If you read my blog of August 2nd you would know that I reactivated my real estate license while still in Mexico, was the agent for the purchase of our new house and for another family member’s house, as well. Both of the real estate deals closed in the middle of August. So in the middle of August, Robert and I moved to this gated over-55 community in Indio, California, about 20 mi from Palm Springs.
So far, this is the quietest neighborhood I’ve ever lived in. If you know me at all, you know I love quiet. The neighborhood is also just a couple miles from shopping. If we want to hike, we will have to drive, as there are no hills in this subdivision. We’re surrounded by hills though, about 10 miles away in every direction. And we can see the low hills to the east from our kitchen window.
When Robert and I left our homes in California to move to Mexico, we kept our kitchen things, some decorative items, tools and clothes. We kept enough to fill a 10×10 storage unit. But we gave away or sold our furniture, framed artwork, the car, my glass working equipment, and more.
When the agent representing this house explained that it was being sold just as it was, with the furniture and everything in it, we knew it was the right house for us.
In the past 6 weeks we’ve sorted through our new house, given things away by listing them on Craigslist and Facebook marketplace, taken things to Revivals (the local charity store), purchased things that we still needed, made improvements to the lighting and the neglected irrigation system, and we just had the carpets and the windows cleaned a few days ago
I feel comfortable now that the house is a little more reflective of us and I’m ready to get into my normal life of glasswork, astrological consulting, and a regular fitness routine.
If you hadn’t heard from me for a couple months and wondered why I dropped out, it was because I had only enough energy to take care of what was right in front of me and I knew I had to focus in order to get it all to come together.
Sometimes life moves slowly and other times life moves quickly. The month of July was a flash of intense energy for me. On the 2nd of July we left our apartment in Playa del Carmen in advance of a hurricane that was heading that way. We were fortunate to get a plane ticket out of Cancun. We chose to go to Las Vegas because it had a stop in Mexico City that would not require us to drag our multiple suitcases through customs as all the other flights would require.
Since my brother lives in Las Vegas it was perfect as we got to visit him for a few days and then we rented a one-way car to Palm Springs where we have a storage unit . While I was still in Playa Del Carmen, I was looking at Zillow because I wanted to move back to Palm Desert, though actually my intuition inclined me to Sun City Shadow Hills.
Initially I was hoping a real estate agent friend could find me a place, but when I didn’t hear from her, I decided to check my own real estate license to see if it was still valid. It was valid. I called my old company and filled out the papers online, so when I arrived here in Palm Desert I was already a HoneSmart agent.
Robert and I went to a few open houses because I was waiting for my clicker app to be activated. As soon as it was activated, we went to a house that we wanted to see, but I couldn’t operate it. I had forgotten what you push or how to push the button on the device that opens.
I called the listing agent and she was kind enough to come over to help us get in. Though I was somewhat embarrassed that as a real estate agent I couldn’t even operate the basic tool, I told the agent that Robert and I had been out of the country for 3 years, we had sold our houses, given our furniture away, and that I hadn’t even thought of real estate in those three years. But now we were coming back and needed a home. She said well since you don’t have any furniture or it or anything maybe this would be a good place for you, as the owner died and his son doesn’t want any of the furniture in the house.
The house has an office room and a extra little room. I thought the little room would be a perfect office for me and the bigger room would make a great place for our backswing, inversion table, vibration platform, free weights and other tools that we use for our health and well-being.
Before we had a chance to make a firm decision or really explore other houses, my brother called me and told me that he saw a house in Palm Springs that he wanted to make an offer on. He wanted me to be the real estate agent for the deal. Right away, Robert and I drove to Las Vegas so that the purchase offer could be signed on paper ( brother’s request) and a few days later we made our own purchase offer on the house in Sun City Shadow Hills.
Both of the offers have been accepted, so I have two deals in escrow now. From the time that we even thought about making those offers, I’ve been playing catch up to keep up with the paperwork, to remember how you do digital signing, create contracts, addenda, and so on – all things that I knew well a few years ago and still know, but the retrieval process is ongoing as the mental files were covered by a whole lot of Spanish language learning, archaeological sites, and cultural things that I was learning about the country in which I spent the past 3 years.
