October 24, 2003 Bristol, RI is well known as a boat-building center; in fact, its name has entered our language ("in Bristol shape") as a byword for excellence in shipcraft. During my visit there I however focused less on its hulls and more on its graves, in particular those in a hilltop cemetery which also shelters unusual trees that, inspired apparently by the evidence of mortality all around them, grow luxuriantly above, over, and along many of the tombstones and monuments.

From Bristol to Providence and Tea Luxe, on a fact-finding mission for Shelina in Toronto. In addition to what seems de rigeur in the tea world nowadays ("bubble tea," in particular, also puny imitations of Indian chai), Tea Luxe serves real crumpets (think "English muffin" but moister and shinier) and white tea (a delicate early stage of green tea), and sells premium teas by the gram to make for easy testing by curious clientele.

From Providence to Tulsa, then back to Texas, where the garden was overflowing with persimmons & pecans. Though the exuberant persimmon tree so overloaded one of its branches that it cracked and fell, the fallen bough has retained enough xylem or phloem connections to remain alive, and is now propped up atop a sawhorse as its fruit ripens. Higher in the tree birds, butterflies, and shiny beetles devour ripened persimmons that are beyond my reach.

Texas is justly famous for pecans, and an hour of collecting this week yielded me almost five pounds of nuts, which will get shelled one dark fall or winter evening when their rich texture and flavor will be particularly satisfying. Everything tastes better when it is grown at or near home; two Web addresses that deserve mention in this regard are www.edibleschoolyard.org (which promotes the planting of vegetable gardens in schoolyards) and www.slowfood.com (the home site of the Slow Food Movement).

A hooting owl in a Pecan Park tree on the night of October 19 reminded me that Dhana Trayodashi, the night on which Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, is worshipped, was but three nights away (Lakshmi's vehicle is the owl). The next night after Dhana Trayodashi is Naraka Chaturdashi (a good night for communing with disembodied spirits), after which comes Dipavali, or Divali, the New Moon Festival of Lights that marks the end of the fall festival season, and the beginning (on the day following) of yet another new year. I reached Southern California on Naraka Chaturdashi, and so greeted Dipavali with the Dubashes. Happy New Year, everyone!

October 9, 2003 A long train ride from Albany deposited me in Toronto in time for the beginnings of leaf season there. I stayed as usual with Shelina Kassum, who is soon to open a tea house in The Distillery, which (no surprise) is an old distillery east of downtown Toronto that is being redeveloped into a "destination." Always the perfect hostess, Shelina's hospitality is now enhanced by cupboards full of leaves in the form of premium teas. Her son Nikhil, who proudly notes that he is currently "4 and 3 quarters," always does his best to make me feel at home as well - this time, he asked me one evening what I was doing, and I replied that I was exercising. He thereupon disappeared upstairs, descending moments later with two sets of weights, one pair of 1 lb each and the other of 5 lbs each, and announced that now he & I would work out together!

While in Toronto fortune smiled on me sufficiently to permit me several meetings with excellent astrologer-philosopher Mantriji. I also made it to Stratford, Ontario for a fine production of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, set in the American Wild West of the 1880s - well envisioned, well acted.

I tend to frequent Toronto cinemas as well; this trip I saw two excellent movies, which I suggest to all persons with eyes: Spellbound, a documentary about eight children who compete at a recent National Spelling Bee; and Winged Migration, three years in the making, which follows birds on their migratory paths (the longest: 12, 500 miles for the Arctic tern, who summers in the Antarctic). A couple of weeks previous I had seen The Magdalene Sisters, a raw, hard to watch true story about misuse of the concept of sin; and while in Sonoma in August I invested nearly a week watching superlative Japanese animated adventures: Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Castle in the Sky (all done by Miyazawa, zathe same director who did Princess Mononoke). All well worth a peek.

From Toronto to Rochester, for visits with yoga teacher François Raoult and herbalist Sonam Targee; then to Syracuse, for a lecture courtesy of Dr. Steve Wechsler, and a visit with old friend Joan Milgram and new friend Ralph Goodrum. Old friend Swami Sadasivananda welcomed me to Manhattan's Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center (the Swami, a native of Yugoslavia and recent arrival in NYC, had hosted me for multiple years when he ran the Sivananda Center in London). That night was Kojagiri Purnima, or "Moon Sweat Night," and after worshipping at Eddie Stern's Ganesha temple on Broome Street, I felt quite sanctified by my less-than-twenty-four-hour trip to the Big Apple as I departed the Upper East Side in the front seat of a minivan headed for Rhode Island ...

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