It's been five years.

I had an opportunity of a lifetime.

Sometimes you meet someone, and you look into their eyes and in them you see your fate.  Then without your permission, your voice just says, "Yes," without any conflict or retreat.  You can say "synchronicity" or "serendipity", but I've come to believe in a bigger picture than even that.

Five years ago, I was in India, having an adventure that changed my life entirely.

I saw things.

Things I wonder if they were even real

I saw kids with limbs missing, begging for money, because they were maimed and 'hired' to do so.  I saw men dedicated to bowing millions of times before which they considered holy.  I saw others who hated me for my pale skin, and plotted to obtain the money of the traveler's checks, which were hidden in a special contraption of a pocket, strapped around my waist, under my shirt.

I now carry two tattoos on my arms that I got there, just to remind myself that it wasn't a dream. 

BUT the feeling of that land.

I recently talked to a lady from India, and I told her how much I missed her country, because of the energy of the land, and how it felt.  -It was holy.

Holy in so many ways.  -Holy like Allen Ginsberg's poem "Holy".  Holy like Krishna just danced through. Holy like the feeling and comfort of love.  -Holy like smoking hash and watching the sunset over the Arabian Sea, and realizing things are much bigger than you originally had thought.

I've learned a lot since then, though.  I get the same feeling when I watch a sunset, completely sober, over the Gulf of Mexico here at home.  I've learned to carry the feeling I felt in the "Monkey Temple," with me into all situations.  That was a temple dedicated to Hanuman, outside of Jaipur, where I bowed in front of an image of Krishna and secretly prayed for understanding and guidance as I dealt with the recent loss of my dear father, breaking all the rules of my Baptist-Christian upbringing.

"Monkey Temple"

The next day I was at a memorial for past Maharajas in Jaipur, and there was a very small temple set up for Shiva on the edges of the property.  One of the guards was standing next to a deep ditch which went in front of the temple, which I was near, and pointed down into the ditch below me, and said, "Look madam, a cobra."

Sure enough, there was a black cobra slithering along the rocks of the ditch, without it's hood exposed (which reminded me of a larger version of the Black Racers I grew up with in rural Mississippi).  One of the most poisonous snakes in the world, just going along, maybe six feet below me, like life ain't no big thing.  For those who don't know, the black cobra is associated with Shiva.  So, in a sense, Shiva made his appearance in a smaller form for me to take note of.

Shiva is the creator and transformer of worlds.  He is the image of impermanance and life everlasting, in the same slide of the picture reel.  And I'll let you in on a little secret... to see both in any aspect of life is to understand the secret teachings of all ages.  But that's the kind of talk that some may call BS while others may call wisdom everlasting.

I have a special place in my heart for India.  I feel like I get what drew Ram Dass back so many times, and what shifted George Harrison to be who he became.

I am so thankful for that place that tested me, in so many ways, but showed me so many things in return.

God, that was such a crazy adventure.  -Maybe someday I'll write a book about it...

Namaste,
The Joanna of Life and Death