was amazed by their performance.

Saraswati Garden

For part of the time that I was in Amritapuri last December and January, I worked at Saraswati Garden. On the 18th, I decided to visit the garden. As I came close to the entrance, I passed a  line of banana palms that I have photographed on my last three trips to the ashram.

December 2016:

August 2017:

December 2017:

I knew that banana palms last only one season, but I wasn’t prepared for what I saw when I walked through the palms this time. The main palm in these photos was at least 15 feet tall and approaching the end of its life cycle.

(Click on any of the galleries below to enlarge the photos.)

After passing the palms, I entered the garden. One of the first things I saw was a very unusual butterfly. I used a cropped version and three different camera effects in a mostly unsuccessful attempt to give you a better view of it. I looked up both Kerala butterflies and moths on the internet but didn’t see any that resembled this one.

(The photo from the top of this post is also from Saraswati Garden, as is the Wordless Wednesday post I put up earlier today.)

Prasad giving and prasad door monitor

One of my favorite activities when I am with Amma is to hand her prasad, the packets of sacred ash wrapped around a piece of candy that she gives to each person who comes to her for a hug. I wasn’t able to do that when I came here in August because I had broken my wrist in July. I felt sad about that loss but was pleased when I was asked to be one of the people to help facilitate the prasad line.

Each prasad giver hands Amma prasad for 3 minutes so it takes a lot of people to keep the line going for the 12 or more hours that Amma gives hugs in a day. The line starts in the auditorium as only six prasad givers are on the stage at a time. My job was to call people from the auditorium line every three minutes so the onstage line stayed full. In addition, I had to train anyone who hadn’t done it before. And, if there were not enough people in the auditorium line, I had to find people to join the line. Managing all of these tasks was challenging and I dealt with feeling incompetent. I felt relieved when, just before I flew back to Seattle, one of my supervisors said they all liked working with me and hoped I would join them again when I returned.

Soon after I arrived at the ashram on the 13th, I was asked if I was willing to be scheduled for the position. I certainly was. I was given a shift on Wednesdays and Saturdays. I missed the first one because I was feeling sick, but very much looked forward to serving in that way.

Not only can I help with the prasad line this time, but now that my splint is gone and my wrist is working I’m also able to hand Amma prasad myself. I did that on my second morning at the ashram. As is usual for me,  I had the sense of “home” “home” “home” going through my mind and body as I handed each packet to her.

 

To read the previous posts in this series click here.

A Beautiful Flower

I walked through the ashram yesterday, looking for flowers that were new to me. I was intrigued by this  one. I wonder if it is in the same family as a hibiscus. There are both similarities and differences.

To read the previous posts in this series click here.

A Mystical Land

On Friday morning, December 15th, I decided to go to the roof of my building to practice Tai Chi. I was so drawn by the view in front of me that I soon stopped the Tai Chi and took in the beauty of the land below. I had never seen it look so mystical. Some of the pictures look more like paintings to me than photos.

Whenever I am on the roof, I also watch the majestic eagles soaring overhead. They often fly much closer than these but they pass-by so fast that it is hard to snap a photo and get anything but sky.

To read the previous posts in this series click here.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Ascend

Living and Learning in Amritapuri, India: December 14, 2017

Flowers

When I was in Amritapuri in August, it seemed like there were fewer flowers than I have noticed during my December/January visits. I don’t know if that was due to the season or if it was because I’m more familiar with the flowers here than I used to be so they weren’t as likely to catch my eye.

The gardens in the main part of the ashram are mostly made of potted plants. It seems like the number of pots have grown significantly in the last few months. The grounds seem so lush now. On the 14th, my attention was drawn to the plants near Amrita Darshan, the building where my flat is located. Most of the flowers that had bloomed there were white. I have shared them at the beginning of my first three posts.

Ants

I was surprised by the number of ants in my room when I arrived. There were so  many I didn’t know what to do about it. Sreejit and Chaitanya had both been in my room during the last few days and there were no ants present at that time.  I guess they came to greet me and/or to provide me with my first challenge.

