Today I had three people, from three different states, get in touch with me to ask for help with starting a meditation practice.  It was a pretty exciting day.  :)  Meditation is an amazing tool for quieting the chatter of the mind, learning to focus, finding peace and focus and lots more.  There are tons of studies about the benefits if meditation, look them up if you're curious!

So here goes:
First off, meditating in a group is really powerful, both energetically and for your motivation.  See if you can find a meditation group (or classes) in your area.  There are often free classes for Veterans, and most areas have meetups or groups that do weekly meditations that are open to everyone.  

Meditation is best when practiced often, like most things.  The benefits grow quickly, but only if you keep at it.  The more you do it, the more you'll get from it.  Meditation in itself can be frustrating if you are looking for a specific goal within your meditation - what I mean is that looking for the goal of easing PTSD or calming anxiety is good, but trying to reach a particular state within a meditation session can set you up for frustration.  Each day will be different, and expecting for your mind to progress in a linear fashion is madness. 

To start, try to find a time of day when you can make mediation a habit, even if just for ten or fifteen minutes.  After waking up or right before bed, before or after lunch or after a daily workout are all good times.  Put it in your calender and stick to it, 15 minutes a day, at the same time if you can.  

Make a sacred (quiet, calm, dedicated) space for yourself in your home or office where you will not be disturbed.  It can be anywhere - I sit on a pillow in bed or on my bedroom floor.  If you have to skip sometimes, at least you are building the habit on the other days.  Sit on a chair or on the floor, get comfortable, but not comfy - you don't want to fall asleep.  Make sure your knees are lower than your hips, it will be much more comfortable.  Also make sure to keep your back straight and your elbows under your shoulders.  


Close your eyes, and to start you will focus on your breath - either your rib cage expanding and contracting or the feeling of your breath coming and going through your nose, feeling your nose and the area around your nose.  Alternately, you can focus on a mantra, such as "I am calm," "I am safe" etc, whatever short bit resonates with you, make it up.  It should make you feel good.  Say it to yourself on the inhale and exhale.  So either breath or mantra. (Or find one of the gazillion other possible meditations out there.  Google will point you in the right direction...)  Set a timer so that you aren't tempted to continually open your eyes and look at the clock.
 
Know that your mind will wander.  Try to be aware of your thoughts without getting drawn into them.  Notice what you are thinking about, then let the thoughts go and refocus on your breath or mantra.   At first, you might get a moment of focus on your breath here and there, but as you continue with the practice, those moments will start to touch each other until you have minutes at a time of complete focus, and then whole sittings of focus.  

As focus gets easier, you can move to the next stage, which is connection - feeling connected to whatever bigger thing we think (or feel) we are a part of.  It might be a deity, a universal oneness, a greater consciousness, the vastness of nature or the more scientific quantum field.  Once your mind has practiced focusing on one thing for many minutes (or more) at a time, it will be easier to slip into this next phase of connection.  

When you hear people saying that meditation is about "clearing your mind," this is what they are talking about.  Once you can sit and focus for a while, you can start to clear your mind and go deeper into the connection, finding peace and mental rest.  Just sitting and trying to focus is beneficial.  Focusing without distraction is beneficial.  Dissolving the ego and resting the mind is beneficial and amazing and kind of addictive.  ;)  

There are so many different focuses for meditation, and you should explore them, but pick one that you can stick to (at least most of the time) so you can go deeper, get familiar with the meditation and build the mental habit of focus on that particular idea or feeling. 

I hope this little bit helps.  I'm here if you have any questions, and I'd love to hear how it's going for you!  

Pumpkin is very hard to use raw.  I hate battling through the tough skin only to be confronted with the thick, solid flesh.  I also don't think that eating raw pumpkin is the best choice for digestion, so I turn to carrots - great raw, easy to work with, orange, mild and pre-sweetened.  Since the defining flavors of a good pumpkin pie are sweet and spice, and not pumpkin, carrots are a perfect choice.  

