Batten Down the Hatches, The Name of the Game is Survival

Alright, before I forget, this is the other Mary Oliver poem Sarah passed on. I apologise about the spacing being wiggy on the poem, even though I was a cuttin' and a pastin', hi-tech computer scrapbooking. Me and the ever raging battle I wage against my tendency to become a luddite. Dang and 'tarnation paw, what does the F7 key on this keyboard do again?

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--over and over

announcing your place in the family of things.

Oh but you see why I love this poem, even more than the first. See that second line again: You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. I read it and thought, how does she know me? This Mary Oliver woman? I've never met her before in my life but it's like she's been watching me, following me.

Before you think I'm totally loopy, just let me say I definitely did not drink enough water yesterday, trying to make up for it today.

Yesterday, we stayed hunkered down at the hotel all day, where a young western boy decided to paint ball me while I was enroute to the outdoor loo...and this is why one should consider bargaining for the room with the toilet and shower, even if the smell coming from the toilet keeps you awake at night. Because you never know when it's a National Holiday and time to throw a massive rave.

For Holi, also known as the colour festival, everyone (Read: men, boys, males. The women don't do this. I believe they stay home and weave their loomcrafts) is supposed to drink bang lassis, mix the crazy wild crayola colours with shoe polish or kerosene (depending on who's telling you the story of how this colour gets mixed) and then grab you and smush the colour into your face or any other body parts they can grab.

So, thanks to this boisterous Western kid who, to my skeptical eye wanted to have all the Holi fun but not neccessarily respect anything else about the Hindu religion, a hotel staff fellow, Sir Laxman Esq., sees me and thinks, "Well she's not coloured enough," and grabs my head and then, voila, he rubs dark paint mixed with some kinda shoe polish into my skin. The sides of my face, forehead, and my neck were purple. Deep, dark purple.

I washed my face for an hour yesterday and had a shower and the colour is still on my ears. Now it's faded pink. I knew enough to wear clothes I didn't care about - they're a lost cause. Tons of young ravers types went out dressed all in white, and first they splashed themselves and the other guests, and then they went into the fray and came back looking like something Jackson Pollock would have barfed up. Later, the street was covered in this pale pink dusty powder. It was everywhere. 75% of the shops and restaurants were closed, everyone had had their bang lassis and it was super chill out time.

Then we went stir crazy. When it was safe to venture out (after 6p.m.) we ended up at the best selection juice bar on the road and this one woman told us she'd walked out to have breakfast, got smeared by 4 kids, ran back to her Hotel and stayed inside drinking Nescafe coffee all day and starving as her hotel didn't have a restaurant on the premises. She seemed normal, until she mentioned that one woman she met told her about being was chased down by 7 Indian men and running like mad. "It sounded like it might have been fun" was what this juice-bar-woman said. Uh huh. Like being killed in a stampede, those people who die while running with the bulls in Spain. Like people who do death-defying things to feel alive, to remind themselves they're alive. Like, not my issue, seriously not. I have my mixed bag thank you very much, but that kind of madness is not my particular problemo - as they say somewhere in the world. I know I'm alive everyday, when I wake up and think "What the hell is going on in my lower back?"

I know, I know that sounds sad. But as if you mistook me for a thrillseeker. Get real.

And you thought I sounded loopy. Because I thought of myself as walking for a hundred on my knees through the desert, repenting.

What can I say? I was raised a Catholic.

I think this is called guilt. How else can I account for the sheer good fortune that has allowed me this trip, this time of regular Yoga practice, and all this time away from the maddening crowd to get a look at myself, really listen, watch, observe myself? Hmmm. Keeping in mind that India itself is a maddening crowd of another sort, and well in all that "observation"- it might have been a good idea to remain less attached to the outcome, less attached to my ego, less attached period.

Because, well, many days it weren't a pretty picture I saw. My inner critic was being paid overtime, double time, time and a half. My inner critic, who I really tried to fire before this trip, actually an all-expenses-paid tour of the town of Pushkar.

I had a one full-on week where everything was making me laugh, and for an example, I'll quote Swamiji at an early morning practice, the one where I decided "screw you wheel chakrasana, you hurt, this sucks and I'm just going to lie here where Swamiji can't see me out of the corner of his one good eye."

I lay in corpse pose while Swamiji belted out the instructions. He said, "Yes this next position advanced, difficult position. Ready everybody, please for wheel chakrasana. Okay. Do. Good. Very gooood everybody, so nice this position you practice make, everybody look so goo- Mira! What do? She think maybe I no see her."

I thought that was hilarious and laughed. For some reason, that time, and that week, I could laugh because the inner critic tape loop wasn't so loud, so overwhelming. It wasn't playing in surround-sound, dolby stereo. When something happened, my mind wasn't immediately there with the confirmation and checklist of all the worst possible things I have ever thought about myself. So good, I think, that's all good news. And the rest, all good information. Onward peaceful warriors, marching off to chant.

And lest I forget that Jesus is the reason for the season: we did an Easter Chocolate hunt today (Not an Easter egg hunt, an Easter chocolate hunt. Keeping with the there are no eggs in Pushkar theme, not even Cadbury's Easter cream eggs, nope, I hid tiny dairy milks, chocolates shaped like mini cars, bumblebees and elephants. Jai Ganesha, Happy Easter to you!)

I hid the chocolate before the morning prayers and then the kids, big and little, ran wild. Babaji being the biggest 38 year old kid I've ever met, he cheated because he watched me hide them and then pointed them out to everyone, not understanding the concept. I had hoped to have Swamiji explain the idea of the Easter bunny to the kids but they were off and running by the time Babaji had led them to the hidden chocolate. Can you imagine? I'm still trying to let go of that one. I woulda paid good rupees for that discourse.

Eufemia: Swamiji, this is part of Easter tradition where we come from. After Jesus died on the cross, some people found the best way to celebrate his resurrection was by having a big rabbit called the Easter Bunny hide chocolate eggs. Eggs, but chocolate, Swamiji, understand? The children hunt for them. And the more you find, the better person you are.

How would he know egg accumulation means diddly? Exactly. But I was willing to go out on several limbs (me & Shirley Maclaine) just for a laugh, and that counts for somethin', donut?

Swamiji: I thinking Mirabai last night drinking much bang.

Eufemia: Possibly, Swamiji, I thinking it's the chemical residue from the colour festival seeping into my neural pathways.