I’m usually pretty good at blocking trails of ants and in that way encouraging them to go back where they came from, but my regular techniques don’t work very well when there are hundreds of ants. I know that a crumb of food or a dead insect will draw them, so in addition to trying any solution I could think of, I worked to clean the room even though it already seemed clean. The ants have shown up from time to time since then, but never in large numbers. My non-violent interventions seem to be working.

As I was finishing this post, an ant ran across my hand. When I looked around, I saw a few others on my desk. Moments later, I saw what was probably drawing them. How nice of nature to provide me with an example of what I had just written about. I wish the video had come out clearer but it makes my point. (There was a group practicing Christmas music not far from my room so my video even has background music!)

Play practice

I attended play practices in the afternoon and evening of the 14th. During the afternoon practice, the cast were learning a scene where one  of the main characters in the play was having a vision of an event that occurred during Jesus’ life. I love to watch the process of a scene being taught for the first time. It amazes me how it begins to come to life with only an hour-and-a-half of practice. During the evening practice, the musicians and singers rehearsed one song. The harmony was SO beautiful.

Silent Retreat

I haven’t even seen many of my friends yet, because they are participating in a ten day silent retreat. I look forward to being able to talk to them on Sunday or Monday!

Amplified temple music

I remember in the early 90’s when I first came to the ashram, we could hear devotional music coming from a temple across the backwaters. The music was so loud that it sounded like it was being played on a boom box in my room. My memory is that during some parts of the year, the music started at 5 a.m. and then lasted until 2 a.m. the next day. My nerves felt frazzled by the constant noise. Over the years, the music continued but the volume lowered significantly and it no longer lasted all day or occurred after dark.

I’ve noticed the last few days that the music starts sometime after 5 a.m. and  goes until around 11:30 and then starts again for a short time in the early evening. It is loud but not nearly as loud as in the 90’s. In the early morning it is recorded music. At other times a man is singing with a child or a woman or a child is singing alone. As I write this, it is evening, and a group of children are singing. Everything but the early morning music seems like it is live. I think generations of children must have grown up participating in this daily ritual.

I only hear the music when I am  in my room. When I am walking on the ashram grounds I am more likely to hear music from our auditorium. So far this trip I have  enjoyed listening to the singers from the village temple. I’m glad I don’t live any closer to that temple though. The music must be really loud in the village, or maybe the temple has speakers scattered throughout the area.

In the early in the morning, the music is somewhat drowned out by the sound of birds waking up and leaving the trees where they roosted for the night.  I took the photo and video below from the window of my flat.

I also made an audio-recording of a man singing with one of the children. You can hear some hammering on the video as well. That sound was occurring in the ashram.

Amma’s Darshan

I entered the darshan line around 4 p.m. but it didn’t move for quite a while. During the wait many friends I hadn’t seen yet walked by. It was fun to talk to them briefly and made me aware how many people I know here. I also had the opportunity to talk a bit to the person sitting next to me. She had met Amma when she was five-years-old but hadn’t seen her since then. She is now an adult and decided to come see Amma in India.

Finally it was time for my darshan (hug). When I reached Amma, she looked at me with a smile in her eyes and a look of recognition and love. I went into her arms with appreciation for the many times I have been blessed with this experience during the last twenty-eight years.

 

To read the previous posts in this series click here.

Living and Learning in Amritapuri, India: December 13, 2017

My plane landed in Trivandrum soon after 3:00 a.m. on the 13th. Before every visit, I look forward to the sweet smell of India. I always feel like bowing down and kissing the earth when I arrive, although I only do it in my mind. I am so thankful that in 1989 I discovered Amma, or maybe Amma found me. Regardless, through that experience, I found my “home in the universe” in Amma, and in India.

It seemed like it took a long time for me to get through immigration and collect my baggage, but by 4:00 a.m. I was in the taxi headed for the ashram. I shared the taxi with a young man from Chicago who recognized  me and told me he knew Sreejit and Chaitanya. And it turns out that he is going to be one of the singers in this year’s Amritapuri Christmas play!

I’m used to the drive to the ashram being wild, but this one was more so than normal. In India, the cars, taxis, trucks, and buses weave in and out as they pass rickshaws and each other at high speed, returning to their own lanes just before head-on impact. The drivers are incredibly skilled and have nerves of steel.