From hanging out in the blue walled apartment in Playa del Carmen, where I had nothing to do but rest, play with my sewing machines, and go on walks to the ocean, I have been really moving and so has Robert.
It’s amazing what can happen in a single month!
I don’t know what normal is going to look like in the future but I am really looking forward to moving into the house we chose.
In the meantime we are really enjoying the condo that we rented in Ironwood Country Club. It’s low season and nobody is here. It’s totally quiet and beautiful. The walks that we take in the evening and morning reveal the most beautiful sunsets and sunrises with mountains all around. We will be leaving here around the 15th of August, when we move into our new home.
Carolyn and Robert enjoy their travels, visiting museums, parks, and archaeological sites.
We love cats! We built a home, raised children, chickens, parrots, bunnies, and cats. When the last of our four beautiful and beloved felines died a few years ago, we decided to travel. Sometimes we visit cat shelters on our travels. Below is a photo from inside the shelter in Mazatlan, Mexico.
On our travels, the cat shelter in Mazatlan
Four cats were with us from 1998 through 2021. When they were young, we had cat-sitters care for them when when we took short vacations. But when they got older, after the age 15 or so, we knew they wouldn’t thrive with strangers. Because their ages were within a few years of each other, they became “old” one-by-one. Robert felt he was almost running a care home for cats. In reality, the aging process gave both of us a glimpse into the human aging process, the gradual weakening, slowing down, problems with digestion and all the other stuff that embodied beings experience toward the end of life. Which, hopefully, will give us patience with our own processes.
Dali, the Siamese, lived with us for 19 years. We love cats and when Dali crossed the rainbow bridge, the last of our felines to go, we were very sad.
A Feral Cat Family Adopted Us
For Carolyn, the love of cats started in her childhood. For Robert, it started later, when we built the house in Valley Springs, California. A feral cat gave birth to kittens while our home was under construction. Robert placed the mother and the kittens in a cloth-lined cardboard box and placed it under the porch. The mother cat was so appreciative that she followed us around our property whenever we went on walks. That family of cats was the start. We took walks every day. The cats lined up to follow us down the hill, to the spring, and back again. Dali, the Siamese pictured above, was one of many kittens born on that property. The cats and kittens formed a feral family. Their behaviors left us in wonder, sometimes. The old feral male, kind of rough looking, and not a all tame, sometimes sat on a log next to his son, our own loving outdoor pet. Their bond was evident.
Cat Parenting
When the son, the cat we named Mr. Meow, became a father to Dali’s kittens, he always groomed them and lay down near the box where they slept. When they were old enough to eat solid food, he stood by their bowl until they all had their fill. It was only then, when they were satiated, that he would eat the remainder.
These behaviors endeared these beings to us. It was by watching them as a family group that we could see their loving interactions. I’ve written more about the cat family in my blog post here.
We love cats and especially loved this gentle Tuxedo, who was with us for 18 years.
Baby Meow was with us for 18 years. We love cats and especially loved this gentle tuxedo.
Dali, the tiny Siamese kitten in the photo, was nineteen years old when she crossed the Rainbow Bridge in 2021. Without a pet, the house didn’t seem like a home. We sold our house. Since then we’ve traveled in many parts of Mexico and the Southwest of the USA. We are available for inquiries for house and cat-sitting your home in Mexico or the American Southwest. We are between houses now. As soon as we settle more permanently we know a beautiful cat or two will wander into our lives, purring. And our traveling days will probably be over.
Before we settle down again in our own home, we are offering our expertise as house and cat sitters. And yes, our experience as home owners even includes care of house plants and gardens, including lush greenery and desertscapes.