Ingredients:
4 cups chopped carrots
1 cup coconut cream (creamed whole coconut, not just the mylk)
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ginger
4 teaspoons vanilla extract
8 drops stevia

Crust:
1/2 cup sprouted, dried buckwheat groats
1/2 cup sprouted, dried almonds
6 large dates, chopped
3 Tablespoons raw cacao powder
2 dashes sea salt

Directions:
Chop the carrots in a food processor until they are as smooth and creamy as you can get them.  Add the remaining ingredients and continue to process until smooth.   Set aside.
To make the crust, process the buckwheat and almonds in a food processor until the pieces are mostly powder with some small chunks.  Add the remaining ingredients and process until uniform and slightly sticky.  
Press the crust mixture into two  4" square ring mould and top with the pumpkin pie filling.  Press down and smooth out the top.  Refrigerate for an hour and then carefully remove from the mould, slice and garnish with whipped cream.  

Growing up, we ate granola.  We recycled.  We loved trees enough to occasionally hug them.  
As I got older, kids at school called me a "crunchy granola girl" or "tree hugger".  I didn't realize they were teasing me, I just thought they were stating the obvious.  (I guess they were doing both.)  It's funny because granola is seen by many as some super healthy magic food.  But it's not too different from other cereals.  Yes, it does have whole grains, and generally fewer nonsense ingredients, but it still has a lot of sugar and oil, often contains gluten and dairy and is very high in fat.  Fat itself isn't bad, it just depends on the quality of fat.  Most commercially produced granolas have bad fat.  
Here's a recipe that is not too sweet, full of sprouted grains, good fat, fruits and veggies.  Don't be scared by the high vegetable content, you'd never know by tasting it.  It's great with coconut yogurt, almond mylk or a bowl of fruit.  I've been snacking on it all by itself all morning, too.

Ingredients:2 1/2 cups chopped sweet apple (I like Fuji)
2 cups shredded zucchini
1 1/2 cups raw, hulled buckwheat groats, sprouted for 2 - 3 days and rinsed
1 1/2 cups shredded carrots
2 1/2 ripe bananas

1 cup raw almonds, soaked overnight and rinsed, then chopped
1 cup pumpkin seeds, soaked overnight and rinsed
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup purified water
1 cup cashews, soaked
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon sea salt
8 drops liquid stevia

Directions:
Combine zucchini, carrots, buckwheat, coconut, almonds and 1/2 of the chopped pumpkin seeds in a big bowl and mix well.  Combine apples, bananas, water, cashews, cinnamon, salt, stevia and the other half of the pumpkin seeds in a blender and blend until smooth.  Pour the apple sauce over the zucchini nut mixture and mix really well.  Spread the mixture over Teflex or parchment paper.  (The granola mixture should be spread in a way that makes it easy to break into small pieces after it dries.  I like to spread it and then scored it with a spatula.)  Dehydrate at 104 degrees for 4 hours or until dry enough to flip.  Dry for an additional 2 hours or until fully dry.  When it is fully fried, break into smaller pieces and store in an airtight container.  

Makes 10 cups of granola.

I was sitting around thinking about enchiladas one day when it hit me!  What could make this Mexican favorite even better?  Indian flavors!  This is a gorgeous blend of Mexican and Indian.  It is amazingly delicious.  Make it.  Eat it.  You will be glad you did.  Charlie and I both freaked out and didn't share this one with anyone...

Ingredients:
Sauce-
1 cup coconut mylk
1 cup grape tomatoes
1 1/2 teaspoons garam masala (or to taste)
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon chipotle powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Chiladas-
3/4 cup black lentils, sprouted and cooked
1/2 medium diced red onion
4 ounces baby spinach
1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
2 cloves garlic, crushed and left for fifteen minutes (increases healthful properties)
1 teaspoon garam masala
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
white pepper to taste
10 fresh corn tortillas, 6"

Directions:
Mix all Sauce ingredients in a blender until it is smooth.  Transfer to a sauce pan and cook until thickened, about 20 minutes, uncovered, over medium heat.  Saute red onion for 3 minutes over high heat, then add garlic and tomatoes and reduce heat to medium.  Cook for another four minutes or until the tomatoes are just starting to wrinkle.  Add the remaining ingredients and mix well, cook for another few minutes until the spinach is wilted.  Transfer mixture to a bowl.  Pour the sauce into a large bowl.  Heat the tortillas (oven, toaster, stove top - your choice) so that they are soft and pliable.  Dip each tortilla in the sauce, then spoon a 1/4 cup of the lentil filling into the tortilla, so that the filling is in one straight line.  Roll the tortilla up around the filling and then place it seam side down in an 8" x  8" baking dish.  Place the tortillas side by side until the baking dish is full.  Pour the remaining sauce over the tortillas and bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.  Serve with a fresh green salad and a side of lightly steamed broccoli for the best meal you've ever had.  Or, at least, the best meal I've ever had.  

