September 25, 2003 Señor San Pedro the back garden cactus offered me an equinoctal award this fortnight when it volunteered a bloom that momentarily took my breath away the morning that I noticed it through thick fog. A good six inches long from base to tip, half and half in calyx and in long thin delicately scented ivory fingers of petals, the blossom enjoyed a full day of life before unhurriedly bowing into a graceful wilt ...

Thus blessed, I left Texas for Connecticut, and a lecture a U. Conn. Med School, whence I proceeded to Temple, NH for a visit with the Moses Family. Sunday we strolled through the Temple Harvest Festival, where the pumpkin pie was delicious and the quilts on display splendid, and where young Tejas Moses participated in a fund-raising "break-a-thon" organized by his Tae Kwan Do dojo. Tejas (who is all of age 6 ½) spent a good hour with his fellow participants splitting boards with well-aimed kicks. Good on you, Tejas!

Events later that night included a wild coyote chorus from the valley below the Old School, and a red fox crossing a midnight road. The previous evening I had delivered a lecture with The Old School's precincts, a lecture that after being transcribed is slated to appear in the pages of a future issue of NAMARUPA, the new journal that Robert Moses and Eddie Stern have recently launched. In their words:

NAMARUPA, Categories of Indian Thought, is a new magazine that seeks to record, illustrate, honor and comment on the many diverse practical and theoretical systems of knowledge that have originated in India. NAMARUPA will present articles that shed light on the incredible array of philosophies, lores, and techniques for personal development that have evolved over many thousands of years in the creatively spiritual minds and hearts of India's inhabitants. NAMARUPA will endeavor to be as non-sectarian as possible, its content offered as clearly as possible, without attached agenda.

This publication appears at a time when we feel that yoga in the West, and particular in the USA, is declining in content even while it is gaining in popularity. The inner meanings and significances that yoga and other Indian philosophical systems have traditionally served as vehicles for are gradually being lost in a hunt for marketability. We intend to give true voice to these sacred traditions, to document the beauty and depth of the wide array of practices and thought systems of India.

Interested persons can address correspondence regarding subscriptions, editorial matters and advertising to:

NAMARUPA 23 Hadley Hwy., Temple, NH 03084 USA Phone (603) 878-1758 Fax (603) 878-9887 editor@namarupa.org www.namarupa.org

Robert and Eddie have honored me by naming me NAMARUPA's Advisor, and I accordingly advise all thinking persons to subscribe promptly (and frequently) to NAMARUPA. And after subscribing yourself, don't forget that gift subscriptions make excellently edifying presents for both friends and family!

September 10, 2003 From Sonoma down to Orange County, where I rendezvoused with my mother & sister for a Labor Day outing. We spent our first two California nights with Gulrukh & Khushru Dubash in La Mirada. Vimalananda first introduced me to Gulrukh, whom most everyone calls Gulu, in Poona in 1975, when she was still a teenager, and set me the task of tutoring her through high school & college. After marrying Khushru she moved to California, where she has become a CPA. The four Dubashes (Gulrukh & Khushru and their two sons, Arish & Kurush) were excellent hosts to us three Svobodas (as usual). Among the highlights of our visit there was watching a tape of the two boys taking & passing their martial arts tests to become black belts. Congratulations, Arish & Kurush!

After a Sunday morning meeting Alicia Isen at downtown L.A.'s museums and asphalt pits (since "la brea" apparently means "tar" in Spanish, "La Brea Tar Pits" is tautological, particularly since the material that continuously wells up out of the ground is asphalt, not tar), we met on Monday three of the four Dormans (viz. Danielle and twins Zoe and Samantha, who are just starting kindergarten this year) at the Scripps Aquarium in La Jolla, then enjoyed a Mexican dinner that evening with Dr. James Williams. Tuesday we visited the justly famous San Diego Zoo (and its newborn panda, who can be viewed on PandaCam, at www.sandiegozoo.org), and Wednesday returned to South Texas, where encounters with other, uncaged animals awaited me.

The first two of these creatures were, unfortunately, already deceased when I came upon them: a dead opossum on September 5, in the street on the way to the P.O., and on September 8 a dead armadillo, lying on his back with his little paws up in the air, blood dripping slowly from his nose, against the curb in the street right next to my mother's driveway. After sadly disposing of his corpse, I went to the Net to learn more, and discovered, to my amazement, that there are 30 -50 million 'dillos in the USA alone; that there were none at all here before 1850 (the native species having died out thousands of years before); that the US species is the nine-banded variety, the only one of the twenty that is not threatened or endangered; that this nine-banded variety almost always gives birth to identical quadruplets; and that despite its "possumy" look, the armadillo is not related to the opossum; its closest relatives are sloths and anteaters. For more information, you can visit Joseph Nixon's excellent website: www.msu.edu/user/nixonjos/armadillo (it's the first entry you'll see when you type in "armadillo" on Google and press "enter").

A night or two afterwards, as I stepped out the front door for a 1 am walk in the nearby Pecan Park, I surprised a skunk just across the street from me, rummaging in the flower shop's garbage. We looked warily at one another before I sidled off to the left as he retreated behind the brush pile. No harm done on either side, so it was a sorrowful moment when a couple of days later a skunk carcass appeared in the road along the flower shop's other side, for it was likely that of the previous midnight's rambler. Rest in peace, nocturnal wanderers!

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