The last night at the ashram.

It was a bizaare evening. I have to process this and then write something worth saying. For now I can say that Devi Bhava in November is an amazing and beautiful way to say thank you.

The thirteen seed portal.

There's a paper I'm supposed to be writing for a class at City College. The paper is about the Mayans and time and the esoteric nature of the glyphs and then about the nahuales. Maybe I should write a paper about the relationship between a nahual and the Skywalker time glyph. The website put out (I think) by the famous Mayan time professor Jose Arguelles is the source of my knowledge about the glyphs. The portal website names each day's figure glyph and its placement within the tone element.

When I saw Amma a very special estoteric glyph was on that calendar day. The blue eagle representing the eyes of the divine, the viewing of all as divine, in the now, in the present, the ultimate present. The tone was rhythmic, after the 3rd and 4th dimensions comes the rhythmic pulsating of the universe.

I got darshan with Amma this morning.

We left for the ashram in San Ramon at about 7:15. My friend who normally drives a taxi cab for income was driving. Both my other friend and I didn't have to drive! She was shuttling people back and forth three times a day. That's just too much and too generous. Thursday I took some people in my car, and I was feeling like a taxi driver. Maybe I've driven to the ashram with lots of people over the years and I felt like not having to worry about the driving. My car is a five-speed, so I especially have to be aware at all times about what gear the car is in and etc.

In any case, I was so grateful that I could sit and anticipate my experience with Amma. I had not idea when we first got there and the ashram was closed off that I would get darshan tonight with Amma. We missed her initial talk, which is something I always enjoy. But we sat for about an hour and a half in the ashram after getting tokens, and Amma was smiling at everyone and giving darshan with intention and sweetness.

I was so happy to get a kiss on the head! And one of the people in our group, a visitor from Germany wanted to get blessed with me. It was really nice. I'm always alone when I meet Amma, and tonight was special.

We got shuttled out to the car about five miles away from the ashram and headed for San Francisco. Someone at the ashram shop asked me if I were going to the retreat this weekend. I had to say no. Monday night is Devi Bhava. I have to go!!! Even if I don't get darshan with Amma, I want to be there to see her again.

Amma is coming on Thursday.

Mata Amritanandamayi is my mother. She is Amma. Read the biography by Judith Cornell. It gives some insight into a person who is more than a person. There are many gurus in India, and there are many spiritially-inspired and gifted people within the Hindu/Buddhist prayer construct.

When I listen to bhajans, I am content. Driving is not that difficult. (I have an 8-hour cd of bhajans written by Amma--it's called the Bhakti Pod, because Amma is Bhakti, self-less love.)

She will be here on the Amurikan holiday of Thanksgiving. I've been thinking about the "holidays" of Autumn: Indigenous People's Day, Dia de los Muertos, Samhain, Diwali, and now Thanksgiving. These months can be dreary upon people's emotions and psyche (see the events in France, the strikes). People are empowered. Somehow Thanksgiving is the perfect day to see Amma. All of us vegetarians will be gathered together to pray for everyone we know and don't know as well as ourselves. It will be a good thing to do.

The Visionary Activist and Planet Glee

Last Saturday, a week ago, I got to meet a person I'd heard on the radio--KPFA--many times and have always had something to say to. It was very weird. I had listened to her lecture at the Green Festival and then bought her book. I stood in line and bought her book. After talking with her, I see that she is a person thinks deeply on some of the same topics that I do. I'm not into American politics the way she is, for instance. Maybe I don't understand her point of view completely. We differ in that she uses western astrology for her interpretations and I believe that Vedic is more accurate.

I'm writing about Caroline Casey (I almost wrote Carolyn Myss--who is that?). Her book is entitled MAKING THE GODS WORK FOR YOU. Yeah. I read about my least favorite one of the gods, Shiva, Saturn. He is not one to be ruled! She writes, "Saturn is our...basic center. In fact, this god lives in our real center, the psychic uterus, right below our navel.

The word hysteria, derived from the Latin word for uterus, addresses this Saturnine issue of loss of center...A therapeutic colleague once described hysteria as occurring when one evters a world that is not of one's own definition. THe process beigns with detachment, which becomes loneliness, which becomes hungry yearning. Hurngy yearning tilts us off balance so that we easily fall into someone else's game, where we then thrash crasily like a hooked fish. Thrashing crazily could be called the predomeineant symptom of the last twentieth century. But flailing is actually a healthy raction to an unhealthy situation, as when a fish attempts to become unhooked. (p.86)"

Caroline is a genius. Saturn is impossible to comprehend. But she demystifies this force while making it even more mysterious--akin to our "center," not in the Derridean sense or Freudian, but in the psychic sense, the realm of Ouspensky and Gurdieff, of the esoteric school.

She and I agreed that Vedic has its similar interpretations of the planets. The first Vedic text I read was Robert Svoboda's Light on Life.

The American idea of DARJEELING LIMITED

It's been a while since I've blogged. I like the word blog. It sounds like blob. In the film BILLY ELLIOTT, our main character says something like "Don't be a blob..."
--or something like that. I didn't get the meaning and context.

Perhaps I don't get the meaning and context of the newly-released Wes Anderson film DARJEELING LIMITED. Starting Friday, November 9th, this weekend started the Diwali celebration. Everything Indian, all Friday night and all weekend. On Friday I saw one of Shahrukh Khan's latest film in which he plays the coach of a women's hockey team that goes to the World Cup. Kind of a sleeper, and Shahrukh barely smiles (his most entertaining facial expression), it was worth some Diwali fun.

There is no excuse for DARJEELING LIMITED. It is purely annoying. I forgot that I mentioned that I might not understand the context. Actually, I think I do. It's another Hollywoood slap in the face to the American worker, to the people who go see films in the theater and buy popcorn and veggie dogs and whatever. This is a wannabe French farce yet instead insults and bores us all the way along.

There are three supposed brothers whom we meet together on a train in India. Although I think Adrien Brody is a great actor, and he is the only one worth watching in the film, I can't believe he would--as an Engishman--make fun of India. Yes, he can't rescue the Indian boy from the downcurrent, etc., and he is invited to the child's cremation, there is no respect paid to India and its rich culture and people.

Owen Wilson puts me to sleep, and just how is Jason Schwartzman? Certainly not the hearthrob this film makes him out to be. These characters never wonder about money. They have an unlimited cash flow. THey have matching, expensive luggage. They dress like French guys often do in suit jacket and unbuttoned buttoned, tailored shirt. They soulless monied Amurikans in a country that experiences some of the deepest poverty on earth. I failed to see the humor and I hope that most Amurikans will not even wonder what India is like. THey will be overwhelmed if they were to visit this beloved, sacred land.