I met Misha my first trip to India when I stopped in for a snack at Shangri La. I took one look at his face and knew more then I had ever known anything that my life as I knew it was over. We were married shortly after that day. It was the first time I felt a deep connection and true remembering on meeting someone. I feel blessed for having had such a big love over so many lifetimes. I will save you the middle bits, as it would only be half the story anyway. I have been divorced now longer then I was married, this seems strange to me. I tell you this because something inside me has been broken since some time during the marriage and properly shattered during the divorce. Some days I did not have the strength to get up off the floor, on those days Kristen would come over and lie on the floor and cry with me. Since then I have wondered if I would ever be the same, or even close to the person I was the day I met him.

I am not sure there will ever be a time when thinking of that day does not make me cry a little but I feel better now. I walk down the street and notice that I am smiling, once it was always this. I feel like all things are possible again like I can do anything I want, this is the person I remember. We are always changing, growing I hope for all of us. I read more of the Dalai Lama each day and do believe that compassion and helping others is the way to happiness and to lasting peace. I feel better tonight.

In coming to India I gave up things that meant the world to me, not knowing what I was going to find. The truth is it was me I was looking for, to get back what I lost years ago. I have always believed that India gives you exactly what you need. I have been met with a kindness from Sharath that I never imagined, friends to laugh with, and much needed time alone. I take full advantage of all of theses each day and am much stronger for it. I knew as we sat by the river in Hampi that the world was just as it should be, that I would be fine and perhaps even more.

I know I could have more money if I were working instead of getting up at 3am for yoga, having 2 hour lunches, and spending the evenings in mediation. Money however is the sort of thing you can lose and I feel I this I never will. “This” being the ever increasing understanding that if I practice all things really are coming.

I will never be the person I was before but I can feel a new version of her coming on. I feel a deep sense of gratitude and joy. Thank you, I love you.

There is something in this moment that will not be in the next. There is something that can only be experienced in the now and not in retrospect. It’s going in with an openness that looks for nothing and is open to everything. I can feel the learning of being in the present moment sinking slightly deeper. I am having amazing experiences and just enjoying them, not trying to make it last or wondering what will happen when it’s finished. I have these moments sometimes where joy overtakes me and I know if I could be anywhere in the world doing absolutely anything that which I am doing would be it. I remember in New Zealand one night taking a bath under the stars, as the tub was outside, and being so blissed out I could not move. In Katmandu sitting on the roof of the orphanage engulfed in stars and knowing with out a doubt that I was connected to everything to everyone. I met my first Hindus in Nepal that summer. I was there as a part of a team laying a driveway so the bus could get in and out to take the kids to school. I was a practicing Christian at the time. There was one small shop just outside the orphanage that was owned by a Hindu family. I had never been faced with such kindness, openness, and warmth. I was wrapped in a sari and given a bindi on my first trip for a Fanta. I spent a good amount of time at their shop and walking with the two young girls of the family. We waked through rice patty fields and jumped up into trees to avoid being run over by cows on narrow dirt paths. The more time I spent with the family the more I understood their devotion to god. My beliefs were changed in an entirely new way, did I really believe theses people were going to burn in hell? No. My prayers changed that summer, and from then until now have been the same. I ask for the truth and guidance toward it.

As you can imagine there is a lot of talk here of yoga, enlightenment, and why we each do our practice. I am sure enlightenment would be great and a lasting sense of oneness with then divine may one day be coming. For now though inner peace seems a lofty enough goal, and as the music from the Ganapati Temple makes it’s way though my window some peace is here. If I could be anywhere doing anything this would be it. I will take this blessing and do my best with it, then let it go.

So this is where I am and that’s where I am at.

I’m off now to coconut oil my sunburn:)