Gandhi establishes Phoenix Settlement
in 1904, near Durban, South Africa, where he is living and working on behalf of the Indian community. The idea for the settlement is inspired by Gandhi's reading of Ruskin's "Unto This Last" -- the community is to be self-supporting, material needs are to be kept to a minimum, with everyone participating in the work.*
Before moving to the west coast I didn't know what a spiritual retreat was. I'd certainly never been to church camp. There had been EST but I figured it didn't really count. There were those kids living in a farmhouse in Ohio with a rainbow painted on the front of it, but that had seemed more like hanging out with hippies and getting high which, although there was a spiritual dimension, didn't exactly seem to qualify either.
I didn't realize that the journey is part of it too. That in this case, the three hundred mile drive north on the 5 freeway through the center of the state and then back again is as much a part of the process as the actual being there -- that is, the goal of being in the presence of a Spiritual Teacher.
I'm not saying the drive is half the fun, and anyone who's done the 5 more than once knows what I mean. It's hours of nothing but you and the trucks and the other drivers who get impatient with the trucks, and glimpses of the levees --
along a straight dull stretch of road enlivened by our singing along to Cat Stevens' "Tea for the Tillerman" and an 80s station playing Pat Benatar's "Heart Breaker" while D does the air keyboard and I do the air drums and we both share in the dance moves and chorus ["You're a. Heart Breaker. Dream Taker."] but mostly for hours and hours it looks mostly like this:
until you veer off toward San Francisco and in my opinion it gets more interesting. There's also the Grapevine through the Tejon Pass and all of that, but at that point you should be paying attention to the road, not taking pictures.
Then we arrive at the Ashram and find out the Wednesday evening program is cancelled so there is nothing to do but go back down the hill to the Marie Callendar's for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner and a little TV with our pie-to-go at the Courtyard by Marriott where D and I watch back-to-back episodes of "Lock Up San Quentin" and then a special edition of "Deal Or No Deal" which I have never seen before. It takes a while to understand how the game is played, but I like the part where the sexy supermodel girls march down over the stairs with their aluminum briefcases. And this is what I mean: simply watching TV in a starch-bloat coma as probably many other Americans do every night is a special experience for me, bringing me closer to other people. Maybe not the spiritual aspirants I would be mingling with the next couple of days, but other people nonetheless.
"I can't move," I confess to D, who is lying flat on his own queen bed. He looks over and eyes me dubiously.
"And I always mute the sound on the commercials," I add, because he is in control of the remote. We have just found out on Breaking News that the Aruban boys suspected of killing Hootie Holloway in 2005 have been rearrested. We are watching the Salvation Army commercial where the woman is in her uniform ringing a bell in an alley where a bum lies passed out, and then in a burning house, and then on the roof of a house surrounded by flood waters.
"She should stop begging and help," I say to D.
"Well I don't know," D says calmly and somewhat philosophically, handing me my cup of Haagen Daz Vanilla and plastic spoon we got from the snack shop downstairs to go with our Marie Callendar pie, "how much more of this negativity of yours I am going to be able to handle." I have already criticized the contestants on "Deal Or No Deal."
"I still don't see why she didn't take the deal she was offered," I explain. "She's got two kids and no job and needs to move out of her brothers' place, and she goes and turns down ninety thousand dollars."
"That just shows how little you understand," D says sadly. "It's a game show."
I look down. The styrofoam container where my pie was is empty. I still can't move but I feel a strange disorienting contentment. It is not the altered state of spiritual enlightenment or serenity, but it's close. Later, back home in my own bed, I will have dreams which explain everything. Where I am led to the top of an ancient temple and can see my whole life played out below me. I will watch as the kundalini snake coiled at the base of my spine is unbunched and stretched out like you would the drawstring in your sweatpants, nudging it along inside its fabric channel. I will see how all my expectations were insufficient and nothing is what it seems.
"I get it," I say.
To be continued.
*from Mahatma Gandhi's autobiography, "Sathiya Sodhani."
Before moving to the west coast I didn't know what a spiritual retreat was. I'd certainly never been to church camp. There had been EST but I figured it didn't really count. There were those kids living in a farmhouse in Ohio with a rainbow painted on the front of it, but that had seemed more like hanging out with hippies and getting high which, although there was a spiritual dimension, didn't exactly seem to qualify either.
