Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Samadhi Dog

This is Moshie practicing meditation. Note his most excellent posture, his nice long spine, the relaxation he brings to the endeavor...

I leave for India tomorrow morning. I leave Lavonia at 5 am, fly our of Atlanta at 8:30 am. I meet Anne in Dallas and fly to Zurich 1:55pm. The flight to Zurich is roughly 9 1/2 hours. Then a mere 11 1/2 hours to Mumbai. We have a hotel in Mumbai where we will sleep for aas long as we can and then a taxi to Pune. Classes start on July 1. I should be quite delirious by then.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Views from The Lake


This is my Mom and Dad out working in Mom's garden this morning. Mom has quite the green thumb and has become a very enthusiastic gardener over the years. In these pictures the two of them are moving an entire bed of hastas that were growing under a big tree until a recent storm knocked the tree over. Now the shade-loving plants are without the shade that they love and are beginning to look kind of sad.

This is me and my dog, Spirit, at the end of a walk. She likes to wade into the lake, have a drink and cool off! She is a greyhound and due to her low body fat she cannot swim. Today she walked out all the way up to her neck and just stood there. Very cute indeed.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Namaste, Ya'll

Kelly and I are spending a few weeks in Lavonia, Georgia (where my parents live) before I go to India. (10 days until departure!) Once my visa finally arrived, Kelly and I packed a minivan with two greyhounds, four cats, ourselves and our belongings and drove 17 1/2 hours to Lavonia. Kelly is actually going to stay here while I am away and help my parents with some "honey-do's".

A typical day here at "The Lake" (My parents live on a big lake and a few years ago bought a house a few houses down where we stay when we visit.) so far involves sleeping, meditating, breakfast, a long dog walk in the state park across the lake, lunch, errands/chores, yoga practice and dinner all together at the end of the day. Sometimes we swim, sometimes we kayak.

So far, we have had quite a lovely time although at this writing Kelly is feeling a bit shell shocked from watching two hours of dramatic TV with Mom and Dad. He is not really used to anything much more intense than Frasier, King of the Hill or Scrubs. Bloody murders being solved, abusive husbands beating wives and so on- not really soothing impressions, if you know what I mean.

This weekend I am teaching a yoga workshop in Toccoa, Georgia. An Anusara Yoga friend of mine has classes there and invited me to teach while I am in the neighborhood. Sherrie is a lovely yogini and sister of Jaye Martin who is a former Geoffrey ballet dancer and certified Anusara Yoga teacher in Sarasota. It should be a fun day.

That's about all for now. I'll post some pics and reflections in a few days. Mostly we have just been settling in. Anne was here this weekend for a Father's Day visit. All in all, a good time was had by all.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Yippee!

I am holding my visa and passport in my hot little hand.

Amen.
Praise the lord.
Yahooo.
Om Namah Shivaya.
Jai Ganesh.
Hare Krishna.
YIPPEE!

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Still Blue

No visa, no passport

Monday, June 11, 2007

No-Visa-Having Blues

Okay- maybe there is some blues song that could be written about the no-visa-having blues... Let's see...(this will be better if you imaging some harmonica and slide guitar involved and a raspy, Janice Joplin-like vocalist...)

"I woke up this morning.... looked around for my shoes....
walked out to the mailbox...I got the no-visa-having blues...
Called up the Visa Lady... left messages and an email...
I haven't heard a thing...

Okay- I guess I should stick to teaching yoga and not song writing, I cannot think of a rhyme for email that makes sense... fail, bale, kale, hail, gale, jail, sail, trail, tale, oh- maybe that is good "thanks for listening to my no-visa-having tale...

Friday, June 8, 2007

More Delays

So even though I faxed my form to the Embassy on Wednesday morning, they called me today (Friday) and left me a message saying that they have not received it yet and if they do not get my application today then they will just mail my passport back to me. And of course, I cannot get in contact with anyone at the Embassy becasue "this mailbox is full". (it must be because I left so many long, depserate messages...)

Unbelievable. I am thinking that I am just going to fax the aplication to them every hour on the hour.

Maybe there is something in the stars.

Anyway. Pray for me.