The blog is not dead.

Meanwhile back at the Indian ranch....

The journey in the Southern sections of India continues. I have not been able to write much due to answering e-mails and driving through this vast country at about 20 miles per hour. A bike might have been faster. Yet this is Mother India, so where is the need for speed, it is the big wait, it happens at its pace and has little concern for your petty schemes. It comes in big detours, small detours and then just as you are about to give up the ghost, she offers such a pearl, such a jewel, such a fantastic shortcut that faith and hope are restored.

We have seen the pilgrims, this is a male endeavor. Those followers of Muruda wear a bit of orange and walk barefoot to Palani?. Other are devotees of Ayappa and travel (barefoot) to a deep jungle forest temple in the mountains and mostly wear black. And I reflect on my quasi-pilgrimage. In comparison, so soft, so Western, so much on my terms. Yet I have come the farthest, nearly half way around the planet. And I don't know what I'll find in Mysore. In essence, what I have learned here is not to expect, not to project and just be with whatever comes up in each passing moment. The conjured up images derived from conversations, media, desires, myths and archetypes rarely match the reality - why would this be any different?

The mantra I have received here is not in Sanskrit, it is simple, it is: it is what it is.