From the roof, I can see coconut palms, stretching out as far as the eye can see, in three directions. To the west, is the Arabian Sea, disappearing over the horizon. It’s gorgeous, and new, but totally posting a podcast is impossible. I take a morning walk to the Goddess pujas (Saraswati, Lakshmi, and Uma) through tropical garden paths, and stroll the bridges over the backwaters, which is totally conducive to meditation, but not broadcasting. Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi) was here for a couple of days, between tours. She hugged us, and gave us spiritual teachings, and passed out rice and dahl for 2000, and generally imbued the space with holiness, and I’d love to say I’ve got a podcast with her coming up, but she was pretty busy. Which is cool, I’m ok with that. Jungle Podcasting is difficult.
But I did want see if I could sneak this little post up through my 3g hotspot. (1 gig for 185 rupees) I had every intention of getting a couple of episodes out much sooner. For those of you that don’t know, I experimented with living in a yurt on a hillside in Marin County. And while that had some of it’s own first world level connectivity issues, it was lovely. Until it wasn’t. There was really heavy rain last month, and a lot of the area flooded, highways got shut down, and the yurt turned into a wet, moldy mess. So we (the gorgeous Somya Devi) and I packed up our stuff in a super big hurry, vacated by the end of the month, and hightailed it out of the country. It was a sprint, and didn’t really leave any time to post the two episodes I have on the hard drive. Now things have calmed down, there is plenty of time for this sort of thing, and the atmosphere is sublime, it’s the technology that’s off. Podcasting is apparently a first world activity. A privilege of sorts. But, I digress, and I’ll leave the politics and social justice talks for people who are better suited.
So, I beg the forgiveness of Vraja Kishor, and Noah Julian, who played their parts amazingly well. They showed up, and shared of themselves, their wisdom, their struggles. I really look forward to you hearing them. And, while at the ashram, I also ran into Prajna Viera. We did a session on location, overlooking the sea, as her husband laughed at us the entire time. It came out pretty good, even if the sound is a little off. So, as soon as I’m back in a place where uploading is possible, that’s not one, not two, but three recordings of conversations with some very brilliant, interesting, and patient people.
Vraja
Noah
Prajna
