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Greetings and blessings from Varanasi, India.  I hope this finds you healthy and happy, wherever you might be.  I am well, still in this ancient, vibrant, and complex city.  I had originally planned on being here only a short time following the Sarnath retreat, yet it seems this place has a way of captivating people.  There is much happening here: the endlessly fascinating ghats along the Ganga River; music, dance, and religious festivals; a thriving community of seasonal international residents; rich opportunities for studying arts and language.  I’ve seen many travelers linger longer than intended.

For me, it’s been the chance to study tabla that in particular has kept me around; I’ve been living the past few weeks in a funky guest house in the old city with great views of the Ganga.  It’s been a good place to stay, filled with an diverse and groovy international crowd.  Many of the folks are musicians staying weeks or months to study and the terraces echo with the sound of sitars, flutes, and drums.  House concerts of Indian classical music are common and a few weeks ago there was a sweet and slightly surreal rooftop party under the stars with ragas, excellent DJ’ed electronica, and fun dancing.

The weather so far has been quite pleasant, with temperatures mostly 75-85 degrees; it’s now definitely starting to heat up and in another month or so most of non-mountainous India will be averaging 100+ degrees.  The days of cloudless blue skies are occasionally punctuated by dark thunderstorms.  One of the most dramatic happened suddenly early this morning.  Gleefully converging on the guest house roof, we were treated to an awesome show as thunder shook the brick building and lightning flashed through the orange dawn light.

These have been interesting weeks for me, reflecting in this transitional time on my individual life while within the vast and often seemingly timeless soup of India.  It’s a rich broth in which to cook and India’s powerful energy usually keeps the flame simmering.  (read more)

namaste from sarnath, india! i’ve been here (about 14km from varanasi) a few days now, joining the dharma study program with many of the same folks from the 10-day retreat i did in bodh gaya.

india seems to me much as i remember it from my visit back in 1996: a place of incredible juxtapositions where poverty, pollution, chaos, futility, and frustration interleave with deep wisdom, incredible resilience, bright smiles, sublime arts, pastoral villages, and inspired determination for change. with a brief exception, my health has been quite good and i feel more rested than i have in some time. while there have been some moments of confusion and doubt, i’ve also been noticing (especially following the silent retreat) times of particular clarity where a lovely contentment arises and colors and shapes take on an uncommon but also familiar vibrance and lucidity. i feel gratitude, curiosity, fear, stuckness, openness, mystery, possibility. (read more)

Greetings everyone,

As some of you have heard, I’m about to head out of town for an open-ended period of travel and retreat. After several years of doing computer work in the Bay Area, I’m feeling ready for some changes in livelihood and other aspects of my life. It’s been a reflective time for me lately; I’ve been bringing closure to projects, simplifying my possessions and responsibilities, and reconsidering my priorities and intentions. I’m looking forward to these travels as a chance to practice living in a more intuitive and visceral way and as an opportunity for new life directions to present themselves.

I’ll be starting this journey Jan. 22nd, flying via Hong Kong and Bangkok to Calcutta, India. At this point, the first (and only) planned destinations for the trip are two periods of meditation and study in Bodh Gaya and Sarnath. My good friend Sam is also sitting these retreats; we’re on the same flight over and we’ll likely travel together some after leaving Sarnath. As far as the rest of my itinerary, my current plane ticket includes a flight back to SFO from Bangkok sometime within the next 6 months. I’m not committed to using it, but I do suspect I’ll at least pass through Thailand (if not stay for a while) on my way back to the States. (read more)

Happy New Year to everyone! Now that I’m no longer working full-time plus, I’m finally sorting through the photos I managed to take this past year. I’ve added several new albums to the trips and gatherings sections and (somewhat randomly) pulled a few photos out as highlights.

Well, I finally went and got a “real job.”

All throughout the Fall, I had been feeling that some sort of change was in order for 2006, and I had been considering some pretty wide-ranging options, from through-hiking the PCT to extended Spanish-language study in Mexico to finding a clinical internship and continuing on the track towards licensure as a LMFT. (read more)