In the 1990s, We Built Our Own Home
For Carolyn the love started in her childhood. For Robert, it started later, when we built our house in Valley Springs, California. A feral cat gave birth to kittens while our home was under construction. Robert placed the mother and the kittens in a cloth-lined cardboard box and placed it under the porch. The mother cat was so appreciative that she followed us around our property whenever we went on walks. That family of cats was the start. We took walks every day. The cats lined up to follow us down the hill, to the spring, and back again. The house we built is pictured here- it was very beautiful, we were meticulous to get every detail right, but by the time construction was finished we were ready for a change of scenery!
The house we built with a big wraparound porch that protected the kittens and their mother. We will take excellent care of your home , as well as your pets, because we have have several homes and built this one ourselves!
Our background in house care includes remodeling, upgrading, and maintaining of several houses over the years as well as completing a Victorian-style country home, from the bare land to the finished project.
Available for House and Pet Sitting 2024
We are open to house sitting in the Coachella Valley in the summer months of this year, 2024 and in Mexico, the Chapala-Ajijic area, Mexico City or La Paz, Baja California.
We have references available and are happy to do a zoom or whatsapp call or two to see if we are a good fit.
I think it may be a good idea to own property toward the end of one’s life even though it may seem to be easier to rent a place and let the landlord take care of everything.
When I think about family members who owned property and those that didn’t, the ones who owned property managed to keep their property through long-term and terminal illness, with the property intact.
When an elderly person owns a property and the person becomes too old or ill to live in the property, the property can be used as a rental.
An elderly person who owns a property can cede the management of the property to a property manager who will take care of the maintenance and keep the property rented. The rent money left over after expenses can be used to help offset the cost of a long-term care facility or senior living center. Senior living centers are not cheap or free – they require an input of money. That money must come from a person’s retirement funds or pension or social security or all of it. Having a supplementary income of rent would help offset the expense.
The other option involves not owning a property, simply paying rent, and then moving to a senior facility when living on one’s own is no longer an option. This option may end up using all of a person’s cash reserves. At the end of life there may be nothing for any heirs and the individual may end up on public benefits with all of their personal assets sold by the state government in order to pay the final expenses at the senior care facility.
Although the individual who started out with property may still need to draw from their savings, pension and social security, at the end, the property would remain for the heirs, whether a charity or actual human heirs, to inherit.
Compatibility in astrology is viewed through the synastry and the composite chart. However, the relationship you get, even if the astrological compatibility in some areas is excellent, will be shaped by type of marriage partner you innately are, based on your own individual chart. This is a truth that you don’t often hear or read. But consider this as similar to cooking: if the ingredients aren’t all good, it doesn’t matter how great the recipe is.
Natal Complexity
Of course I don’t mean that someone or anyone has a bad chart. But some charts have such disparate juxtapositions of key planets in elements and modalities, that it would be very hard to find a partner who would complement the entire chart in every way. Back to my analogy to cooking, some foods may have such complex flavors that they would be hard to combine with a similarly complex flavored ingredient.
Other Significant Relationships
As a caring person, I look at both the synastry and composite charts to understand the relationship focus. Where is the complex blending, the sweet spot, tasty to both partners. Also, though the romantic partner relationship is key, it is but one of many relationships we cultivate over our lifetime. Relationships with our early caregivers, mom, dad, siblings, extended family, teachers and fiends are highly significant. I urge you to look at those relationships with care and focus, through the tools of astrology. You can choose from many options to see your chart(s) at astro.com.
Planetary Pairings
For marriage as a romantic sexual union, Venus and Mars are the most important to be good aspect to each other. But marriages also embody other types of relating or responsibilities. If it’s about nurturing children, then we would want to see Sun -Moon harmony and some nurturing aspects. If a person has a strong Mercury and an intellectual need for a communicative partner, then Mercury aspects take precedence. An older or sick person might need a partner who is more of a caregiver, then we see the strong harmonious Neptune or 12th house connection. Sports aficionados and social leaders will be looking toward Mars and Jupiter. Partnerships that focus on competitions like tennis would have first house, seventh house, Aries, and Libra highlighted.
