Goodbye Sadhana Forest

I left Sadhana Forest Thursday. It turned out that I was quite a popular cook there. Typically the most flavor the food had was the salt that each person added to his or her own dish. When I busted out with the Indian food that my Hindi teacher taught me how to cook, food with flavor, it became a hit.

My last night at Sadhana was lit by a full moon framed by the silhouette of trees just outside my hut. With the moon coming into its full cycle, I thought I'd begin my new cycles of renewal and change for the new year.

My friend, Venedel, has the most brilliant phrase: I don't know and let it go. I think about it everytime I want something to roll off my back. With the help of the moon, I did a meditative ritual to let it all go, a ritual of forgiving and asking forgiveness. The more good karma I can accumulate, especially before seeing the Karmapa, the better.

Traveling is teaching me how to open up my heart. I had my guards up when I came to Sadhana Forest. Being there was an exercise in protecting myself AND keeping an open heart toward people. Everyone was very nice and it was fun getting to know the people I had a chance to talk and hang out with. I had a lot of laughs.

So now I am passing my days in Mamallapuram, a city renowned for its stone temples and sculptures, until I make my way up north to see the Karmapa. Everyone is recommending that I stay longer in Southern India because it's so cold up north, but a good tourist I do not make. I need a deeper context for traveling than going from site to site and from guesthouse to guesthouse. For me it's either learning or volunteering. So hopefully the context for my stay up north will gel more concretely in the next few weeks. Until then, I'll enjoy eating Indian food again and having internet access within a short walking distance.