(not necessarily in that order)
How do you know you’re flying Swiss Airlines?
You get “Good flight” and “Welcome” messages in all four official Swiss languages (German, French, Italian, and Romansh).
Of course, right now I’m simply grateful to be safe and sound at home…in any language!
I barely slept on the plane, which was actually a good thing because now I can hardly keep my eyes open at the ridiculously early time of 8:45pm.
No chance of not sleeping tonight!
And tomorrow — casa. Ahhh…
I wish we were seeing this kind of view while we’re in Rome, but the truth of the matter is that when we arrived by train from Assisi it was already completely dark. And it will be completely dark when we leave for the airport at 6:30 in the morning.
I don’t even know how many years it’s been since we spent an appreciable amount of time in this uniquely beautiful city, but I can feel that it’s been way too long.
Tomorrow we leave Ananda Assisi and take the train to Roma, where we’ll spend the night before flying back to the States.
So yesterday and today have been very much about seeing and connecting with as many people as possible.
Yesterday was spent with numerous different people at Sunday service, Sunday lunch, coffee in the bar, and Master’s birthday event.
Today we spent time with new friends at lunch, had coffee with a different multitude of friends in the bar, then spent the evening in Assisi with a group of longtime friends — laughing and eating pizza.
What a blessing.
Thank you for everything!
I stayed home all day today, fighting off a little cold before it could become something big and troublesome.
It was wonderful.
I didn’t talk to anyone except Ramesha. I didn’t go out at all. I puttered around the apartment doing things slowly. I gazed out of the windows. But best of all, I got reacquainted with the deep peace and profound stillness of the Umbrian countryside.
I remember how struck I was by the quiet and stillness when I moved to Ananda Assisi back in 2002. A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, I was used to lots of noise and jangly energy.
Being in Umbria was a revelation to me, one that I was very happy to rediscover today.
Jyotish and Devi were scheduled to do a Zoom satsang this evening for a group from Russia who are starting a community, and (lucky us!) they opened it up to include devotees, groups, and communities from all over.
Thrilling and inspiring.
…and it feels more like two weeks.
That’s my clue that things are getting a little too intense.
I woke up quite early this morning, which was a good thing because there was so much to do before leaving for the train station and our trip to Assisi.
But what was really cool was opening the window before dawn (preparing to energize) and hearing church bells and bird song.
It somehow felt like an auspicious beginning to 2025.
We’ve actually had an interesting time saying goodbye to 2024 and “bringing in” 2025.
For one thing, we’ve been so busy as our time in Lugano draws to a close that we didn’t get much of a headstart on packing.
Today’s plan was to have lunch at Silvio’s, followed by a quick coffee/tea with the Lo Menzo’s, then home to get everything ready to leave first thing tomorrow morning.
Except “lunch” lasted from noon until a little after 3:00 and coffee/tea went from 3:30 until almost 5:00. By the time we got home I was pooped!
Little by little I managed to get it done, but as I sat down to write I realized I haven’t given a single thought to the year that’s ending or spent a single moment pondering my goals and intentions for the year ahead. Oops! Maybe there’ll be an opportunity on the train to Assisi tomorrow.
Regardless — I wish you all a Happy New Year and a 2025 filled with blessings!