Greetings friend,
Night is quiet in the desert, and cool. A good time to
touch base
with our dear ones as our US tour draws to a close and we prepare
to leap
off into six months of international travel. In a few days we
will be in
Tucson where our Beloved Elephant will be put to rest and we will
organize
our stuff for the next chapter.
Blessing of all blessings we will be sending piles of
it to Maui
where Anahata and I are renovating a retreat cabin on the Kanaio
land that
I have homesteaded with Stan since 1979. We have decided ....
home will be
on Maui. As soon as we get settled we plan to look around and
see if we can
find some land for "Tara's Gardens". We want to establish
a place where
students and friends can come to dance and study, to practice
and deepen.
Our time on Maui this July/August was precious, reconnecting
with
so many old friends. Lama Tenzin's presence is still very much
at the
Dharma Center and plans for the temple proceed.
We celebrated a one day Tara Dance Retreat in Huelo at
Bamboo
Farms. This area used to be the Maui Dharma Center Retreat land,
sold to
finance the Paia Center expansion. I had done my first long (one
month)
retreat in a cabin on this Huelo land many years ago. Now it is
being
cultivated with exquisite cottages, pools, gardens. The ocean
view is
stunning, the jungle lush. Kutira, mistress of the current development,
has
asked that we teach there again so we will be sure to let you
know when we
do. We held our Annual Tara Dhatu meeting in one of the gardens
after the
retreat and then drove to town to feast and celebrate one more
year of
Tara's blessed activity.
Back in Portland, our BE was happy to see us. The Tara
statue that
Dagmola had filled with precious objects had given her good protection.
Her coat had been touched up by Bill Matthews when Anahata was
in Seattle.
He painted a dolphin over one window and her name, " Beloved
Elephant" now
dances across the front panel over the windshield.
We loaded her up and headed to Ashland, Oregon to Dance Tara.
The
beautiful, gracious and vivacious Shoshanna had organized a radio
interview for us early Friday morning. The young interviewer was
a surfer
who couldn't imagine sitting still to meditate. We told him we
had the
perfect solution .... dance into the mind's depth. A woman called
and signed
up for the workshop then and there.
Shoshanna had done a great deal of promotion in town,
but she had
never seen the Tara Dance before so there were a lot of surprises.
As the
mandala gathered, fires were burning in the hills. The summer
heat was
relentless. We heard that our dear friend Kalehua had died of
a brain
tumor. As usual, there was lots to pray for.
The Grange Hall had been decorated exquisitely, the Taras
danced to
a packed audience. We sealed the evening with White Tara, two
huge circles
blessing each other.
The next day we contemplated taking a leisurely drive
down the
coast to our next event near Berkeley. Shuffling some papers,
Anahata
discovered that a grant application she had intended to submit
was due in
two days. This application would allow PBS to finance the editing
of her
next documentary, using footage from the upcoming pilgrimage.
We found it interesting that the two evening events planned for
that week
had cancelled, all for mysterious reasons, making it possible
for us to
spend two days getting the application and all its attendant documents,
descriptions etc. raced off to the overnight mail just in time
to meet the
deadline. Whew.
We did get to El Cerrito a day early. We found Karen Metta
and her
crew balanced on high ladders dressing the Hillside Church with
prayer
flags. Friends had flown in from all over for this last Tara Dance
of our
US tour; Sabira from Brazil. Beatriz from New Mexico. Kris from
Ohio.
Andrea Abinanti from Nepal, Mekare from North Carolina. We had
32 dancers
and two musicians.
Sunday night the hall was full to overflowing with audience.
A local
Tibetan had loaned us beautiful wall hangings and when he arrived
we
discovered that he was the brother of Tashi, the proprietress
of the Happy
Valley Guest House where our pilgrims stayed in Nepal. Tashi was
visiting
her daughter, Pasang, who had settled in Berkeley. We were all
thrilled to
see each other, at such an auspicious event.
We had two beautiful chairs arranged in the front of the room,
one for Lama
Kunga Rinpoche who would be the officiating Lama that evening
and one for
Jetsun Kushog. Jetsunma is a sister of Sakya Trizon, said to be
an
emanation of Vajra Yogini and one of the first Lama's I received
the 21
Tara empowerments from.
Just as we were getting them settled, in walked the most astounding
party.
A very large Tulku with piercing, laughing eyes was introduced
to me as
Adzom Paylo Rinpoche, a very high Nyingma Lama from Tibet. The
woman in
red and white robes translating for him was Ann Klein, authoress
of "The
Bliss Queen", a magnificent book about Yeshe Tsogyal. Rinpoche
introduced
a shy young Tibetan woman in robes as his sister, an emanation
of Tara
Herself and a curious young Tibetan man in robes as another high
Tulku. We
all scrambled madly to find suitable chairs for our unexpected
guests. We
later learned that accompanying them was a woman who had danced
Tara before
and when she told them about the Tara Dance taking place that
evening the
Rinpoche insisted on coming. His sister was especially keen to
meet Jetsun
Kushog!!!