Life Stages
As we go through different stages in our lives, it’s important to take our stage of life into consideration when comparing charts. The difference between a person’s value system or sense of self after the first or second Saturn return can be quite dramatic. Relationships based on a value system that has become outdated may need to find a new focus of communication and sharing.
The Transits Can Alter Our View of Our Relationships
Depending on your own chart, some transits can really alter your perception of your role or your partner’s role in the relation. And can alter your view of what kind of relationship you want or need. I wrote a short blog post you can find here.
Robert and I took the non-toll road to Izamal and it felt as if we were stepping back in time in the Yucatan. The non-toll road is slower going than the toll road and requires extra careful driving because of speed bumps on the road. These bumps, which are about 2 or 3 ft wide, several inches high, and cross from shoulder to shoulder, could do real damage to a car if approached too fast. They are not painted so they blend with the road top in most cases. They also are within towns as well as outside the towns. My guess is that as the towns grow along the highway, new bumps are placed near the city edge, while the old bumps, further within the town, remain. The towns have few cars, some motorcycles and there are people on foot or peddling tricycle carts.
In the Yucatan
The little villages are worth a look!
The non-toll road is an interesting road because of the little villages and towns it goes through. Each village has a town square and a church, both of which are usually photogenic. The churches are still in use. Often a funeral, wedding or other personal and familial event is in process.
Each town has a beautiful central church
Baños (Sanitarios) Public Bathrooms
Something I hadn’t seen before in Mexico when traveling are the signs for baños or sanitarios on some of the stores along the highway. The signs mean that the store is offering a bathroom to the public. The few that I have availed myself of were clean. The charge for using the bathroom is usually less than ten pesos, often five or eight. So it helps to have some change in pesos in your pocket. Of course there are restaurants, taco stands, and handcrafts in almost every town.
Izamal is one of our favorite towns
The yellow buildings in the main part of town, give Izamal an attractive and inviting appearance.
Named a Pueblo Magico because of its history and charm, Izamal is about an hour from Merida. Our first visit there was last fall. It’s a very peaceful place to stay, there are good restaurants and the people seem to be very welcoming. Actually it’s one of the favorite places we have visited on this three year journey in Mexico. For the time being, it is clean, quiet and not crowded, but I think it will become very popular now that the Maya train stops there. Once tourists discover its quaint charm, its good food, friendly people and the very big pyramids (big, though not really tall), it surely will grow.
This pyramid in Izamal doesn’t seem too impressive until you realize that the huge grassy field in the foreground is the flat top of the supporting pyramid.
Xcambo Archaeological Site
This is one of several reconstructed pyramid structures at Xcambo
From Izamal we drove to visit the Xcambo ruins near the coast on the northern side of the peninsula. My understanding is that this city of the long ago past was situated and successful because of the nearby salt flats and consequent trade in salt. While the reconstructed buildings aren’t big, intricately decorated or as grand like those at Uxmal or Chichen Itza, the site was more extensive that I expected and there are several building groups to explore. There is also the shell of a church, built right on a Mayan structure, obviously an effort of the Spaniards to overcome any lingering vestiges of the religious sensibilities of the Maya inhabitants there.
this church structure is built right on top of a pyramid’s entrance area
Mosquitoes cut short my enjoyment of the site, though, as I hadn’t applied repellent before I arrived and they got me!
The drive from Izamal took us through several small Maya towns. We noticed that the towns all had raised sidewalks. The sidewalks reminded us of the Maya sacbe ruins we have seen that once upon a time connected the ancient Maya towns to one another. We’ve seen vestiges of sacbes (sacbeob) at several sites. There is one, apparently, at Xcambo as well. In contemplating sacbes in the Yucatan, I think about the downpours of rain in this region and how this civilized people, the Maya, would have desired raised roads or sidewalks to keep their feet out of the muck.
Visiting Antigua, Guatemala, gave us views of this intermittent show from Fuego volcano as well as the experience of a 6.1 earthquake.
