Hello again, dear readers. I don’t know if I can describe the way that I am greeted here, all day long…like a beloved auntie who has finally returned… I am the oldest member of this community and therefore Pa Joy**, which means Auntie Joy, to all. Some of these relationships go back decades. We traveled Thailand together with Khun Mae and shared some challenges, too. It was my birthday last week…and I tend to be a...
Read MoreSawadhi kha, 🙏dear readers. My first day in Thailand felt quite significant, for myself and for the entire community. Some of you may recall from last year’s Tales: I reported a sense of physical and energetic deterioration in the S.D.S. (Bangkok) center’s vitality level.For one thing, Ajahn Chom’s work crew was spending all their time in the southern center, creating fantastic new water features and landscaping miracles every...
Read MoreHello again, dear readers. You all have reminded me why I write these Tales. Every year I experience prolonged labor and difficulty with Tales #1. My primary symptom is a sense of over-exposure… like I’m on YouTube giving birth. Then your responses come rolling in, almost immediately, bursting with the enthusiasm of shared confessions, and relief (this year) to be “not the only one” who is so damn crazy and strung out on...
Read MoreHola, my dear readers. Harvesting veggies in the community garden I like to imagine each year is totally different from the one preceding it…. But I do seem to recall that the exact same thing occurred last year …hmmmm: I arrived here in the lovely town of La Paz (Baja Sur) and sloughed into a pleasantly vegetative state, setting up my little 1950’s kitchen, getting my drinking water, renting a bicycle…. And revisiting my...
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Heading south to SDS II, known as Bodhisattva Valley, we began to feel lighter and lighter. Nawng Joy, Aey and I have a way of sparking each other into silly happiness. Here we are at a lunch stop along the way. Yes, rice paddies are really that green. I packed pillows and extra towels and bedding into my luggage, in order to survive a week of sleeping directly on the cement floor like I did two years ago. And ear plugs, to drown out...
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Hello, dear readers, or sawadhi kha. I’m here at the center now, in Bangkok. My dearest friends Nawng Joy and Aey picked me up at the fancy hotel where I was quarantined. They had spent all day, like many other days, in conferences about the future of S.D.S. now that Khun Mae is gone. Nawng Joy explained that my home here had been uninhabitable until VERY recently: i.e. just before I arrived. She had appealed to a young and wealthy...
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Greetings, dear readers…. From 30,000 feet up in the air! I realized, in the middle of this 11-hour flight, that there is another Tale to be told, between the Baja and Thailand (where I’ll be, in eighteen more hours en sh’allah). And this is my only chance to write it. Maria, wife of Odin, at the bird sanctuary I said goodbye to my sacred spots, took a couple outings with my host family, and taught a few more yoga classes to my...
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Hello again, dear readers. This will be, I suspect, my last Tale from the Baja. As is often the case with liminal experiences, (the frontier between two perceived phenomenon – e.g. sunrise, sunset, birth or “death,” as we like to call it) …my senses are heightened today, especially with the fullness of the moon and the prospect of leaving Mexico very soon. Visiting with the whales seems to have filled a deep longing that...
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Hello again, dear readers. Having shared the beauty of my landlord Clemente in the last Tale, I thought it would be fair to also feature Carmen and her family. The mom (Rosa, in pink) teaches ancient history at the university here. Dad tinkers with his enormous collection of antique clocks and watches. Yesterday, we all sat in the patio and I shared pranayama and yoga for a couple hours, while they took turns entertaining the...
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Hello again, dears. In case some of you looked at, but didn’t actually “see” my landlord Clemente, in Tales #3…. I wanted to give y’all another opportunity. … to understand the nature of my home here, a personal Museo Folklorico that he has created: Each corner has a theme, not unlike Wattle Hollow.left, music…to the right, social consciousness. I originally had plans to stay here in the Baja for a month. Obviously,...
Read MoreHello again, dear readers. Thanks again for your heartfelt response to the Tales. You might be surprised to know how very vulnerable I feel when I send them out. The mural (below) is new this year…. It is near my morning meditation spot on the bay. I’ve been studying the difference between looking and seeing, for decades. For instance, I had looked at the mural above and admired it a couple times before, but didn’t actually “see” it...
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Hello again, dear readers. Thank you for your very kind response to the first Tales. This #2 will not be as action-packed. Like many Boomers my age, I am merely sitting out the winter, with very little human interaction, waiting for this insanely infectious Omicron variant to run its course. This is not a loss for me. I relish the time to invest in my own inner landscape….like my “Honeymoon with God” time during my solo summer...
Read MoreHello dear readers. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? So many of you, especially longtime readers, either sweetly or plaintively, inquired about the loss of these Tales the last two years…. Plus, my teacher and Astral Tour Guide, Anna Cox, made it abundantly clear in November that I WOULD resume this year. The ghoul in the photo above is Anna’s husband Jim. I visited them on Halloween, as I was passing through Little Rock on my way to...
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Above is the Chinese dragon, on New Year’s Day. We are now in the year of the Metallic Rat. Below is my favorite “dragon,” and also my closest neighbor here at S.D.S. The photo is actually the baby. Mama appeared last month and posed for five minutes, but I didn’t have my camera with me…what a tease! Mama has grown to (at least) eight feet long now. For you left-brain readers, those brick tiles in the photo are approximately 14”. This...
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Wattle Hollow is a relatively small retreat center (40 acres of woodlands on a mountainside in Northwest Arkansas) with capacity for 20 - 25 folks.