The dance was ecstatic and all our distinguished guests agreed
to be placed
in the center of our Dances of Universal Peace circles. They laughed
and
sang to Tashi Delek and The 4 Immeasurables. We danced White Tara,
facing
these amazing teachers and wishing them the blessing of long life
and good
health. Lama Kunga then offered a profound empowerment of Black
Tara, the
remover of obstacles.
It took two days to recover from that one. To our good fortune
the event in
Santa Cruz cancelled....not enough registrations oh we were so
grateful.
Jacqueline and her sweetheart Rigdzin helped us with our shopping.
Fresh and spunky we headed south for an evening of Dances of Universal
Peace in San Luis Obispo. Just past San Jose I hear a loud bang
and BE
tried to do the St. Vitus dance across the freeway. A blowout!!
Anahata hitting full panic register in the back, sure that we
were on fire
(a bit of rubber smoke came in one of the vents). I coaxed our
dear
elephant to the side of the road. We were so fortunate....it was
one of the
rear tires....there are four tires on the rear. The tire well
looked kind
of mangled...
Good Sam (the RV equivalent of AAA) to the rescue once again.
The repair
truck arrived, a huge multiracial, multi national three earrings
in one
smiling from ear to ear fellow wrestled the tire off and the wheel
well
back into its original shape. One of the shocks was dangling....he
assured
me it was just a bolt and easily repaired. We followed him to
the yard, got
the shock re-bolted and found a used tire exactly the size we
needed.
We pulled up in San Luis Obispo with half an hour to set up. There
were
over 40 dancers that night. The love we shared was so precious,
it was as
if the whole universe was smiling.
We followed Yarrow and Kara home to their cottage in Morro Bay
resolving to
get up early so we could beat the traffic through Los Angeles,
four hours
south.
I managed to harass poor Anahata through a hasty sip of juice,
not even a
cup of tea and we were on the road. Beautiful California coast
summer day.
Touch of cool as the last shreds of fog burned off. She went back
to bed as
I tooled along. Two hours down the road we stopped at the Carpinteria
State
Beach to make some breakfast, A sweet spot, Rv-ers without permits
could
claim a space for the day, and it available for one night. We
took note.
But we had a meeting arranged with Jennifer, the registrar of
the upcoming
pilgrimage, that evening at Desert Hot Springs, so Anahata took
the wheel
and off we went.
Around a bend headed downhill she suddenly reported that she had
lost
control of the accelerator pedal, it was flat on the floor, engine
fully
revved. Fortunately we could gear down and the brakes allowed
us to coax BE
to the side of the road once again.
Groan. I think it is the accelerator cable. Hi Sam. Yes, same
folks that
called you....yesterday was it? um. Lovely woman on the other
end does her
best to reassure us. Tow truck arrives faster than the highway
patrol we
requested. We were so close to the freeway, trucks were thundering
by
inches from disaster.
No problem lady. The two tow guys were the epitome of California
laid back
nothing to worry about go ahead ride in the back of the RV while
we tow
(this is against the law but it was fun) we'll take care of everything.
The garage mechanic said he would look at it and recommended
we go
wait in the air conditioned restaurant next door. Expecting a
long session
on the computer over juice and cream pie, I barely had time to
order when
the mechanic came grinning over to the table.
You are in luck, he said. A bolt had fallen off the air
conditioning unit and had wedged itself under the accelerator
pedal. No
repair. Just had to bolt it back up. No problem.
Of course all this extra activity meant it would be major
rush hour
in LA. We went back to the beach. Caught some nice body surfing
waves.
Watched the sunset. Slept long and deep. Woke up to more beach.
Breakfast.
And through LA after morning traffic. OLE!!
BE heated up as we headed into the Valley but it was manageable
and
we pulled into Sam's Family Hot Springs Resort early afternoon.
Jennifer
had arrived a bit ahead of us, scouted the town and discovered
this spot
had a motel room for her and a set of eight mineral pools of varying
temperatures nestled in palm gardens, Koi ponds and other colorful,
artistic touches. They stayed open late so we could do our work
in the
comfort of BE's raging air conditioner, and then languish in the
pools to
recover from the days exertions. One more day of bookwork and
Jennifer will
head back to San Diego and we will drive through the desert at
night to
give our BE a break.
May the Great Goddess continue to shine her protective
gaze upon us
all. May blessings fill our lives with inspiration and joy.
|
|
|