I didn't realize that the journey is part of it too. That in this case, the three hundred mile drive north on the 5 freeway through the center of the state and then back again is as much a part of the process as the actual being there -- that is, the goal of being in the presence of a Spiritual Teacher.
I'm not saying the drive is half the fun, and anyone who's done the 5 more than once knows what I mean. It's hours of nothing but you and the trucks and the other drivers who get impatient with the trucks, and glimpses of the levees --
along a straight dull stretch of road enlivened by our singing along to Cat Stevens' "Tea for the Tillerman" and an 80s station playing Pat Benatar's "Heart Breaker" while D does the air keyboard and I do the air drums and we both share in the dance moves and chorus ["You're a. Heart Breaker. Dream Taker."] but mostly for hours and hours it looks mostly like this:
until you veer off toward San Francisco and in my opinion it gets more interesting. There's also the Grapevine through the Tejon Pass and all of that, but at that point you should be paying attention to the road, not taking pictures.
Then we arrive at the Ashram and find out the Wednesday evening program is cancelled so there is nothing to do but go back down the hill to the Marie Callendar's for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner and a little TV with our pie-to-go at the Courtyard by Marriott where D and I watch back-to-back episodes of "Lock Up San Quentin" and then a special edition of "Deal Or No Deal" which I have never seen before. It takes a while to understand how the game is played, but I like the part where the sexy supermodel girls march down over the stairs with their aluminum briefcases. And this is what I mean: simply watching TV in a starch-bloat coma as probably many other Americans do every night is a special experience for me, bringing me closer to other people. Maybe not the spiritual aspirants I would be mingling with the next couple of days, but other people nonetheless.
"I can't move," I confess to D, who is lying flat on his own queen bed. He looks over and eyes me dubiously.
"And I always mute the sound on the commercials," I add, because he is in control of the remote. We have just found out on Breaking News that the Aruban boys suspected of killing Hootie Holloway in 2005 have been rearrested. We are watching the Salvation Army commercial where the woman is in her uniform ringing a bell in an alley where a bum lies passed out, and then in a burning house, and then on the roof of a house surrounded by flood waters.
"She should stop begging and help," I say to D.
"Well I don't know," D says calmly and somewhat philosophically, handing me my cup of Haagen Daz Vanilla and plastic spoon we got from the snack shop downstairs to go with our Marie Callendar pie, "how much more of this negativity of yours I am going to be able to handle." I have already criticized the contestants on "Deal Or No Deal."
"I still don't see why she didn't take the deal she was offered," I explain. "She's got two kids and no job and needs to move out of her brothers' place, and she goes and turns down ninety thousand dollars."
"That just shows how little you understand," D says sadly. "It's a game show."
I look down. The styrofoam container where my pie was is empty. I still can't move but I feel a strange disorienting contentment. It is not the altered state of spiritual enlightenment or serenity, but it's close. Later, back home in my own bed, I will have dreams which explain everything. Where I am led to the top of an ancient temple and can see my whole life played out below me. I will watch as the kundalini snake coiled at the base of my spine is unbunched and stretched out like you would the drawstring in your sweatpants, nudging it along inside its fabric channel. I will see how all my expectations were insufficient and nothing is what it seems.
"I get it," I say.
To be continued.
*from Mahatma Gandhi's autobiography, "Sathiya Sodhani."
took me to all sorts of different places.
one of them was my own great appreciation of your ability to make me laugh out loud.
welcome home.
bianc
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as if we needed any more proof that the spiritual path is fraught with trials - you suffer the ignominy of Deal or No Deal and I find myself talking with a perky young woman with heavy foundation and eyes that even Liza (w/a Z) would not attempt who tries to sell me undereye cream. I took samples. I can't yet commit to aging. I am staying with the lovely low lighting of the re-furbished Wrightsmans' Rooms (Yes! just re-opened!). A spritual experience indeed. Nay, a treat. btw, am reading new Letters of Noel Coward and ran into Elaine S last night who said Noel used to tell her he read the obituaries first "so I know who isn't showing up to lunch today".
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