Recently I spent two and a half weeks visiting Antigua, Guatemala, the old capital of the Spanish kingdom of Guatemala. The city of Antigua,Guatemala, is a UNESCO world heritage site because of its history and beautiful architecture. I first visited there in 1963. Subsequent visits to Guatemala took me to the Mayan “capital” of Xela (Quetzaltenango), Chichicastenango, Tikal, and many other towns and sites.
Fears, generated by reports of the civil war that raged for two decades, kept me away until the 1990s, when I spent a few weeks in Antigua, learning Spanish one-on-one at a language school there (now defunct). I returned again a couple of years later. My recent visit was after a 25 year hiatus and I was very surprised by both the changed and the not-changed that I saw. This post will address some of the changes I noticed.
Brilliant Textiles
In 1963, brilliant textiles caught my eyes and I loved them. That hasn’t changed. Guatemalan still produce brilliantly colored hand crafted textiles. Vendors still wear the beautiful traditional Mayan garments. The women, wearing long skirts, intricately decorated woven belts, blouses which are called huipiles, fabric headgear, and shawls, carry baskets, laden with their wares, often on their heads.
Colorful purses, belts, shawls, and table runners line the market stairs.
Everyday clothing in the for most people in the region is now a mix of traditional and manufactured goods. People wear what they want to wear and what is affordable. Traditional Mayan garments are extremely time consuming to weave, therefore expensive, compared to manufactured clothing. Take a look at a Maya woman weaving in this video that Robert recorded at the museum of textiles in San Antonio Aguas Calientes. She is using a traditional backstrap loom.
Colonial Ruins
The earthquake of 1976 had a big effect on Antigua. While I visited in the 1990s, I didn’t pay much attention to architecture, as I was in Spanish class all day until nightfall. But on this recent trip, I visited some of the landmarks and old churches. Since returning home, I compared my old photos from 1963 to my new ones. Some of the ruins that were easily accessible are now gated or fenced off. On my next trip, I will chase down some of the ruins and find out more about their stories. On this trip, a two week visit, I developed a fever a few days after arriving, so I lost a few days of sightseeing. Hopefully, I will return soon to catch up with my original plans.
This courtyard photo with Volcan Agua was taken in 1963.
Food
Antigua has many restaurants that feature the cuisine of far off places, German, French, Italian and so forth. Because of its status as a world heritage destination, it has an international flavor. But my goal was to find a restaurant that featured a breakfast of fried plantains, beans, fruit, eggs, tortillas, and coffee, the traditional breakfast that I remembered from the 1960s. And, yes, I found restaurants that still serve just that type of breakfast.
Prices are a lot higher now than in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1990s. The food is delicious, the fruit and vegetables succulently flavorful.
I took this photo in the mercado central of Guatemala City.
Visiting Antigua, Guatemala, gives many options for dining! I was not disappointed.
Shoes and Water Jugs
In the highland areas outside of Antigua, in 1963, none of the Maya women I saw had shoes. The women carried water in a round jug made of clay on their heads. By 1964, many of the women were still carrying water, but in plastic jugs, the same color and shape as the clay jugs. Too, shoes had been introduced. They were a type of plastic in bright colors. I think they were imported from China. Now, 60 years later, almost every person I saw had some type of shoe. However, I didn’t stray very far from Antigua, so I can’t write about the highland villages.
In Antigua, where water comes to a public central location, water now is piped to residences. You can see the women washing in the photos at a 2012 article on Antigua here.
Cooking Fires
Women I saw in 1963 made meals over charcoal or wood fires and inhaled a lot of smoke. I didn’t really pay attention to that in 1963, but during my visit in 1970, I realized that it would be a very difficult life if I had to cook over such a smoky hearth. I know that women still cook over smoky fires in many parts of Guatemala. Though other forms of stoves are available, for reasons of tradition or cost, many women have not given up their centuries old cooking techniques and tools.
Cell Phones
Cell phones are common in and around Antigua. This could have surprised me, but it didn’t. I wasn’t surprised, because of the conversation I had with a fellow American during lunch while in Antigua in 1997.