Here's what we're up to lately in our Cirque Practice and in our play-shops! 
What I'm learning, more than anything else, is that this practice, working with a partner and learning to support and be supported, to communicate your needs and to be responsible for another's needs - it is so much more than a physical practice.  It's the ultimate mirror for how you show up in relationships.  Sounds heavy...  But it's just the opposite, because all of this is happening while you play and push and try and laugh so hard that you fall down.  Sometimes you fall on top of someone else, maybe even a stranger, but that's okay, no harm done.  And while you push yourself to work with others to do things that seem physically impossible, and too scary to try, your perspective shifts.  You get back to the moment.  You focus only on what's actually happening, where you are in space, where your partner is, how it feels, your fear of physical pain, the joy of making it work, the bliss of being massaged at the end of class.  And after an hour of that, the refection that maybe you have trouble trusting others or you need to work on your communication skills seems totally surmountable.  After loving the physical challenge for an hour, the mental and emotional challenges of being more trusting or communicative or supportive seem possible, and worthwhile, and so much easier than before.  
So, right now, that's how I'm spending my time.  I feel really lucky to be doing it.  :)

Strawberry shortcake is an amazing dessert - sweet and satisfying, a celebration of gorgeous berries, but not too heavy.  I often make a double batch because it is so good for breakfast, too.  

Ingredients:
Dry
1 1/2 cups oat flour
1 cup tapioca starch
1/2 cup potato starch or coconut flour
1/2 cup coconut sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon orange zest
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Wet
1 3/4 cup purified water
1 ripe banana
1/2 cup fresh orange juice
2 Tablespoons flax meal
3 teaspoons vanilla
15 drops liquid stevia

Whipped Cream
1 cup coconut cream (the thick white cream that floats to the top of coconut mylk)
2 teaspoons coconut sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground chia seeds
10 drops liquid stevia

1 pint strawberries

Directions:
Refrigerate coconut cream in a metal or glass bowl for at least a few hours.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl and mix well.  Combine all wet ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.  Let sit 15 minutes to thicken.  Combine wet and dry ingredients until you have a uniform batter.  Bake in muffin tins (I prefer silicone to avoid extra oils) for 20 minutes.  Let cool before eating, they will firm up a little on the inside as they cool.  Combine Whipped Cream ingredients in chilled bowl and beat with a hand mixer for several minutes, until it starts to thicken and expand.  Slice strawberries.  To assemble the cakes, layer one cake with strawberries and Whipped Cream and eat immediately!

Makes 10 large cakes

Sometimes simplicity is the key.  I woke up a few days ago and had three events to go to - and all three were potlucks.  I had a few bags of broccoli crackers, but I wanted to bring something to eat with them.  I had some zucchini and some carrots and went from there, and it was so popular that I had to promise to post the recipe when I got home - so here it is.  Enjoy!

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups chopped zucchini
2 cups chopped carrots
1 cup raw cashew pieces 
2 1/2 Tablespoons raw apple cider vinegar
2 1/2 Tablespoon Cajun seasonings
1 teaspoon cumin
sea salt to taste


Directions:
Process the cashews alone in a food processor with an S-blade.  When they are buttery and smooth, add the remaining ingredients and process into a uniform consistency.  Enjoy with crackers, crudites or on sandwiches.


Makes about 6 cups

Ingredients:
3 cups vegetable stock
10 oz skinless fava beans, cooked
½ medium white onion, chopped
1 medium green pepper, chopped
1 ½ stalks celery, chopped
1 medium red pepper, rough chopped into isosceles triangles
3 vine-ripened tomatoes, chopped (about 1 cup chopped)
1 cup brown rice, cooked
3 cups baby spinach
2 tablespoons crushed garlic
1 tablespoon dulse flakes
1 tablespoon Creole seasonings
1 teaspoon hot sauce
1 teaspoon vegan Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon file powder
3 bay leaves
20 drops liquid smoke

Directions:
Soak the rice for at least a few hours to release the phytic acid and increase nutritive properties, then cook in the vegetable broth. Crush the garlic and let it sit for at least fifteen minutes, to increase antioxidant properties and vascular health. Mix the red peppers, fava beans, dulse flakes, Creole seasoning and liquid smoke in a mixing bowl. Cook the onion, green pepper and celery on high for five minutes, using water if necessary to keep it from sticking to the pan. Add the remaining ingredients (except the spinach), fava beans and red peppers, tomato, garlic, hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce, thyme, file powder, bay leaves and vegetable broth/rice mixture. Let cook for five more minutes over a medium heat or until it reaches desired consistency.  It should be wet but not soupy. Add the spinach after the heat is turned off and let it wilt with the heat from the food.  Serve with fresh parsley for garnish and hot sauce on the side. 

