Aug 27, 2003 From Texas to Seattle, for my annual long-weekend Intro to Ayurveda teaching gig at Bastyr University. Bastyr occupies what was once a Catholic seminary, with murals, mosaics and, best of all, a chapel whose acoustics are so good that movie sound tracks are recorded there (John Pilskog, my Seattle host, plays violin on many of these recordings). The chapel is lined with stained glass which creates at dusk an effect that can only be described as "magical": colors that slowly vary their positions and hues as the waning evening sun project through their panes onto the eastern wall. In the quiet of the twilight you can if you listen closely hear the tinkle of thousands of bits of glass readjusting themselves in their mountings as they lose the heat they gathered during the day.

Bastyr sits in the middle of a state park, and I try to make it a point at least once during each visit to take the steep path down to Lake Washington and enjoy the water, the waterfowl, and the ambience (at least, until some idiot in a fancy speedboat zooms insolently by, showing off his affluence).

My class ended as usual on a Sunday, and the next day Lynda Raby flew up to Seattle, to chant with me & John & Sally, and to travel with me to Orcas Island, here we congratulated Kimmie Clancy on graduating with honors from Orcas High.

From the Northwest to the Southwest, and Utah, for another week of bhakti & bhajans at Inner Harmony. Krishna Das being unable to make it this year, Shyamdas came to sing in his stead, with wife Tulasi as his drummer. Janmashtami (Krishna's birthday) fell during our retreat this year, and we celebrated it with song at midnight, as tradition demands.

From Utah to Sonoma, to hear stories from Bette's daughter Marijanna, who had just returned from a trip to the Dominican Republic where she participated in a building project in a remote village. One memorable evening she & I & her father attended a class in salsa dancing taught by the talented India Gomez, an evening that I regarded as a success when I learned a couple of steps and did no damage to the feet of any of my partners. Thank you India & Marijanna!

Aug 11, 2003 On reaching Texas I learned from my sister that I had missed the flower that the stand of San Pedro cactus in the back garden had proffered sometime in June or July. San Pedro originates in South America, but this particular copse, descended from a single foot-long chunk that reached me maybe fifteen years back, has (after a few years in a pot in Southern California) taken eagerly to the sandy soil of South Texas, flourishing into seven individuals. Even two nights of weather down into the teens (Fahrenheit) a couple of winters back failed to faze it (though it did lose the tips of a few overenthusiastic buds), but until this summer it had never chosen to flower. I remember a cactus I once met in Sunnyvale, California that had accompanied its owner each time he moved for a full two decades until, after three years in the ground of Silicon Valley, it at last elected to flower.

That owner, luckily, was there to see it bloom, and to record that bloom photographically. I, sadly, missed the San Pedro's efflorescence (which, like those of many cacti, including that Bay Area specimen, last but a single night), but it was thankfully caught on film by my sister, the family photographer, so I did get to view its image. At least six inches long, and a couple wide, of a mingled rose and white hue, it much reminded me of the flower of the night-blooming cereus. If only I had been around to discover whether it was as fragrant!

But nature rewarded me with other sights, including the vision of a "moving stone" as I took a stroll one midnight through the nearby park. An opossum or armadillo, presumably, though it looked much like a rock somehow brought into animation, perhaps by the unusual sight of greenery in August in this part of the world (due to heavy rains in July). It did not linger as I neared it, but trundled off purposefully into the little piece of nearby thicket.

That terrestrial apparition was complemented three nights later, on August 8, with a celestial one, of Mars rising as the Moon sailed overhead (very near the invisible but potent Ketu, the moon's South Node). What a tableau it presented: the resolute Moon confronting the Heavenly Scorpion of fiery poison, stinger erect, while riding to the rescue from the east came Mars, the "bold ruler" of Scorpio, the brave warrior who would see the Moon through this test of its valor. May Mars and Moon always cooperate so well!

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