The lady I met over lunch worked for AT&T. She was in Guatemala, working on a project to bring cell phones to Guatemala. I expressed surprise. After all, many people in the USA did not have cell phones at that time. She told me that mobile or cell phone technology was a no-brainer for developing countries, as the in-ground phone infrastructure was dilapidated and inefficient. It would be costly and almost impossible to bring it into the 21st Century. So, her company planned for cell phone technology to bypass all the old infrastructure. The new towers would bring Guatemala and other third world countries into the modern era of communications. And so it is! Cell phones are everywhere. Sim cards are available at the airport and at little shops all around Antigua. I bought one immediately and put it in my dual SIM phone and had cell service, data and phone calls.
My life took a special turn in 1968, when I moved to Mt. Shasta. The special and amazing gift to me of teaching and demonstrating yoga came “by chance”.
Here I relate my preparation for teaching Yoga, demonstrating yoga and explaining yoga to people to whom it was really foreign. (I know it is hard to imagine, now, that yoga was an unusual practice in the USA in the 1960s.)
San Francisco in the 1960s had a smallish size and big city opportunities.
My introduction to yoga was in my high school gym class around 1962. My training as a dancer since three years old had given me a dancer’s grace and flexibility. Yoga seemed a good fit. By 1966, convinced by my reading of Autobiography of a Yogi and several books on Hatha Yoga from the library, I dedicated myself to the practice. Practicing on my own several hours a day, I also took classes from Sivaram and other teachers in San Francisco.
Avid Reader
As an avid reader, I then devoured books about yoga, yogis, yogic, mystic and “Hindu” traditions. Browsing the library shelves, I focused on the shelves in the 180-200s of the Dewey Decimal System, the books on ancient, medieval, and eastern philosophy. At that time, the main library in San Francisco had open stacks. There was access to arcane and obscure books decades old. It was a time of great opportunity for me to learn.
This study was full time and intense, I had no other work. I lived on savings and proceeds from the sale of the stock that my grandmother had bought me when I was a baby.
A Beautiful Practice
The classes, books, and the four hours of practice every day, coupled with the graceful training of 16 years of dance bestowed a beautiful practice, which was private to me. It showed in my body, though, and in my face, my countenance.
Carolyn, 1969s. The yoga practice changed my appearance, softening my features.
One of the books I brought home from the library was an “I AM” book, published by the St. Germaine society based in Mt. Shasta. Unbeknownst to me, this book and others in the series were normally available only to the members of the I AM organization based in Mt. Shasta.
A believer in miracles at that time, I avidly read this book about sightings of high spiritual figures on Mt. Shasta and the superconscious that is accessible to humans who focus on the I AM presence above the human frame.
Mt. Shasta towers over the surrounding landscape.
On the last page of the book was an image of Mt. Shasta. The book had activated a desire in me to go to this mountain, which, a few years before, I had passed on the way to Seattle without much of a second look.
I focused on that little picture in the book and strongly said to myself “Oh how much I want to go to Mt. Shasta”.
Whether weeks or months passed, I don’t remember. But one day, my brother, who I hadn’t seen in a long time, came by with a woman I hadn’t met. He said to me: “I want you to meet my new woman. Her name is Vera. We got jobs in Mt. Shasta. Do you want to come with us?”
My brother did not know anything about my desire to go to Mt. Shasta. Nobody knew. It was just a strong thought that came to me at the close of the book. The miracle was right there in my brother’s question, though. My brother had never moved out of the Bay Area. He had never had a “new woman” but had been married for 13 years. Separating from his wife, getting a new partner, and moving 300 miles away was really out of his normal context.
Of course I moved to Mt. Shasta, staying with my brother for a few months with snow piled up everywhere that winter.
I continued my yoga practices. At the time I was somewhat oblivious to the cold. Taking cold showers toughened me. I slept with the windows open. In the mornings, icicles hung past the opening. I stood on my head outside. If anyone was paying attention to me, I didn’t notice. Like a drunk passed out on on a sidewalk, I was drunk with the power of yoga. But my brother was noticing. And soon he talked to people about his sister, who was freezing out his home with open windows and standing on her head.
