June 21, 2005 On June 8 I flew to New York City, where from my bedroom in the apartment that also serves as Kaika Clubwala's office I nightly enjoyed an excellent view of the colorfully floodlit Empire State Building (or, as I prefer to think of it, the Umpire Steak Bldg). I was in the City to brunch with Jim & Claudia Welch, & Claudia's sister Samantha and Jim's brother Chuck; to lunch with Dr. Bhaswati Bhattacharya and with NAMA Board Members Dr. William Celentano & Dr. Aparna Bapat, and also Rosy Malinowski, who came up from Philadephia to provide me with photos of her last summer's visit to Tibet's Oracle Lake; to visit the American Museum of Natural History and the Central Park Castle with John Kwaku Miller and Dr. Heather Greenlee; to lecture at Exhale and the Sivananda Center, and at Eddie Stern's Patanjali Yoga Shala; and to receive one of the first copies of my Varanasi Soundwalk, which is now two CDs and a book of photos. My narration appears on one CD; the other holds a sampler of songs, chants and street sounds mixed by noted DJ Cheb-i Sabah, who happened to be in the Big Apple then, and who one afternoon accompanied me & Eddie & Eddie's student Barry to darshan at the Ganesha temple in Queens (which we almost didn't make it to thanks to a bus trying to back down the Williamsburg Bridge). The Varanasi Soundwalk is a co-production of Soundwalk (www.soundwalk.com) and Namarupa (www.namarupa.org ); it will be available for purchase in a few short days ...

One of my last acts during this hectic NYC excursion was to watch Howl's Moving Castle, the latest masterpiece of Hayao Miyazaki (not Miyazawa, as previously reported in these columns), animation auteur par excellence. Howl's images were still swimming in my head as I was driven the morning after to the Sivananda Yoga Ranch in the Catskills (www.sivananda.org/ranch.htm), where I was hosted by Swami Sadasivananda (who I met first years ago in London) and Swami Srinivasananda (who I met first there). Immediately after my lecture there Mr. Kaika Clubwala drove me down to Campbell Hall, NY, which the Clubwalas now call home. Nilufer & I went to see Batman Begins the day before I spoke at Yoga for Well-Being, (www.yogaforwellbeing.org ), Kaika & Nilufer & I lunched with Peter Lamborn Wilson in New Paltz, and then I found myself seated in yet another vehicle, bound for the Kripalu Center, looking forward to having a full week in a single location ...

June 6, 2005 Kangaroos were in sight but pythons were not when I reached Mangrove Mountain, where Shankardev & Jayne organized a DVD shoot under the auspices of the new e-endeavor named Big Shakti, dedicated to delivering knowledge students of Yoga, Ayurveda, Tantra and other Indian disciplines (take a look at www.bigshakti.com). Shankardev (more properly Dr. Shankardev Saraswati) is a medical doctor who became a yogi and lived a decade in India (his guru is Swami Satyananda of the Bihar School of Yoga); he and Jayne extended excellent hospitality in that lovely corner of New South Wales that they currently call home.

Home for me is where I hang my hat, which a few days later was the Dubash residence in Greater Los Angeles, where I rendezvoused with Sarada Anastasia Von Sonn, whose products are finally beginning to garner the attention they deserve (Sarada's Ayurvedic Remedies, P.O. Box 2425, Toluca Lake, CA 91610; toll free 877-541-5836). I also attended an HBO premiere, of the second season of its Entourage series - I went there to squire Perrey Reeves, whose partner Jeff was in Costa Rica attending to the retreat center they have just procured there (watch this space for further details). Less than 48 hours after reaching L.A. from Sydney I shifted into an even more multicultural environment when I headed to the Sivananda Yoga Farm in Grass Valley (YogaFarm@sivananda.org), where Swami Sitaramananda (originally from Vietnam) and Krishna & Mahashakti (natives of Uruguay) made my stay most comfortable. While in that neighborhood I inspected the nearby Blue Sage Sanctuary, an excellent retreat center ( www.bluesage-sanctuary.com) being developed by Jen Taylor & Ragaia, and also enjoyed a Watsu treatment from Jerry McCue, who happened that weekend to be hosting Nikki & Dhatri Purohit, two sisters in whose family home in Pune Vimalananda & I rented a room during several racing seasons. Nikki is now a professor of management at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia, and Dhatri is pursuing advanced studies in that same city; we three reminisced emotionally about our time with Vimalananda over an excellent curry that they whipped up for lunch.

On arriving in Texas I bid farewell to yet another wisdom tooth, victim of an abscess that I had spent several days trying to fend off. I kept all four of my wisdom teeth securely in my mouth until one departed about 5 years ago, and now have bid farewell to two others within four months of one another. A lone holdout remains behind. I flirted briefly with dental despondency until I was gobsmacked by the appearance of diminutive red berries on the asparagus that had gone to fern in my mother's garden. Having never even suspected that asparagus grew fruit (these were of small blueberry size), this reconfirmation that there is indeed more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in my philosophy drew my mind away from my mouth ...

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