Serves 8

We arrived before noon, but after the journey that began before dawn from the cool, green mountains of Dharamsala and ended in the sweltering, polluted city, it felt like the day should be ending. We had taken a government bus, which run locally and keep to a tight schedule, so men can hop out and have a pee against the side of the bus in the middle of town, but ladies have to hold it as there is not enough time to find a bathroom and get back to the bus before it heads off again.  After climbing onto the top of the bus to haul down our packs, I ran for the bathroom (which, like many public bathrooms in India, had at least an inch or two of mysterious, murky liquid over the floor) and then we agreed to go with a tuck-tuck driver to a guesthouse. As the tuck-tuck jerked through the congested streets, I gasped for a breath of fresh air, finding only bus fumes and the aromas of burning trash, urine and fried dough to pull into my lungs. The air blowing into my face wasn't cool or refreshing, but somehow magnified the heat we already felt, rushing over me like the stale breath of a dirty old man - hot and moist, sour and smoky. Amritsar was hot – suffocating – and filthy; the first place we had come that I immediately wanted to leave.
We were brought to a guest house which boasted all- a/c rooms and hot showers, but instead we got dirty diapers stuffed behind the door and under the bed and an army of ants marching along the walls and the floor. The air conditioner, which was a big part of the draw that got us here, was actually just a fan bringing the hot, stale air from outside into the bedroom.  The bathroom, which looked remarkably clean with the lights off, was covered in the grayish film of other people's sweat and dirt.  The hot water was a lie, too, which was fine, as the cold shower was the only respite from the heat, anyway.  It was supposed to be an old English mansion, but sitting outside, in the sad, little courtyard, it felt far from its former glory. The pale, pale blue of the sky directly overhead faded down into the smoggy horizon until it was indistinguishable from the dead gray concrete walls of the guest house.

We stayed there for one night.  On the way to a pretty awesome cave temple, which turned out to be in a building, not a cave, we saw a rickshaw man sleeping so soundly in the shade, legs all akimbo...  It was a our first cave temple, and although India does have some amazing temples that are actually inside real caves, there are also many temples like this, where the inside of the building is made into strange winding hallways and rooms, with mirrored tiles, deities, paintings, statues, lingams (literally penises, in the form of figurative statues representing Shiva's creation of everything), bells, paintings, low ceilings (two or three feet high, so you have to crawl under them on hands and knees) and ankle-deep water.

We also went to the border with Pakistan for the ceremony that the two governments (India and Pakistan) perform every night, meant to somehow improve relations between the countries.  First you take a taxi out there, as it's almost an hour away.  (We went with a lady from our guesthouse, a strange woman, Hazel, from the UK who is now a storyteller in Canada.) Our taxi driver was Sikh, and he wore a pretty blue turban.  Hilda pointed to a beautiful palace-looking building and asked what it was.  Taxi Man said, "College, sikstudent."  Hilda looked surprised.  "Only six students in that whole place?" she asked.  Charlie and I giggles in the back seat.  "No, no, SIKH student!" he said, somewhat amused.  Keep in mind that the main draw to Amritsar is the Golden Temple, a Sikh temple that draws between 60,000 - 80,000 visitors everyday.  Because of this temple, Amritsar is a holy city for the Sikhs, and there are other holy sites around the city as well.  On the way home, Hazel pointed to the same building and asked, "So, only Sikhs are allowed there?"  Taxi Man replied, "Sik, sik..."  (Westerners pronounce it "seek" but Sikhs in Amritsar pronounced it "sick.")  Hazel was baffled.  "Oh, it's a hospital?  Only sick people?"  Taxi Man motioned to his turban, repeating "Sik, sik!"  Hilda thought he was making the motion for crazy.  "Only mentally ill people?" she asked as I tried to keep it together in the backseat.  By now the Taxi Man was frustrated, and probably a little baffled by Hazel's absolute ridiculousness.  "No, school, for turban man, only turban man!" he told her.  Charlie and I giggled as we explained it to her again, just to make sure she got it.

