Capturing a few animals in the neighborhood

Walking around town today, I captured a couple of animals in photos. I actually petted a horse on the nose too.

There is a 9 day festival starting on Monday that focuses on the divine feminine and with a different one featured each day. This happens all over India, but I will get to experience it at the ashram here. There is a lot of prepping going on as if hosting a horse show or something--cleanu-up, painting, dusting etc. All of these events are such a bonus to me. Just driving into town to get a long distance bus ticket, riding on the bus, or sorting out safe food is equally an adventure. I have been very lucky to only slightly get intestinal upset once when I pushed the limits and ate "local" food at a not so clean place. It probably is a credit to my early years of eating dirt, drinking out of streams, and eating unwashed horse carrots.

Learning a lot from Gurudev and on many levels. I am enjoying watching how he deals with all the requests from the daily groups of people who show up. I cannot understand the language, but there is a lot to be said from body language. He completely tunes into whatever level the person is at and always has patience and compassion. His patience/compassion includes directness and a sense of humor when warranted. He is in principle a human portal to the abstraction of what is beyond life as we know it. (Of course, it depends on your belief system.) Fascinating to see how he is "human" and how he is "divine." Nothing seems to phase him.

My life is feeling like I am starring in the movie The Matrix. Narayana once gave me a homework assignment to watch the movie, since he said my life could become like the male character who gets transported into another reality and also for the sake of opening to the different forms a teacher can appear as, (remember the woman in the kitchen who was smoking the cigarette...) Well, I would say that was a very worthwhile homework assignment. On the plane ride to India, I rewatched The Matrix as a brush up and added Inception. Little did I know just how appropriate both were. On many levels, few people would believe what I am experiencing. It was wonderful to share the first week with the group from Northern California, so I knew that I hadn't dissolved into some dream world. I have decided to stay here for the last month. I am in the fire cooking, so I felt the pull to continue. Betsy, the creator/director of the youth program was very understanding when I explained that I have been caught completely off guard by the intensity of this process and my desire to stay. Meditating 4-6 hours daily. Hard to believe that I can sit still that long--more or less.