tickets have been bought

woo woo! okay, plane tickets have officially been purchased, thank you Skyline Travel, leaving July 14th in the morning and arriving the next day at 9pm in Delhi. 19 hours in the air, 5 or 6 hours at airports, 12.5 hour time change. Air India most of the way, I love taking international carriers, it's more fun.
Next, to make reservations in Delhi for the first night or 2. We plan to stay long enough to get used to the time, then head out for the holy city of Varanasi, the city of lights. Although it sounds scripted, there happens to be a total solar eclipse on my birthday this year which passes right through the middle of India. Learning about this eclipse was one of the seeds of this trip. After all, that's a pretty blatant hint from the universe, as subtle as an ice cream cone. You can't argue with that kind of synchronicity. I actually saw this eclipse in India in '95:
It was in north India near Fatehpur Sikri, on October 24th. I didn't know it was happening until I was there, I heard rumblings about it from other travelers while I was in Agra, and I learned that Agra was going to get 98% coverage, so I went into the desert, to the deserted ancient mughal city and the small Indian village which grew next to it, where totality would be achieved. the small town was overrun with scientific expeditions, so I went on a hike out of town with a handful of other travelers. I can't tell you how we hooked up, we just all were sitting and talking, and decided to start exploring. We ended up spending the night on the roof of a deserted mughal-era building, a circular stone building three or four hundred years old, with the center collapsed so that it looked like a 4-story doughnut. We spent the night on the roof, shared warmth and food, and woke up with the sun the next day, the day of the eclipse. It took place about an hour after sunrise, and it was spectacular, magical. You can really see the movement of the whole solar system. Birds fly back home for the night, the temperature drops, time seems to stop. We could see the NASA folks looking through their telescopes, and the locals in the Indian village started banging pots and pans in the dusty streets to get the sun to come back. Amazing. Only in India.
I can really understand the people that go around the world following solar eclipses. And when I found out there was another one in India on my birthday this year, I got the message, I knew I had to go. And when my sweet buttercup told me we were moving out of the country, I knew that seeing the eclipse wasn't just a summer vacation, but the starting point of a permanent move.
Coming up: let's plan a wedding, too!

love is all you need (and some time in the subcontinent)

although i did not take the name bhakti until after i moved to california in late 1989, i became myself largely during my time as an undergraduate at UF in gainesville, florida. there, i majored in religion, went to dozens of grateful dead shows, and cultivated various states of consciousness. i used whatever technique struck my fancy, and did not exclude any method categorically, though i did lean in several distinct directions. and so, through various meditation traditions, as well as certain ever-lovin' chemical and botanical psychoactive agents, and much study and introspection, i began to chart the inner landscape like armstrong on the moon. and while it's easy to forget from moment to moment, i glimpsed, like a flash in the corner of my eye, something about creating your own reality (as the aquarian crowd liked to call it), or how to consciously collapse a state vector (in the language of quantum physics), or extracting the actual from the possible (as i like to say).
And so, in 2006 or -7, just when i was thinking what's next, just when i was realizing i really do want to find a life partner already, who should walk into my life but ms heather insley. we met at the running of the bulls, or online, i can't remember which, and although it seemed like our courtship was sweetly slow and gradual, before too long it was love sweet love, and we were inseparable, in our hearts if not geographically.
I love my job at OHDS, but i was ready for something else, and in particular i wanted to go back to India, and spend some serious time there. Heather loved what she was doing but was also ready for a change, and also wanted to live abroad for a while. I have been to India twice, both time traveling alone and preferring it that way, but this time i didn't want to go alone. and so, as if i wrote the script myself, heather and bhakti came into each other's lives, and proceeded to shake them up irrevocably, blissfully, blessfully, finally. the plans were made: we are going to India.

merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily...

...life is but a dream. and what a long strange trip it's been. i've been so lucky that so many dreams have come true. and what do you do when your dreams have come true? willy wonka says "live happily ever after". and how does one do that, in this ever-changing world in which we're living? by more dreaming. dream a little dream, then head in that general direction.

and so, a couple years ago i looked around, and said to myself "what's next"? i was happy, to be sure, but i was starting to get that nagging feeling, it was all so known, i was stuck in a rut. a beautiful, sparkly, fun rut with lots of stage time, but nonetheless.

back up. beep, beep.

my father and brother died in 2002, and after spending time back in florida, i needed to return to northern cali and to myself. i was at a real crossroads and was tightly and tenuously holding on to my life here, especially my wedding band, Funky Little Shack. I also wanted to find work that in some way would honor my father and brother. And i was very lucky; i slipped easily into all my performing groups, and found a great job at the Oakland Hebrew Day School, as their computer teacher and technician.

The next 6 years were wonderful. I sang with the Shack, did another tour of Europe (this one to central Finland) as a folk dancer/singer/musician with Jubilee, made it back to India for a month, sang tight-harmony jazz vocals with friends at the Jazzschool (i was in great vocal shape there for a while), and taught at a Hebrew Day school not unlike the one which I attended as a child, which gave me a real chance to serve, and to pass on the traditions my father gave to me.

So, wonderful though it was, after 5 years or so I began to get a little restless. For appreciative though i may have been, there gradually, inexorably, grew a sense of routine. The california lifestyle was getting to me. We're all so busy, so involved with our projects, moving from show to show, gig to gig. it's still a rat race, even if you're seeing great sights along the way. we're all so busy, running around so quickly, it's so hard to appreciate everything at the time because you're moving so fast. and it's always a struggle financially, as a musician and teacher. a long time ago i learned there are more things under heaven and earth than can be dreamt of in the west's philosophy, more ways to live than how we do it here, and i was ready for a new way of living. and so a new dream, twin dreams, actually, germinated, took root, and started to grow. and you know what they say, be careful what you wish for...

to be continued...