The Wagah Border ceremony was a very interesting mess, and I wouldn't recommend making the trip to anyone.  (You can check it out here, on YouTube if you have four minutes to kill, that's probably the best way to see the most interesting part of it.)  The taxi parks a few kilometers away, and then you walk to the entrance.  Nobody tells you that you have to get in line until you are far past the end of it, and then you walk all the way back, men on one side, women on the other.  Indians are not awesome at lines.  They either disregard the whole idea of "waiting their turn" and push/shove/cut until they get what they want, or they form a line so tight and aggressive that the person behind you is holding on tight to your waist or shoulders with both arms and using her whole body to push you forward, right up (and hopefully, it seems, through) the person in front of you.  Then when other women would try to use the typical method of infiltrating the line halfway up, there would be no weakness, no room for cutting.  But the cutter will try hard, standing there, trying to elbow her way in until a police officer sends her to the back of the line (or until she got in).  It was still hot, and all the bodies pressing together were creating a body-odored steaminess that made me want to turn around and leave.  But I held my ground!  The mounted policemen would periodically charge at the lines, scaring the women and running the men into a barbed-wire fence.  

We went through security, where our water was confiscated, and then continued on to the stadium built around the Indian side of the border.  There was something blocking the way, so the hoards of people just heaved forward like a giant wave until they were pushed back again, receding violently and nearly trampling me and many small children.  I decided to get out.  We found the VIP section, also for foreigners (because white skin and VIP seem to be synonymous in India, there's a big business around skin-whitening) where we were allowed in, despite our lack of passports, identification or passes.  We went through more security.  We were escorted to seats in the front, oe in the concrete bleachers which were so hot that they burned our butts.  I was right next to an adorable baby, who was a welcome distraction from the shenanigans of the ceremony.

The spectacle began with women dancing, Bollywood-style, for the crowds.  There was patriotic chanting and music, flag-waving, shouting.  Over on the Pakistan side they were filing in calmly, scarved or burka-ed women on one side, bearded men on the other side.  

Then the soldiers (or were they performers?) came out in their uniforms, each side sporting ridiculous peacock-esque headdress, and had a yelling competition, which India lost every time.  One Pakistani soldier and one Indian soldier shouted what sounded like "GOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!" (but could have been something else) into a microphone at the same time, and whoever finished last won.  Then each soldier had their own angry march to the border, during which they gave high kicks so high the Rockettes would be jealous, and I feared they would break their own noses.  They lowered the flags in perfect sync, and there was a handshake between India and Pakistan so short that it practically didn't happen.  Then the gates were closed and the show was over and we had to fight our way back to the taxi, burned butts and all.  (On the way back Hazel bought us salted lemon sodas, which are soda water and lime juice - though they swear that the tiny, green, lime-tasting fruits are lemons - and ice and salt.  Amazing when you are totally dehydrated.)

The next day we made our way to the Golden Temple.  It is a huge complex, as many of the 80,000 pilgrims who come each day also eat all their meals there and sleep there.  Huge.  We were taken to the foreigner's quarters, maybe twenty-five beds in a little windowless bunker with a shower but no toilet.  But there was a water filter and a WASHING MACHINE!  A washing machine!  In INDIA!!  And we got to use it!  FOR FREE!  (Of course, if we wanted to pee we had to go out of our little den and through a massive courtyard to the communal bathrooms, which were very clean, by any standards, but always full.  Again, lines are a problem.  I don't know about the men, but the women would run in and pick a stall and hold on to it, and they went in when that stall was free.  Other women tried to weasel in where they could, and there were times that I just couldn't, in that beautiful, holy place, kick a grandma out of the way so that I could pee a little sooner, even when she kicked me first.  But I did push the younger ones who tried to take me out. The stalls also had face-sized holes about face-level in the doors, and the women seemed fascinated by what I was doing in my stall every time I went in.  They just stood on their toes and peered down at me as I hovered over the hole in the floor.  So weird.)

So, aside from the communal bathrooms and the "foreigners” section, there was just about everything you would need from a town, all inside the complex - internet, hotel, snacks, transportation and the dining hall.  The dining hall is an amazing operation, and one of the only choices for eating.  We went looking for other food nearby and walked for about forty minutes, finding only one small dhaba (like a small, dirty cafe that only serves one dish) and a mediocre restaurant where we learned that "veg sandwich" mean white bread with thin slices of tomato and mayonnaise.  