I introduced yoga classes
As a result, people wanted to learn what I was doing. My own teacher, Sivaram, told me to go ahead and teach. I gave demonstrations and taught classes in various homes and in my own rented cabin in City Park.
The energy of the sacred mountain permeated my life there. There was no doubt that I was blessed, that my “overself” or spiritual consciousness was accessible there. I reached people who later taught yoga themselves, an ever widening circle of spiritual and physical well being.
Mundane, but joyful
Moving from Mt. Shasta in 1970 began a different period of my life, a life of responsibility, which was unfamiliar and difficult at first. Gradually, this, too, transformed into a life creative and joyful. Wherever I lived, I taught yoga. Like a tiny pebble thrown into a calm pond, ripples made their way to shores far from their source. Many of my friends and students reached farther than I could have ever dreamed.
Although I’ve taken classes and workshops from many teachers over the years, some quite famous, the path of yoga practice and teaching that captivated my students was that of Sivaram, my first real “in person” teacher. I might add, I find no web presence for him, no bio or any information. Funny that. The most influential and powerful people may often be quite unknown.
My path of Yoga involved lots of imitation, at first. I read Autobiography of a Yogi in 1966 and believed every word of the book. Shortly afterwards, several things converged to shape and define what it was that I was practicing or thought I was practicing.
I began a Hatha Yoga practice, based on an Indra Devi book and daily followed her suggested routine. Within weeks of that beginning, I had the good fortune to attend the Mantra Rock Dance at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco. There I heard the great Maha Mantra, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. Allen Ginsberg introduced both the chant and the great teacher and devotee, Swami Bhaktivedanta. The crowd joined in the chanting while a memorable light show lit up the ballroom.
Forging My Own Path
Soon after, I attended the storefront Krishna Temple three evenings per week. I listened carefully to the lectures by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, later given the title of Prabhupada. I enjoyed Hatha Yoga classes at the Cultural Integration Fellowship, taught by Shivaram. Shivaram also taught South Indian dance. As a member of his dance class, I performed as a gopi in a play with the other student dancers. The play, about the saint Tukaram, was written and produced by Sant Keshavadas.
Sivaram taught yoga and dance at the Cultural Integration Fellowship. Here he is dancing the part of Lord Krishna. I am one of the pictured gopis, on the right of the photo.
There were many opportunities for learning Indian philosophy and choosing a guru at that time. But I could not choose a guru – there was something that didn’t ring true for me. Forging my own path seemed more authentic, somehow. Something I neglected to add to my practice, mostly because I didn’t believe in it, was use of affirmations. I didn’t believe that the words we said to ourselves had much bearing on our reality. Now I know, however, that our self-talk is very important to all aspects of growth and change.
Rising Early to Practice
I read several books each week related to yoga, its history, philosophy, legends, illuminated masters and so forth, and developed a practice of arising at 3 am every morning to do two or three hours asana, pranayama and meditation. In the evenings I returned to my tiny room for a different set of postures, more meditation and chanting in the evenings. It wasn’t hard at all to do this practice as I had a natural propensity to solitary study and solitary acrobatics from childhood. It was more of a matter of applying the new practices that I was learning.
Imitation
In the meantime, I wondered how long it would take to be just like Ramana Maharshi, Yogananda, Bhaktivedanta Swami, or Meher Baba, or any of the other illuminated masters whose photos I had above my little altar.
How strange that seems, now. We are no longer in the age of gurus, at least in the modern world around me. But it was because of having idealized these personages that I put forth the effort to develop my practice. As I matured, I began to realize that it wasn’t about imitating another, it is about developing a relationship with one’s own Self.
My Path of Yoga Included Family Talents
I also recognized that, for some of us, there are also obligations to ones ancestors, unspoken obligations which propel us to express ourselves in certain ways. It is almost, karmically, as if we cannot move ahead spiritually without discharging our family duty. (The guru system seems to imply that the guru takes the student on and all family obligations are dismissed. Since that was not the path I followed, I did have family obligations.)
