Category: Uncategorized

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A joyful Rajarshi Day

We usually have Rajarshi Day — our all-community workday — in early May, around the May 5th birthday of Rajarshi Janakananda (Yogananda’s most advanced disciple). But because Springtime at Ananda has become so big, and takes so much time and energy from the whole community, Rajarshi Day got shifted to June.

Although we had a beautiful, mild summer day for it, it was still quite a day for me.

My morning was spent outside of the Temple of Light, where I removed wire cages from around young trees (so that another team member could weed whack around the base of each tree); raked up the weeds; spread mulch; then replaced the wire cage.

My raking buddy, Brian, and I worked on approximately ten trees, all of them in the sun. I definitely expended more physical energy than I have in years — maybe decades. Fun, but exhausting.

Then, after meditation and lunch on the Market lawn with our entire spiritual family, I headed home to rest and shower before Ramesha and I got on a Zoom call with Ananda Australia. We were the guest speakers for their Sunday morning satsang.

As usual, all the tiredness went away as soon as we were connecting with the group and talking about Ananda Music.

Now, however, I’m ready to drop. 🥱

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Welcoming the weekend

The above photo has absolutely no relation to the weekend that’s in front of me —

Tomorrow morning is Rajarsi Day, when I’ll be helping with Temple of Light landscaping-related duties; tomorrow afternoon we have a satsang with Ananda Australia; Sunday morning is service; Sunday late afternoon the music team has an early dinner in town to celebrate accomplishments, travels, returns, healings, birthdays, and new beginnings.

Then we head into a new week, with our Patreon video to create; choir and ensemble rehearsals to lead; our own music and solos to learn/rehearse; and the many details of SRW to prepare.

Upon deeper reflection, the above photo will serve to focus my vision…of manifesting several days or even a week on a lake or at the coast, sitting and relaxing next to a body of water.

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Living in the wild

The view from our kitchen window

I know, I know…! I don’t really live in the wild.

After all, we have electricity, running water, internet, and a whole community of friends surrounding us.

But the fact remains that ours is a rural community, which means there are critters EVERYWHERE. And, having grown up in the very civilized environs of the San Francisco Bay Area, this remains an ongoing challenge for me.

I’m actually pretty accustomed to seeing deer, wild turkeys, coyotes, hares, foxes, and even bears in the vicinity. What I can’t seem to get used to is when the critters are inside my home.

For example, we get frogs and lizards inside our house. All. The. Time. And they are really hard to catch.

I mean, really! A lizard in the bedroom?!? That’s just wrong!

But what inspired this rant is when I went to put a new stick of incense in the holder in the bathroom and discovered…this!

I mean — eww! My best guess is that it was a spider eating another spider. All well and good, but Not. In. My. House.

(And, no, I didn’t flush it or kill it, I managed to take it outside.)

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Pondering life before Google

This evening I stumbled upon an article about a young Gen Z woman who genuinely wanted to know, “what did you [old people] do before you could look something up?”

It was quite amusing but it also got me thinking…

…about how I recognize so many songs for which I never knew the name of the artist. I would hear something on the radio and enjoy it, but it didn’t trouble me that I couldn’t identify the artist. Now Shazam is helping me fill in the gaps of my knowledge.

…about how I would wait until the last three days to do the term paper for my music history class, then go to the library and walk out with a stack of ten or fifteen books. Because you had to deal with actual books — nothing online, nothing digital. And that meant actually reading (or — if you had only three days to read, analyze, organize, and write the paper — skimming) every book. Oh, and then I had to type the paper, marking the bottom page margin with a pencil so that I didn’t go too far.

…about how I freelanced throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and as far as Monterey, Modesto, and Santa Rosa with no cell phone and no GPS. I had directions, a map, and my intuition.

…about how a movie would come out and you either went to see it or — you missed it. And that was that.

So, yeah, I can see how this would boggle the mind of someone born in 1997. 😂

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Great comment

I have my friend, Jennifer, to thank for this perfect comment
in response to the resistance I was feeling yesterday —

“Joy is within you, resistance is futile!”

So, I might as well just give in to the joy, right?

I love it!

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Almost SRW time again

Yep, Spiritual Renewal Week (SRW) is almost here. Which means I’ve been knuckling down and wrestling with details galore.

But first I had to break though some serious resistance. Thank goodness it’s behind me and things are (finally) progressing.

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Laying low

Woke up feeling kind of “off” and felt more and more “off” as the morning progressed.

None of the challenges were respiratory, so I negotiated the various health issues as best I could and went on to Sunday service.

All seemed fine…until it wasn’t!

I made it through the offertory song (on which I was playing flute), asked another alto to take over Festival of Light duties, and quickly gathered up all my stuff. Before I could leave for home, my innards insisted on a bathroom stop in order to empty themselves out.

Feeling slightly better, but really tired, I got home, laid down, and pretty much slept the afternoon away.

I think whatever it was has passed, but it was definitely a laying low kind of day.

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Learning to love my nervous system

My first hint regarding the issue of dysregulation and the importance of a regulated nervous system came in 2022 when I was working with Dr. Suhaila, my naturopathic oncologist.

I was surprised by her extremely strong reaction when I shared a story of a childhood trauma (it was nothing earth-shattering and no one intentionally harmed me; it was simply an accidental experience that left me scared and shocked).

It had never occurred to me that my eight-year-old self wasn’t perfectly okay immediately afterwards or that there was something someone could have done to help me cope with the stress of the experience.

Now I feel like I’m passing through a portal into a whole new awareness of — and learning about — my nervous system.

Fascinating!

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Finding joy in movement

“Collective joy”—a state of ecstatic self-transcendence and belonging that comes from moving with others, often to music.

The above quote is from a book I’ve been reading lately, called “The Joy of Movement,” by Kelly McGonigal. I’ve been having lots of “aha” moments, but it’s also been bringing up all sorts of thoughts and memories and realizations.

For one thing, it prompted me to remember that, maybe ten years ago now, I wrote a list of “activities I loved.” I had even forgotten that I wrote a blog post about it; perfect timing for me to re-read it!

With all this on my mind, I got to the office in the late afternoon yesterday. I intended to do some work, then go for a short walk (trying to get myself moving!). But thinking about past activities I used to do brought to mind a song that I used to absolutely LOVE doing aerobics to. Of course, this was back in the day when most of the time I didn’t know who the artist was and one couldn’t just run home and Google the information. So it was many years later that I learned the group was the Pointer Sisters and the song was called “Jump (For My Love). ”

If you like to dance, I challenge you to listen to this song without moving. In fact, I put it on out of curiosity — just wanting to hear it again, you know — and next thing you know — I was up and dancing!

It felt so good that I quickly found the video for Gino Vannelli’s “Brother to Brother” — another one of my all-time favorite dance songs — and I danced around the office to that one as well.

Afterwards I felt so happy. I do believe I’m slowly finding my way back to my original joy in movement.

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The great conductor

This quote by Swami Kriyananda is new to me. I love it, but can’t help wondering how I managed to miss it for so long!

This world is like a symphony;
God is the great conductor
who alone can bring music
out of everything.

~Swami Kriyananda