The dining hall is a force.  You can hear it from a block away, like a giant machine with lots of clanking metal parts.  Here's how it works:  You walk up, and a metal spoon, plate and bowl are shoved into your hands.  You proceed past the piles of volunteers cutting garlic and ginger to the balcony, where you wait until the current seating is done.  When the big hall is empty (there are two, one upstairs and one downstairs), you fight (if you have the stomach for it) your way in and find a seat on a burlap runner on the floor, which is probably wet with water or curd or dal or some combination of the three.  I saw at least two grandmas get elbowed hard in the neck by hungry men.  Then the servers come around with buckets of dal, veg, curd, water and chappati (bread), and dump some of each onto your plate.  When you are finished, you get up and bring your plate, bowl and spoon out to the volunteers who bang the plates into the waste pile and throw them into a massive metal bucket to be taken to the sinks, where more volunteers are furiously washing and then throwing them into the massive clean bucket, to be handed to incoming diners.  The buckets were several times larger than your average backyard kiddie pool. Back in the hall, as soon as all the food has been dished out, the cleaning crew comes around - one person dumps water on the ground while another follows with a squeegee, pushing all the spilled food into a grate near the door.  Before the floor is fully cleaned, the next group is pushing its way in.

The Temple itself is a big, beautiful gold building in the middle of a huge square water tank. There's also some white marble and dark wood, but mostly gold. It's something. We went to check it out at night for the first time, and even though it was getting late, well past dark, the area surrounding the tank was full of people walking, bathing and setting up their beds for the night. (People who didn't rent rooms slept anywhere they could find a space to lay down a blanket, or just to lay down their bodies – any floor was up for grabs, whether it was beside the temple, the bathrooms, the dining hall or somewhere else. There was at least one big office that lent out comforters to visitors, though by the look of the bedding, I guess that the office does not have its own washing machine.) Everyone – men, women and children – had to cover their heads within the temple grounds. Men wear turbans, women wear scarves (and pull those scarves completely over the babies they carried) and children wore bandannas. When the wind blew my scarf off the next afternoon, a whole group of people ran over to inform me of it, even as I rushed to pull it back on.

As you enter, downstairs, there is a sacred-er area in the center, partitioned-off, where important people do important things. When we were there at night, they were carefully wrapping up a sword and putting it away, with lots of ceremony. From there you can go upstairs to see the giant book. It is the Sikh holy book, and someone has to be reading it at all times. It is HUGE. Not just a long book, but bigger than my mom. (Okay, she's not that big, for a person, but for a book, she's enormous!) So you can watch the guy read it. If you're Sikh, it seems like a really good place to pray.

There was another ceremony later, in which something holy (I think it was the sword) was taken out in a big gold palanquin, and everybody tried to touch it and prayed, and then everything was cleaned with orange dusters and went back inside. The Sikhs seem to be a very clean people.

They are also uber-friendly. There's something in their teachings about welcoming new people into the “true path” and they teach their children to be very outgoing and friendly. The whole time we were in India, locals wanted to talk to us and know about us, but at the Temple it was different. They seemed to be asking for us as much as for themselves, with a different kind of gentle friendliness that was quite warm and welcoming. We were approached by many people, and especially many teenagers, wanting to know the usual stuff: where we are from, how we like our travels, if we are married, what our favorite hobbies are, etc. They also wanted to know how we felt when we were inside the Temple grounds. Our answers to that question never seemed to satisfy them completely.

In Amritsar there is also a Silver temple, which is almost exactly the same as the Golden Temple, except its doors are silver.  Same gold, same chandeliers inside, same tank, same fish.  Oh, and its a Hindu temple.  That was a big difference.  We were there for evening puja and it was so lively and fun, not like the Golden Temple which was solemn and serious.  There were musicians and a big, fat priest who threw water on us.  There were candles and shouting and a lady shoving me up front so I could get a better view.  And outside there was a sadhu who, when I asked if I could take his picture, carefully arranged his scarf before looking up at me.  

A few weeks before we left McLeod, our friend Khushi Ram, the director of the Music School at Kailash, asked if we would go with him to meet with his girlfriend's (Seema's) father and family to ask for her had in marriage.  We were honored, but not sure that it would be appropriate for us to be there.  Once we got to Manali, we spoke to Yogi (who was also going with Khushi, as his employer, landlord, friend and surrogate father and brother) and asked about it.  He said that it was expected that Khushi would bring family to vouch for his character and stability, so of course we excitedly agreed to go back to McLeod for the big event.

