August 22, 2002 From Bastyr back to Seattle, and on to Sonoma, and its graveyards, two in particular: the Mountain Cemetery, atop a slope that rises above the tide of vineyards that splash against the town; and the little burial ground beyond Bette Timm's back fence. In Bette's driveway now sits her new Toyota Prius, a hybrid gasoline-electric vehicle. Among the pleasures of driving the Prius is the centrally located display panel, with bar graphs to indicate power utilization and efficiency, and a plumbing-style schematic to inform you which direction the energy is arising from and moving to at any moment. It took me a few miles to get used to the engine dying at each stop, and humming back into life with each new start, and the fact that the machine gets better mileage in the city than on the road did seem counter-intuitive at first. But quickly I was converted to singing its praises.

A highlight of any Sonoma trip is to see Bette's beautiful "official" daughter Marijanna, and her gorgeous "honorary" daughter India Gomez. India kindly awoke early on the morning of Aug 17 to drive me & Bette to Oakland airport, whence we flew to Las Vegas, to rendezvous with the crew from Inner Harmony, to drive to Utah for another week of bhakti & bhajans with Krishna Das. This time Austin's Mary Romeu and Australia's Rose Baudin taught the yoga, and Bette contributed Jyotisha tutorials. While on our expedition to Zion National Park three of our number made it far enough into the Narrows, the canyon of the Virgin River, to reach a delightful little meadow with refreshing waterfall and pool; a sweet hike that was rendered bittersweet for me in its last few steps homeward when I boldly stubbed my right big toe on a big rock, precipitating a second loss of that toenail in as many years. Raksha Bandhana arriving this year on the day after, I thanked the guardians of the waters for their other bounty, and requested from them that this toenail trauma not become an annual event.

August 8, 2002 I first met Vimalananda in Poona, India, at the home of Ardeshir Irani, his wife Nergish, and their family, who lived in the Ardeshir Irani Colony on Ardeshir Irani Road. A surname like "Irani" suggested to me that their forebears had come from Iran, and I soon found that this was in fact the case; but that was but the tip of this particular sociological iceberg, for this particular Irani family, colony & road turned out to be members of the Zarthosti, or Zoroastrian, community, adherents of the religion propounded by the prophet Spitaman Zarathustra. Zarathustra taught "good thoughts, good words, good deeds," and his followers worship Ahura Mazda, the universal principle of light & consciousness embodied on Earth in the person of fire.

Practiced for thousands of years in Persia, by general public and the nobility (such as the emperors Cyrus, Darius and Xerxes) alike, the Mazda Yasnis (which is how they term themselves) began their diaspora nearly 1400 years ago, when after the Arab conquest of Persia, and the forcible imposition of Islam on the populace. At that time a small number of these non-Muslims escaped, with their sacred fire, and landed on India's West Coast in what is now Gujarat, where they made new homes for themselves. The descendants of those settlers, who are called "Parsis" (for "Pars," or Persia), gradually became prominent, first in Indian society, then on the world stage (Zubin Mehta is a Parsi; Freddie Mercury was born into a Parsi family).

Despite persecution, many of the Mazda Yasnis who remained in Iran were able to quietly keep their faith alive, and those who have emigrated over the past 200 years or so are known, in India at least, as "Iranis." Less than 100,000 Parsis and Iranis remain (they do not countenance conversions); half of them live in Bombay. Though I don't know all of them, I have met and lived with more than my share, first via Vimalananda: the Iranis in Poona, Roshni & her family in Bombay (they are Parsis), many Parsis and Iranis at the Race Courses in Bombay & Poona. With time I have met yet others, in other lands, including the couple with whom I rendezvoused on July 25 at Mohonk House in the hills south of Woodstock, NY: the very genial Nilufer & Kaika Clubwala. Nilufer, who is a pediatrician, and Kaika, who has a business that prints stationery for the U.N., have regularly extended me the hospitality of their home near Middletown, and their apartment in New York City; and it is always a great pleasure to enjoy their company.

... From the East Coast to Texas, to collect my mother, and rendezvous with my sister in Seattle, for the Annual Svoboda Family Trip, this year to the Great Northwest, including Vancouver (and its excellent Musem of Anthropology), Mt. Ranier, Columbia Gorge, Multnomah Falls, Portland (and its giant statue of the City Goddess), Cannon Beach, Mt. St. Helens, Olympia, Tacoma (and its brand-new Museum of Glass), and back to Seattle, shmoozing as we went. Mom & Sis dropped me off there on their way back to Texas, that I might teach my annual "Intro to Ayurveda" course at Bastyr University, where as usual I stayed on campus, this year right next door to the beautiful & talented Jasmine who, I discovered to my delight, is - a Parsi.

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