This time was different though, because two vehicles didn’t get back into their own lane at the appropriate time and our driver had to partially pull off the road to avoid a collision. There was also a small vehicle that tried to cross the road at a time when it was impossible. That driver stopped before we hit him but it was still a jolting experience. We arrived at the ashram in record speed and unscathed. I felt very graced.

By 5:30 a.m., we were pulling into the ashram grounds. I was home.

Since it was too early to go see my son and daughter, I went directly to my room and started unpacking. I own a flat at the ashram, which means I can store some of my belongings in my room in-between visits. At the end of my last visit, I gave the ashram flea market any items that I did not use regularly. I was able to store everything except my standing desk in two small trunks even before I gave things away, but now everything fits into two loosely packed trunks. (The top trunk is 2 feet long, 11 1/2 inches wide and 8 inches high.)

[Note: The arrangement between flat owners and the ashram is similar to a time share in that I can use the room whenever I’m at the ashram but it is rented out to other ashram visitors when I am gone.]

Having fewer belongings made it so much easier to set up the room. Also, when I came to India in August, I had a broken wrist. As I put things onto the shelves this time, I was aware of how much easier it was to accomplish tasks when I had both of my hands/arms available to me.

Chaitanya lives in the same building as I do. By 6:30 a.m., I couldn’t wait any longer so went upstairs to see her. I don’t have as easy access to Sreejit so had to wait to see him until 8:00 a.m. when he was in the kitchen starting lunch preparation. It was, and is, so nice to be with them again. I am truly blessed.

After spending time with my kids, and having breakfast, I went back to move-in activities. This was the first time that I have been able to use the SIM card from my previous visit. (You have to use pay for minutes monthly and If you are gone for more than 3 months you have to purchase a new SIM card.) Since I had been out of the country less than 3 months, I was able to activate the phone within a few hours of my arrival. During my last trip, I had discovered that using my iPhone’s Personal Hotspot gave faster internet speed than the internet wi-fi thumb drives I usually use, so within hours of my arrival I had access to both my phone and the internet. Generally, it has taken 3-5 days or more for everything to be up and running.

[Note: As I write this, I am remembering my first trip to the ashram in January 1990. At that point, I had to take a rickshaw to Oachira to use a phone. It was a red phone and was located in the middle of an alley. A group of people gathered around me as I made the call. Now everyone has a cell phone and internet cafes are abundant.]

The phone plan I purchased was even better than the phenomenal one I signed up for in August-September. At that time the plan included a SIM card and 1 GB of data a day for 84 days. The cost: 450 rupees ($7.03). This time, the cost was 348 rupees ($5.43). For that fee, I will receive free phone calls in India and 2 GB data a day for 28 days!  (As always, I am aware of how inflated prices must be in the United States; the cost of purchasing medication here being the other obvious example.)

In the evening, I watched my first play practice. The cast were rehearsing one of the dances and it was fantastic. I will not be sharing much about the content of the play until after it is performed on Christmas Eve, but I will say the dance was electric and I loved it!

Wednesday, the day of my arrival, was a darshan day. (For those of you who don’t know, Amma’s form of blessing is to give a hug to each person who comes to her. At this point, she has hugged more than 37 million people world-wide.) When I asked for a darshan token, the person handing them out asked me if I would mind waiting until the next day. That was perfectly fine with me. It would give me more time to anticipate the experience of once again being in Amma’s loving arms.

The Beginning: Fall 2017 Trip to Amritapuri, India

I traveled to Amritapuri for five weeks this past August and September so that I could participate in three festivals, Ganesh Chaturi, Krishna Jayanthi and Onam. I hadn’t attended the festivals since 2005 because it didn’t feel right to leave my therapy groups so soon after having missed them for parts of Amma’s Summer North American tour. I had retired the end of May, though, so I now had the freedom to travel at any time of year.

Another major reason I have chosen to go to Amritapuri the end of November each year, instead of August, is because I love to be in Amritapuri prior to and during the annual Christmas play. My daughter Chaitanya writes and co-directs these Broadway style musicals and my son Sreejit and his friends write the tunes for most of the songs and work with the musicians and singers. I love to watch the script come to life and become so much more than words on a page.

