April 23, 2005 I drove my mother to Houston in mid-April,
that she might visit with my sister while I visited Massachusetts to
lecture at the Kripalu Institute. While in Houston we spent a day with
John Coon, taking in a "natural disaster" IMAX and the exhibit on gold
at the Houston Museum of Natural History; both are worth a view. John
also gifted us with tender coconut water, handily packed in individual
boxes, produced in Brazil. Very tasty; available in natural form & in
flavors like "passion fruit orange peel". The brand John handed me is
Zico; apparently there
are others now in the US market. Certainly there are others in Brazil,
where the boxed water from tender coconuts is becoming a popular
refresher. Though the water from a fresh tender coconut makes for a
tastier sip, it is certainly less work to open a package than it is to
take a chopper to a hard green fruit, as I had been doing in Brazil,
and as I did later in the month in Sonoma. Green tender coconuts are
available in most major US metros nowadays, which means that a cool,
refreshing quaff is often but a few hatchet blows away.
My weekend at Kripalu, where I was teaching in the Ayurvedic training
program (www.kripalu.org),
went well, as did my visit to the Bay Area,
except that I sadly arrived there just a day too late to meet with
Robert Beer at the conclusion of his exhibition. At least I was able
to view the work, both Robert's and that done by eminent Nepali painters
of this generation. "Most excellent" was the general reaction (mine too);
Robert was pleased with the response. After a few days of consultations,
punctuated by wine tastings and the celebration of the full moon that
is Hanuman Jayanti, I was adequately prepared to head down to Los Angeles
for the long flight to Sydney...
April 8, 2005 Holi successfully came to, and then
went from, the Raby home, and shortly thereafter Lynda, Max & Molly &
I proceeded to the Bahamas, for several nights at the Sivananda Yoga
Retreat on Paradise Island. Retreat we did, in the company of many other
simpatico participants and presenters, including Art & Gail, a couple
who have been involved in Peruvian shamanism for the past dozen years.
Art & Gail elected to do a "despacho" ceremony while in the Bahamas,
which I attended (having participated in a few despachos myself when
in Peru). After finishing they requested me (since they had heard that
I was building nightly fires on the beach) to burn the despacho bundle
for them, which I did, with Max's help. Last year he & I went to Peru,
and performed despachos together; this year, Peru came to us.
Max impressed me in another way this trip, by coining a new word:
"anac(h)ronym" (we're uncertain of the spelling as of yet). An
anachronym is an acronym that has become an anachronism (the example
that led to the coinage was "BMOC"); and also possibly (perhaps less
likely) an anachronism that has been converted into an acronym
(maybe "LoG," for "Land o' Goshen!"). In any event, a worthy word.
I made it back to Floresville on All Fools' Day to find green leaves
on most trees & bushes, and flowers abundant. Reluctantly I had to
chop a flowering branch off the pyracantha (sp), which persistently
insists on entangling itself in the power line that leads to the house.
I have tried reasoning with it, and warning it, but as it continues to
grow in that direction, there was nothing to do this time but to be
ruthless with the pruning saw.
My mother's next door neighbor Hilda Bednarz had another loss while
I was gone: her dog Toby finally went to meet his Maker, at age 91
(in dog years). Coming just a couple of months on the heels of the
death of Hilda's son Butch, I had worried that Toby's demise might
be too much for her - but she has taken it in stride, as she has her
other bereavements, and remains sufficiently cheerful to have declared,
when my mother phoned her to let her know our house would be empty for
a week while we were in Houston, that she'd keep an eye out, and would
use her rifle on any intruders that might slink up while we were away!
Change is constant in life; in Floresville change currently means the
appearance of things that are new: new hospital, supermarket, restaurants,
all strung out along US 181, which passes about a mile east of
Floresville's original business district. While I appreciate such
progress in that I need no longer drive into San Antonio for such staples
as pomegranate juice, I also lament the 'busy-ness' that is coming to town.
Others feel the same; Judy at the bank, for instance, tells me how glad
she is for her twenty-minute daily commute to work from her home in
Falls City, about twenty miles south of Floresville. Judy says that
she loves to live where the loudest noise she hears is coyote howls,
which is pretty much how I feel as well.
Fortunately, Floresville is not yet completely 'modernized'; the main
drag continues to offer hitching rings on its sidewalks, for any horse
person who might amble into town of a Saturday (which used to be the
day that everyone came in off the farm, to shop & socialize), and funeral
notices continue to appear at the post office, the library, and other
places of business. A funeral notice indicates the name of the deceased,
his or her surviving relatives, and details of the visitation, the
funeral service, and the interment. It was via a funeral notice that I
learned of the death of Mildred Bolf, a long-time member of my mother's
church - she had not been unwell, but one morning her husband found her
seated in the kitchen, her head on the table and her Bible open beside
her. We will all one day walk along the path that Mildred has just
taken - going out praying seems like a particularly good way to go!
Link to News of the Past
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