We knew we needed new outfits for the occasion, as we had each brought only trekking clothes with us.  Mac's fabric came from a “local” shop, as in, locals shop there, not tourists, and we were on line behind a man and his two little sons, maybe five and seven years old.  The boys were filthy, and their clothes were in tatters.  Nearly all the buttons were missing from their blue button-down shirts, and there were all kinds of stains and holes and frays on their khaki pants.  They watched us curiously as the fabric man measured them for dark blue gingham shirts and matching blue pants, cut the fabric and sent them on their way.  I decided the poor boys must not have a mom, because if they did, she would have at least sewn their shirts closed or washed their cute little faces.  Mac chose a woven red cotton for his pants and a soft, rich, off-white cotton for his shirt.

Saris often come as one long piece of material.  You buy the material and then bring it to a tailor to cut and sew and pleat and such.  I had to get mine from a shop on the mall, full of Indian tourists.  It took a while to explain that I didn't want silk or wool, though they were beautiful, and I would prefer cotton.  I didn't even try to explain my reason, which is that I don't want to wear animal products.  (They actually boil the silk worms to extract the silk, and we all know where wool comes from.)  I found something called “crepe cotton” which is kind of silky and thin, but made from plants, in a beautiful purple and turquoise pattern.

Finding tailors and getting our outfits made took most of a day.  Mac's tailoring experience was fairly painless.  Mine, well, it was a bit of a fiasco that spanned two towns and almost had me wearing the next-best thing (which was dirt-colored and very far from “best”).

The bus from Manali was the nicest I've been on so far in India, like a coach bus back home, but with no bathroom and a huge cockpit for the driver and his posse, complete with shrines and flashing lights.  The music was blaring as we got on, and didn't let up for several hours, as we wound up and down and back and forth, seemingly off-roading for the smoothness of the ride.  (But when I looked out the window, I saw something resembling a road beneath us.  Most of the time.  Often I saw the bus whipping 'round hair-pin turns over the edge of a cliff, and was sure that we weren't going to make it, but that's normal here.)    There were many stops.  We stopped in the middle of the road near a  roadside shrine so the driver could pray as his friend wailed on the bell.  We stopped for gas a few times.  We stopped for dinner and then again for tea around 1:30 am.  We stopped at some kind of police checkpoint, and when the Israeli girls had to pee.  I think without the stops we could have made it in five hours instead of nine and a half.

We arrived in McLeodganj at around 5 am, the light of the day just beginning to penetrate the cool haze that had settled in overnight.  We marched, loaded with bags and packs, through the small square (which was emptier than I've ever seen it) back home – or as close to home as we could get in India.  We had spent over six weeks in Mcleod, at our little Yogi Cottage, and coming back to it felt familiar and cozy in a place that is so incredibly foreign.

I knocked on Khushi's door, and heard him call out in a hoarse, sleepy voice.  I called back, and after some fumbling, he came out.  I had wandered a few feet away to look over the balcony railing at the sun coming up over the mountains, and when the door opened, I turned, with a huge smile on my face, and said, “Khushi!  We came for your big day!  Are you excited?”

He didn't look excited.  Khushi means “happiness,” and he usually is a bundle of laughter and smiles, but not that morning.  (His name was actually the word for love when he was little, but he was such a happy child that his father changed his name when he was a boy.)  He walked over to me, feet dragging, and gave me the saddest hug –  his one arm slung over my shoulder, his head pathetically plopped on my other shoulder, his other arm barely finding the energy or will to make it to my back.  I asked him what was wrong, and he said he'd tell me all about it later, that we might not be going to Seema's family at all.  He gave me our keys and went back to his room, looking so sad, leaving me to wonder what had happened.  A few hours later, he knocked on our door, ready to talk.  Seema's parents had canceled the meeting a few days ago, saying that they didn't want to even consider the match.  Seema cried for three days (she is at university in Shimla, twelve hours away, getting her Masters in Sitar).  The family then rescheduled, canceled and rescheduled again.  Yogi and Khushi had gone the day before with some other friends to talk with Seema's family, but it wasn't looking good.  Seema's father is a poor farmer outside of Dharamsala, and he worries that she won't be accepted in the tourist-filled big city and that Khushi, struggling (though extremely talented) musician that he is, won't be able to give her stability.  (Seema's father is poor but not so poor.  He said that his papaya crop this year was so delicious that he ate them instead of selling them.  ALL of them.)