While being at the ashram for the play is of major importance to me, I did not consider it an option to come to India twice. The 24-hour trip, along with a 13 1/2 hour time difference, is very hard on my body and the thought of facing jet lag, within months of having recovered from it, was most uninviting. I did not plan to return for the play this year.

I love the joke- Question: “Do you know how to make God laugh?” Answer: “Tell him your plans for your life.” This was certainly one of those experiences. I knew even before I left India in September that I would probably come back in December.

About a week before the end of my last trip, my son and daughter let me know they wanted me to return for the play. I knew that was true and I wanted to be there too, but that wasn’t enough to get me to change my mind. I gave them plenty of rationalizations for my choice.

The next morning, I woke up to find an email from a neighbor in my inbox. She told me that her landlady had informed her that her granddaughter was going to move into the house and that she would need to find another place to live by the beginning of October. Another neighbor had said that I used to have roomers, so she wanted to know if I would consider letting her rent from me.

It has been a long time since I’ve had a roommate, but I have been considering the possibility of doing that for awhile. That fact, combined with the synchronicity of the request, i.e. coming the morning after I’d had the interaction with my children, did not escape me. This development would certainly take care of my money excuse.

During that day, it also occurred to me that the person who normally house-sits for me when I’m in India was going to be in India himself this year, so having her as a roommate would solve that problem. And the third synchronicity was that only days before, I had published a post on this blog saying that I knew I needed to become more inter-dependent and less overly-independent. I decided I was willing to consider the possibility  of having her as a roommate, and I was also willing to consider returning to India for the play.

Skipping forward to December 11, I have had a roommate for almost three months. That was a remarkably easy transition for both of us, and I was on my way back to India, still dreading the flights and the jet lag but looking forward to being with Amma, Sreejit, Chaitanya, my Amritapuri friends, watching the play practices and the performance, and experiencing all that I will experience on this visit.

A Different Experience, A Different Feeling

Soon after I was given the red rose yesterday, I had a completely different experience.  I was driving to an appointment along 25th Avenue South. That block, which is just north of my house, for the most part has Greenbelt on one side of the street and a fenced off property belonging to Sound Transit on the other side. The land goes over the light rail tunnel.

For as long as I can remember people have dumped their garbage along that street. The problem has decreased significantly, though, since city workers used big logs to block a place where people could pull off the street and dump their couches, mattresses, concrete and other unwanted items.

Yesterday, however, I saw something I had never seen before.  I decided on the way home from the appointment, I would stop and explore it further… and take photos. That is what I did.

This pile of dumped garbage covered the sidewalk and more than half of the width of the street.

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As I looked at it closer I noticed that there was a rope tied to one end of the pile.

I followed the cord with my eyes, and the reality of what had occurred began to dawn on me. The person who had done this had tied the other end of the cord to the corner of the fence. He/she must have been driving a truck and after backing up so that he/she could connect the junk to the fence, drove forward so that it poured onto the street. Needless to say, I was no longer feeling joy.

While I can see that this experience is an opportunity for me to notice how easily my emotions can be swayed, I am still shocked and angry that someone had this much disrespect and thoughtlessness.

The Red Rose

This morning, I worked in the Greenbelt for a short time. At one point, I was standing about fifteen feet from the Hanford stairs, which are on the north end of the property. As I glanced towards the stairs, I saw a homeless man whom I haven’t talked to for a year or two. I believe he lives with a few friends in a different part of the Greenbelt, about six blocks from where I was standing.

I used to do a lot of litter pick up in this area and I had talked with him numerous times when he and his friends were hanging out on the stairs. They used to point out places where I could find cans to pick up and sometimes they even saved some for me.

Today, we saw and acknowledged each other at the same time. He started to talk to me but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. He gestured to the planting areas and I told him that we were working to make the land a forest again.

After I answered his question, he handed me a red rose. I was so surprised and had no idea where it came from. It was as if the rose materialized out of thin air. Without a word, he continued walking up  the stairs. What a beautiful way it was to start my day.