What is those? Well, it surely is different for each family. And, within each family, each member may manifest that duty differently. And, the word duty doesn’t imply that it is arduous, necessarily, just that it needs to be expressed. This was brought home to me in 1981. I had been working as a stained glass artist/craftsperson for several years. It was an art form that I “fell into” because there was a modest demand for stained glass windows in my community and it was work that I could do at home, yet still be available for my two young children.
Stained Glass Window by Carolyn Relei
The Tiffany Exhibition 1981
In 1981, the Tiffany Exhibition came to San Francisco’s De Young Museum. The museum bookstore accepted my lampshades on consignment there and sold quite a few of them. This brought me a bit of local fame, with a newspaper article and a spot on the Sacramento News 10. At some point during the months when my works were in the museum I had a very vivid dream.
The Dream
My family members were all in my dream, my aunts and uncles, as if at a big family event. All of a sudden, in walked Nono, my grandfather, who had died years before. My grandfather’s skin, in the dream, was green, the same color as the skin of Osiris, the Egyptian god of the dead. I said to my grandfather, in surprise, “Nono, I thought you were dead!” And he said, “I am dead, I just came back to tell you that I am very proud of you that you have your work at the De Young Museum”. Then I woke up. Nono was an artist, he always answered when asked what his occupation was. But actually, painting pictures was his hobby. With seven children to support, he was a house painter by trade. But he felt inside that he was an artist. Many family members follow an artistic path, two of Nono’s children were very able artists. Artistic giftedness has carried on in his grandchildren and great grandchildren .
I can’t ignore my hands’ needs to create things of utility and beauty. The work itself is a kind of prayer.
It was 1967, Haight Ashbury, San Francisco and I was in the newly opened Hare Krishna store-front temple. The temple was next-door to the Diggers, near the Panhandle. The temple’s swami and founder, Swami Bhaktivedanta, as he was known then, gave lectures and led chanting. I attended on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings. Usually less than a dozen people attended these lectures. The swami chanted prayers, led group chanting with his harmonium, and gave a lecture. His lectures were mesmerizing. Incredibly articulate, he ended his lectures by asking us if we had any questions. I was far too shy in that setting to ask any. But the others weren’t so shy. They asked questions about many topics, many about the Viet Nam war. That conflict was disrupting life for many of us. War and peace were the pressing issues of the times.
The disruptor of my life was my own actions
While the real disruptor of my life at that time was my own actions, I also fretted on the ongoing war. I couldn’t fathom why the war had started and why it wasn’t ending. The government’s reasons seemed unconvincing for many of us. Coupled with our lack of belief in the need for the war was our real fear of escalation. Growing up, many of my age mates and I heard that World War 2 was the last survivable war. Many believed that future war would lead to the use of nuclear weapons and end life on earth. We wanted the guru to tell us something about politics or how to end the war. But his message about war and peace was quite different than I expected.
Conflict is part of life on earth
What he told us was that war and conflict was part of life on earth. This elderly man, the swami, told us that the only way out was to chant the holy names of God. He offered that Hare Krishna was the very best transcendental method to use. Yet, he encouraged us to chant Jesus’ or any name we normally used to connect to God. In that way, he opined, we will be transcendental to the world. He said that the world only ever offers conflict, but spiritual life gives a way to transcend the conflict. I didn’t really believe what he said back then. Yet the world is still as full of conflict as ever, despite organizations, movements, and moneys spent to establish peace. His words echo more true as the years pass by.
Transcending the Conflict
I took up the swami’s suggestion, not immediately, but over time. Within the year, 1967, I gradually incorporated meditation, hatha yoga, chanting, and prayer into my life. Reading scriptures of many faiths, along with attending classes and lectures, supported my journey. With the insights initially provided by Swami Bhaktivedanta, I perceived the common spiritual thread that connects humanity.
The gist of swami’s message is that we are able to transcend the conflict that is intrinsic to earth-life experience. We transcend, not by changing the earth, but by changing ourselves.