Khushi called the family again, and told them that his friends from America had come to talk to them.  They agreed, then called back a few minutes later to reschedule, pushing the meeting to 4:00 pm.  Dia, Charlie and I all went out to get our clothes cleaned, pressed or tailored, and by four we were all gussied up and ready to go.  There was some dispute as to how the sari is to be worn (Khushi had me pretty worried that I was going to look like a total idiot), but in the end Khushi was happy and told me I looked like Sonia Gandhi.  So we were off, shoving too many bodies in a little taxi with Kaka the driver.  Kaka turned out to be mildly homocidal.  He got into an accident in the first ten minutes of the trip, and left the car on the blind-side of a hair-pin turn with all of us inside it while he ran after the other driver like a madman.  Somehow we were not hit by any of the cars coming down the hill, and a few minutes later Kaka was back with a license plate number and ready to go.  We continued on, missing pedestrians and monkeys and cows and other cars and one bus by mere inches.  When Kaka got on his phone, Dia told him that he better get off.  (He hung up immediately.  Dia has a way of communicating both her seriousness and her readiness to reign down consequences with just the briefest look.)  We stopped and got sweets – three kilos of sugary desserts, that's more than six and a half pounds – and an approving smile for my sari from the woman in the sweets shop (unsolicited, so it was very reassuring), and soon we were in the country.   (That's Kaka.  He doesn't look nuts...)

At first it was a little awkward at Seema's parents' home.  They speak almost no English, and we speak almost no Hindi.  (And her parents actually speak the local language, which is a little different than Hindi anyway.)  And we had never done this before.  What do you say to total strangers from a different culture that you don't fully understand to get them to agree to let your friend marry their baby girl?  And how do you say it so that it isn't totally awkward as the potential groom translates for you?  But Sanjeevna, Seema's sister,  speaks enough English and we all found ways to communicate, or just found ways of being comfortably silent.  They offered us water, sweets, chai, cookies, bread and papaya, in that order, each treat or drink as it's own course, and there was no way to politely decline.  (I had decided that no matter what they served us, I would happily eat everything.  When the milk tea came, I brought it my lips over and over again, but couldn't drink it.  Ethical issues aside, it was a cup of bodily fluid from a cow!  EW!  I know that seems so normal to so many people, but I just couldn't make it happen.  Thankfully, Dia drank mine for me.)  We toured their land, saw their citrus, lychee, papaya and peach trees, their tomato garden and all the other plants, the river running along their fields, and their neighbors plowing the field with two cows.  Her father told us that the papaya this year were so good that he ate them all instead of selling them.  He said that I look like Sonia Gandhi, and Khushi laughed and then translated for me.  Her mother said that I'm like their eldest daughter, and asked if I wanted to come back again (which I do).  Sanjeevna assured me that I was wearing the sari correctly and showed me pictures of the rest of the family and all their adorable babies.  Khushi took advantage of the afternoon, talking to Sanjeevna and her mother as much as possible, showing all his charm and kindness and humor, and everyone was having a good time except for Seema's father, who was a little stand-offish.  It seemed that he didn't want to give his approval too easily.  He and Yogi talked about his concerns, and decided that if Khushi bought land nearby, he would be more stable and the marriage would be more likely.  Yogi promised that he would help Khushi buy land, no problem, and they talked excitedly about the possibilities.  (In Himachal Pradesh you cannot purchase land in your name unless you are from there, so the land would have to be purchased in Seema's name.)

I told them I'd see them at the wedding, and they said they were going to think about it.

On the way home, Khushi was back to his old self, laughing and joking and calling Seema to tell her the news.  Kaka was still strange, lighting incense as he sped through windy, unlit back roads, the flame nearly igniting the fake flowers hanging from his rear-view mirror, then praying instead of watching the road.  When we got home, Khushi insisted on making chai for everyone to celebrate.  It was almost 9:00, close to bedtime.  We convinced him to make chamomile instead, and sipped our tea as we looked out over the lights down the mountainside and throughout the valley before we all went to bed, exhausted, happy and relieved that the evening had gone so well.

When we left a few days later, Khushi was still waiting to hear, but felt good about it.  A few months later Seema's parents agreed, but the wedding is still a few years off - they are waiting until Seema graduates.  :)